Filing Closes With Lots of Candidates And a Few Surprises
I spent the last 45 minutes of the filing period at the St. Louis Board of Elections offices on Tucker at Olive. It was interesting. The big news as indicated by my prior post is that Maida Coleman didn’t file as a Democrat as was expected. Instead she announced she would be collecting signatures to be placed on the April general ballot.
Coleman felt the surprise entry of another Coleman in the Democratic primary was an effort to keep her from mounting a serious challenge to Francis Slay. The room was packed with reporters. As Maida Coleman entered the room she came straight to me and gave me a hug and peck on the cheek. She was my State Senator for many years.
Maida Coleman, in April as an independent, will face three candidates for Mayor — the winner of the 3-way Democratic primary, the winner of the 2-way Green primary and a Libertarian. A 4-way general election in the City of St. Louis!
Twelve of the 14 Aldermanic seats up this year are contested either in the March primary or April general. Only Roddy (17th Ward) and Carter (27th Ward) escaped any opponent. The Green party, besides having two candidates running for Mayor, have candidates in 5 of the 14 Aldermanic seats. A Republican is challenging Matt Villa in the 11th Ward.
As announced, Antonio French, a friend & fellow blogger, filed for Alderman in the 21st Ward. Jay Swoboda, however, didn’t file in the 9th. The 23rd ward, where the incumbent is not running, has 7 Democrats who are. My old ward, the 25th, where I ran four years ago, has a 4-way race. Angie Singler announced back in October when it was thought the incumbent Dorothy Kirner would seek another term. Singler filed on the day filing opened. Today three additional candidates filed.
The March primary and April general will both be interesting! The Board of Elections has an updated list here and I’ve updated my page here.
You wrote “Angie Singler announced back in October when it was thought the incumbent Dorothy Kirner would seek another term.”
Given your incorrect assumption of Kirner’s re-election bid, maybe you’d like to rethink that premature endorsement? If not, we’d love to hear your reasoning for supporting Mrs. Singler.
Living in the 23rd, it’s great to have a wealth of choices. Hopefully there will actually be a viable competitor to the apparent “machine” choice (based on current endorsements). Personally, I’m very suspiscious of any candidate who starts the campaign with a laundry list of endorsements from organized groups (as opposed to individuals) – I would expect organizations to wait and see who’s running and to endorse the best candidate, not the one who either asks first or simply has some prior relationship to the organization (but I’m guessing that’s “the St. Louis way”).
Jim (and other 23rd Ward residents),
Just as an FYI, the committee people (Sharon Carpenter and Francis Slay, Sr.), along with Dan Hagerty, interviewed the candidates for the 23rd prior to making any endorsement. My understanding is that endorsement will be released next week. For my interview, I really felt like tough questions were asked and it was made very clear that the 23rd Ward would endorse the best candidate for the ward and the endorsement was based on character, ability, and attitude.
I can’t speak to any other organizations’ choice to endorse or not endorse. While the endorsement of the ward is political in nature, my feeling was that it wasn’t going to the person who was best buds with other politicians or was a good political operative or who knew the committee people the longest, for example.
On a sidenote, if anyone wants to hear more about my platform or campaign strategy (I kept the website brief and Steve, a RSS feed will be finished this weekend) or has questions and/or comments about the 23rd or the City in general, please drop me an email mary@maryhoman.com or call 314.532.5648.
Mary Homan
Conversation, Collaboration, Change
I was referring to Joe Vacarro’s 20 union endorsements: http://stlvaccaro.com/Endorsments.html I expect to see individual endorsements. In fact, having more people supporting a candidate does carry more than some weight with me. I just wonder how a group, like a union local, can intelligently speak for its members without knowing who’s running and where they stand. And until all 7 candidates filed yesterday, there could very well be a better candidate than Joe (or not). In my mind, premature endorsements = machine politics.