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I attended Carole Keeton Strayhorn's Austin Mayoral Campaign Kickoff. The press conference was held at 10:30am today (Mon., Jan. 12th, 2009, at abusiness in North Austin "BancVue".
She attracted a ton of media.
The room the picked was full. At least 100 people.
One of her early lines from her speech was "this was not a journey I thought I'd ever take"...she got some laughs from that.
There was not a lot of diversity, mostly middle aged suits. But there was a fair share of male and female. I'd expert Carole to win a fair amount of women voters.
Here are additional notes/thoughts from the press conf.:
- Her campaign literature given to me says that she's a "trailblazer"..full of firsts, 1st woman pres of Austin School Board, 1st female Mayor of Austin...
- She's only using her 1st name "Carole" on her literature/bumper stickers. I assume to help minimize the confusion from her 5 last names.
- She used the color blue for her campaign literature. Interesting. I asked her at the end of her press conference if she considers herself a "Progressive", but didn't really answer my questions and gave a canned response about "being for the people of Austin, a leader".
- She launched at a 4 1/2 year old North Austin business called BancVue. BancVue brands as "providing services to small community banks so that they can take on the the mega banks". So it's clear to me Carole will go after the small businesses and try to brand as "small/local business person" respectively.
- She made a comment that "BankVue did not receive any subsidies".. And had some laughs/claps in response. I recall her son, Brad, attending and supporting the "Stop Domain Subsidies" (Proposition 2 in last election) press conferences, so I'd expect Carole to try to claim she's the "small/local business candidate".
- She had an assortment of supporters. I assume, based on her supporters, this is where she'll be getting her money from:
- Real Estate
- Small Business/big business/all business
- Hi-Tech
- Lawyers (folks from UT Law were on her supporter's list, and her son Brad is an attorney)
- Possibly from Education. I'm told she helped found ACC, and one of her supporters listed ACC in her intro
- Capital/finance groups/folks associated to these orgs
The issues/what she'll run on, based her preso, might be:
- Budget, Fiscal Responsibility
- Accountability
- Transportation/Infrastructure
- Law Enforcement
- She's a "leader", leadership
- Energized
- Helping to "get the vote out" (Carole said she had a 35% voter turnout during her term, compared to 11% election turnout 3 years ago).
During the huddled press conference, she commented about Austin being "$137M over budget". This was not clear, but it appears Carole is calling this a $137M shortfall because of unmet "expected" sales revenue received compared to their budget?? I need clarification on this. I'd like to ask her what services she expects to cut from that $137M.
My guess is Carole will also try to leverage her experience with her original work on the Austin Tommorrow Comprehensive Plan, which was a major effort in the 70's, and will likely be a campaign issue this season.
Please comment on anything else y'all feel is critical for this race.
As we do for every council race, we expect to air all of the Mayoral interviews and Austin City Council candidates on 91.7FM KOOP Radio between now and the May election. Airing on our show "A Neighborly conversation, 12:00noon on Wednesdays. Stay tuned.
Best,
David Kobierowski
91.7FM KOOP Radio
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