Burnt Orange Report: - Austin Mayor's Race

Austin Mayor-Elect Lee Leffingwell Selects Staff

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:17:13 GMT

Mayor Elect Lee Leffingwell won't be sworn in until June 22nd, but he has indicated who will be stepping into office with him on Day 1 as his staff at City Hall. You'll noticed some new faces as well as members of his current council staff being carried over into the Mayor's office.

Mark Nathan (chief of staff)
Nancy Williams
Matt Curtis
Amy Everhart
Janet Jackson

Congratulations to Lee and to the new "Lee Team".

The 2009 Austin Mayor's Race by Precinct

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:15:00 GMT

This map is courtesy of the Austin American-Statesman which did a great job putting it together after the election. I expect we'll see some more from the Austin Chronicle tomorrow.

I think it's pretty clear that Lee if Mayor of Austin, all of it. Though Brewster was able to win one west campus precinct and the downtown precinct covering 6th Street. Other than that, it was slim pickings for Carole and Brewster on the peripheral precincts.

McCracken Campaign Under Fire for Campaign Finance Violations

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Tue, 05 May 2009 08:37:03 GMT

Brewster McCracken has had a formal complaint filed against him in municipal court by fellow Austin Mayoral candidate Lee Leffingwell. The charges are that he has accepted an excess of ~$8000 more than is allowable from out of Austin donors according to campaign finance laws that McCracken helped approve. Carole Strayhorn, while not a party to the complaint, has joined Leffingwell in criticizing McCracken and called for him to return the donors.

McCracken's campaign replies that the funds are within the caps if one considers the additional funds that can be raised when you allow for a runoff, though there is no explicit provision that allows for that line of reasoning in the current code. And of course, there is no guarantee that McCracken will make a runoff.

A good rundown of the story courtesy of Fox 7. We'd post the KVUE story but they are the ONLY broadcast station in Austin that hasn't woken up and made their broadcasts embedable elsewhere online. I guess they can have fun over in their walled garden along with News8Austin because I'm not linking to either of their content on this.

Brewster Nation Website is Taken Down

Phillip Martin — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:06:45 GMT

I wrote below about the cowardly anonymoity of the purveyors of Brewster Nation, and how they actually hurt free speech by violating campaign law and refusing to disclose who they were on their website or in their leaflets.

Now, the site has been taken down:

I wrote in the post below:

The internet is a new and powerful phenomenon. Let's treat it with some respect, be honest in our campaigning, and stop engaging in fear-mongering anonymous attacks that destroy the best parts of free speech that gave all of us our (online) voice in the first place.
Is that too much to ask?

Yes, apparently it is.

Update: The Chronicle reported that this was still anonymous:

Details about the group are extremely sketchy; their website has no contact info other than a generic email address. A Whois search says BrewsterNation.com is registered to Kimiko Tokita, a woman who is also named as a media contact in the press release announcing the website launch. However, in a comment on the Brewster Nation blog, the administrator writes “Brewster Nation is funded by a private Austin individual exercising his [emphasis added] right to free speech, and providing a web portal for others to share their opinion.” Tokita confirmed she was hired to work for the group by a figure who, for now, wishes to remain anonymous.

Update by KT: I know who's behind the website. It's clearly your neighbor Lisa.

Sunday Morning Electoral Odds & Ends

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Sun, 03 May 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Let's pull out this old time classic from January.

Oh, and for you Chris Riley voters out there, don't forget to bike the vote in this afternoon.

What: Vote for Chris Riley, with Chris Riley!
When: Sunday May 3, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Where: Wooldridge Square Park / Travis County Court House, 1000 Guadalupe
Why: For a cleaner, greener, more bikeable Austin
More: http://www.chrisforaustin.com/VOTE

ChangeAustin.org Launches Radio Ad

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:27:10 GMT

Click here or listen to it below.

It continues the Strayhorn message which is to attack Lee and Brewster. Though the tacking on of Cavazos in the ad seems a bit disjointed to the overall message.

Brewster McCracken "St. Louis" Ad Causes a Stir

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 05:38:08 GMT

A couple days ago the Brewster McCracken for Mayor campaign posted this ad to their YouTube channel. In it, McCracken compares the history and relative rise and fall of the city of St. Louis as a warning that not all cities that were once great, continue to be so. Click here to see it (as the campaign has disabled it from being embedded).

On it's face, I think it is a fair comparison and critique. The St. Louis of today is not that of 1904 (nor is Austin for that matter). But the larger point is made- is our city filled with promise or is it growing so fast that we are not able to accommodate the expectations of both those who already live here as well as those who continue to move here because of what our city offers? That's an entirely reasonable debate to have, but politically, pointing out faults of other cities isn't exactly going to fly when you talk to their citizens.

Case in point, the following report from KMOV 4 in St. Louis which submitted the following local report in reaction to McCracken's ad.

The Leffingwell campaign responded (Lee flew to St. Louis during his years as a pilot for Delta).

He flew to St. Louis frequently for years as a Delta pilot.
"St. Louis is a terrific city and I don't believe it deserves to be compared unfavorably to any other city. There are lots of things about St. Louis that other cities, including Austin, ought to be envious of. Nobody should run down another city and insult the people who live there just to score political points at home."

Update: Not all the locals in St. Louis are being knee-jerk reactionaries.

Mark Edwards: McCracken is spot on. The CITY of St. Louis has been allowed to die because of petty politics, a complete lack of vision for the region, and denying its residents essential services like well paved streets, decent schools, and functioning public transit.
As you can imagine, the locals here are up in arms about this shot at St. Louis. They're hurt, and I don't blame them. Its harsh, but its completely true.
St. Louis is the poster child of how to kill a city's soul, drive the people and businesses you need to thrive to the suburbs (where I live and could not be happier), and have city and county leadership spending too much time at the baseball stadium (with the vacant lot next door that was supposed to be a multi million dollar shopping/office/residential mecca in time for July's All Star Game) and not enough time looking around to see what a mess they've made or thinking of realistic ways to improve the quality of life in the region.
I don't know anything about Brewster McCracken. Wait, I do know ONE thing. He's got a better view of the sorry state of St. Louis than the people running our region do. Maybe our local leaders will take a minute, watch this commercial, and ponder what they've done to the once grand CITY of St. Louis.

Lee Leffingwell Releases Web Ad on Environment

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:16:09 GMT

Treehuggers for Lee, indeed!

Projecting Austin 2009 City Turnout: 50,000 About Right

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:04:22 GMT

I'm a numbers nerd so elections are that time of year when I get a chance to try to see how well past performance is really a predictor of the future. City elections are if anything, predictable, so below is an attempt to run the first two days of voting against some past models and see what we end up with.

First off, a note that overall, turnout is higher in raw numbers and slightly higher in percentage turnout than past years. Then again, this is a Mayoral election year and most recent years' turnout has been low even in the face of contested council elections. The following chart is from the Travis County Elections Division which reports the daily turnout countywide on the 1st day only for all elections, inclusive of those in Austin and smaller jurisdictions.

Yes, even with Monday's rain, we were able to shock the electorate by .04 percentage points higher raw participation! **ahem, cough**

So, as in past elections, I'm running my own models based upon the 2006 (Mayoral) and 2008 (Council) elections for Austin. Each day of data refines the data and rainy days like Monday can suppress the total estimated turnout. These models adjust for average excess of votes included in the daily tallies from the county that don't end up being City of Austin voters (which is measurable and reasonably predictable in past years).

Expected Total Early Vote for City of Austin by Latest Model Run (Tuesday)

Now, this is just the Early Vote estimate, but the share of the EV to Election Day vote has been trending predictably as well.

2006: 33% early
2007: No election
2008: 43% early
2009: 48% early (projected)

The easy math is to just go with a 50/50 split but I'll be conservative and use the 48/52 early to e-day split, and produce the following projected TOTAL votes by model as of Tuesday's data.

2006 mayoral model: 50,258 total votes
2008 council model: 40,360 total votes
Combined Avg model: 45,477 total votes

I expect these numbers to lift some more in coming days.

Austin Mayoral & Place 1 TV Ads

Karl-Thomas Musselman — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

We've reached that time, just days before the start of early voting in municipal elections, when campaigns finally take to the airwaves with their television buys. What fantastically awesome and awful ads await us this year? Continue on below to find out!

Mayoral Race: Brewster McCracken

Folksy-ish music? Yes.
On campaign message? Yes.
Walking into City Hall shot? Yes.
Actually see candidate talking? Yes.
Total number of pears left uneaten in family room? 7.

Mayoral Race: Lee Leffingwell

Folksier music? Yes.
On campaign message? It almost runs over you.
Walking into City Hall shot? No, like last year.
Actually see candidate talking? No, like last year.
Haven't we seen this footage before? Yes, like, you get the picture.
Likelihood for Phillip Martin to "hate" this: High.

Mayoral Race: Carole Strayhorn

(also see original more awesome Strayhorn ad)

Creepy, ominous music? Yes.
Creepy, fake cheery voice? Yes.
On campaign message? Yes, if crazy is a message.
City Hall shot? No, apparently City Hall moved since she was mayor.

Place 1: Chris Riley

Folksy music? Yes.
Number of bicycles in ad. 1.
Number of posed children. 5.
Walking into City Hall shot? Yes.
Born and raised inside city hall? Possibly.

Place 1: Perla Cavazos

Folksy music? Oh hell no.
Urban pseudo-latin spicy music? Oh hell yes!
Most memorable but most undefined message? Possibly.
Gives pro-downtown impression when played with sound off? Ironically, yes.
Laura Morrison-esque downtown building hate? NOOOOOOO! (meaning yes).
Number of Cesar Chavez Cavazos Cervezas I need now? Seis.