| Nelda Spears got 74.28% of the vote to Glen Maxey's 25.72%. In this down-ballot race, Nelda got 115,322 votes. Once again, Nelda Spears got more votes than any other candidate in a contested race, except for Barack Obama who got 116,137 votes.
The Tax Collector's race was the 31st race listed on the ballot. As might be expected, there was some ballot drop-off from the Presidential race, where 185,596 people voted, but 155,322 people voted in the Tax Collector race.
There were more ballots cast in the Tax Collector's race--way down the ballot--than any other race except the Presidential race. There were more people voting in the Tax Collector's race than the 2nd-on-the-ballot race for U.S. Senator (139,537 votes) and the 27th-place District Attorney's race (140,310 votes).
Nelda won more than the election. She kept her integrity and her dignity. She stayed out of the dirty, deceitful political games that Glen Maxey wanted to play. The enormous turnout in this race and the trouncing Nelda gave Maxey is a testament to the standards that Democratic voters have set for their political candidates and for their office holders.
If Glen Maxey wants to sell anyone political consulting services in the future, he will have a lot of explaining to do about how he conducted his own campaign and why he lost so big. Maxey did not win a single one of the 210 precincts. Running against Nelda was a bad idea in the first place and Maxey's negative campaign tactics turned a bad idea into an unmitigated disaster for himself.
The big lesson for elected officials is:
Do your job well, and the politics will take care of itself. |
