In a few days, Tucsonans will go to the polls … no, wait, they’ll stay away from the polls … anyway, they’ll help determine the course of their city government over the next few years.
The election next Tuesday, Nov. 8, will largely be conducted by mail-in ballot, meaning that we’ll have no idea who actually voted; results will be skewed; and final tallies will take even longer to be posted than usual. This is called “progress,” you see.
Those responsible for this particular decay of the democratic process will almost certainly benefit in the short-term, but it will probably come back to bite them at some time in the future. Meanwhile, here are the possible outcomes of the election:
• SCENARIO: Democrat Jonathan Rothschild benefits from a larger-than-usual vote count (I refuse to use the misleading term “turnout”) to cruise to victory. And then what? If keeping potential political opponents off the ballot were a revenue-producer, Rothschild could have Tucson in the black in no time. But it isn’t, so Rothschild is going to need a message, a vision and an ability to actually appear in public.
I swear I have no idea what this guy even looks like. His strategy of getting on the ballot, keeping others off the ballot, and then keeping his head down appears to be working. He reportedly had a 17-point lead in the polls over Republican Rick Grinnell.
In The Skinny, the Tucson Weekly recently noted that the white (Republican) folks on the city’s eastside tend to vote at a higher percentage than the paper-sack-tan (Democratic) folks on the south and west sides. The vote-by-mail scam (I keep trying to type “scheme” there, but it self-corrects every time) that the majority of the City Council perpetrated on the public will likely boost the numbers for the Dems, giving Rothschild the win.
ODDS (that Rothschild wins): 1-2.
• SCENARIO: Republican mayoral candidate Rick Grinnell miraculously taps into a deep-seated resentment of the Democrat-controlled city government and pulls off a big upset. Grinnell has already pulled off one big political victory by getting his name on the ballot via a write-in campaign. But now that he’s on the ballot and apparently has campaign money to spend, he’s self-destructing before our very eyes.
He keeps talking about bringing baseball back to Tucson. What did we ever do to you, Rick? And why are you threatening us with baseball?
The political obscenity/physical monstrosity that is Kino Stadium will forever be the county’s fault, and unadulterated greed prompted the Major League Baseball teams to bolt for the Valley of the Sun. We shouldn’t spend one penny trying to lure them back. Screw ’em; I hope they all suffer from over-saturation of the Phoenix market. Last spring, the Dodgers were trying to sell spring-training tickets that were priced at $90! Rio Nuevo seems level-headed by comparison.
ODDS that Grinnell’s bring-back-baseball pitch catches on and boosts him to victory: 12-1.
• SCENARIO: Tens of thousands of Tucsonans mistake their mail-in ballots for junk mail and toss them in the trash. The industrious Greens pretend that they’re undertaking a door-to-door recycling effort, retrieve the discarded ballots, and use biodegradable hemp-based ink to vote for Mary DeCamp on all of them. During her inaugural address, DeCamp declares Tucson to be an illegal heat island and promptly resigns.
ODDS that Mary DeCamp wins: 100,000-1.
• SCENARIO: Republican Tyler Vogt upends long-time Councilmember Shirley Scott. This is not such a long shot. Vogt has shown some success in tying Scott to the toxic Rio Nuevo project, and he is running ads that say: “Shirley Scott: 16 years of raising taxes.” This, of course, isn’t true, but there are a whole lot of people out there who incorrectly believe that we’re overtaxed.
ODDS that Vogt unseats Scott: 5-2.
• SCENARIO: Republican challenger Jennifer Rawson’s drumbeat about Paul Cunningham being responsible for the 911 mess catches on, and Cunningham goes down to defeat. Rawson’s chances aren’t as good as Vogt’s, but they’ve gotten better since her handlers stopped trying to push that God-awful “Awesome Rawson” nonsense.
You guys do realize that doesn’t rhyme, don’t you?
ODDS that Rawson beats Cunningham: 6-1.
• SCENARIO: Despite voter discontentment, the Democrats sweep to victory in all of the races, making current lone Republican Councilmember Steve Kozachik even lonelier than he is now with the five Democratic councilmembers and the neutral ectoplasm that goes by the name of Bob Walkup.
ODDS of a Democratic sweep: Even money.
• SCENARIO: Regina Romero, who would have been vulnerable in a city-wide race against any Republican with a pulse, gets booted from office after a well-orchestrated write-in campaign produces tens of thousands of votes for “Any-Freakin’-Body Else!”
ODDS that Romero loses to a write-in campaign: 1,000,000-1. But, as Lloyd Christmas would say, “So you’re tellin’ me there’s a chance.”
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2011.
Dear Mr. Danehy,
I know it’s such a ‘gimme’ article but PLEASE oh PLEASE can’t you write something about the fine group of Americans who OCCUPY everything BUT a job?
Danehy is dead wrong about not knowing who voted, results being skewed, and not know the results for days.
Primary night, we had the results BEFORE 8:30PM, minus the few provisional and questioned ballots. Results have NEVER been in that quick, EVER. The City Clerk’s office produces a list of everyone that has turned in a ballot DAILY and it is available to all political parties. (if you get your ballot sent in promptly, the calls reminding you to vote will stop, since they know you’ve already voted.)
Has anyone noticed that none of the street-clutter signs for Republican candidates has the word “Republican” anywhere that can be seen?
Could tht be because they don’t want us to easily recognize that they are in support of policies which are designed to screw the elderly, the ill and the school age children & young people?
Chance that the Dems sweep – 100%. If a Repub comes close, the cheating will kick in – why do you think there is mail-in voting?
Tom, I think you got the odds backwards – the ‘a’ to ‘b’ is the chance of a vs the chance of b. So the odds of picking a random day of the week to be Sunday is 1-6 – one chance of Sunday, to 6 chances of any other day.
Odds that Danehy, an athletic coach, knows way, way too much about calculating “Vegas style” odds, 100:1. I’m sure Mr. Danehy never bet against one of his teams, but he sure bets that his readers are stupid. If increasing voter participation is a left wing conspiracy to elect democrats, then I applaud the effort. The more people participating, the better. That can only be good for democracy. It sounds like Danehy would rather just 1% of the population (you know which one) votes. Rothschild has been everywhere in the past few months. I keep running into him all the time. Maybe Danehy was too busy avoiding his bookie to notice that Rothschild was everywhere.
Why anyone would vote for a republicrat, much less waste their time participating in an obviously rigged electoral system that changes nothing and does even less is beyond me.
To quote George Carlin, “You folks have fun with that election thing. I’m going to stay home that day and masturbate-the only difference is that when I’m through, I’ll have something to show for it.”
Why don’t voters see that the biggest issue with the mail-in/ drop-off campaign is that it is not a secret ballot, hence a denial of civil rights? It denies the option of sliding your ballot into the machine, where it is impossible for the reader to associate your signature with your ballot.
Danehy misunderstands the way that mail-in balloting in Tucson and Pima county is done. It requires a valid voter registration signature card, all signatures on ballots that are turned in are checked vs. those signature cards. Any ballot with a signature that does not match the signature card is not counted until the person is notified of the signature problem and comes in to explain/verify/correct the signature. Any ballot that is filled out with assistance for another person has to have the person filling out the ballot sign and testify to that action and if a challenge occurs that ballot is not counted until verified. The king of voter suppression himself, the Secretary of State of Kansas, (whose name escapes me at the moment) has approved exactly this form of mail-in voting in Kansas and certified it as free of voter fraud. Please do a story on how our very efficient Pima County Recorder, F. Ann Rodriguez, handles voter registration and how mail-in ballots are handled, verified, and counted and you will see that the chance for voter fraud is virtually non-existent.
Tracy Scheinkman
Thanks, Tracy for the clear information on the process of vote by mail. I’ve been voting in Oregon most of my life. We have mail in voting and have for many years. There has never been any accusations of fraud. Voter turn out is higher. We are given a secrecy envelope free of identification. We don’t need a stamp as there are drop boxes all over. Change is hard. But come on Old Pueblo, you can change!