Democratic Candidates for Mayor
For the last week I’ve had posts with answers to my questionnaire from candidates for Aldermen in the 23rd, 25th and several Northside wards. Yesterday I had at least partial responses from the two Green party candidates for the office of Mayor. Many have found the questions and answers helpful in reaching a decision.
Today I had hoped to bring you answers from the three candidates on the Democratic ballot for Mayor in Tuesdays primary. However, none of the three bothered to respond.
I mailed letters to all candidates in contested primary races in late January. This action was also announced here. The letters were mailed to the addresses given by the candidates to the Board of Elections. In the letter instructions were given on how to access the online questionnaire.
Democrat Denise Watson Wesley Coleman emailed me after the deadline on 2/10/09. The questionnaire was closed but I indicated she could answer questions in the public version I had posted. She never did that. So answers from her, Irene J. Smith and 2-term incumbent Francis Slay remain a mystery.
Slay is seeking his 3rd term in office. He might have been offended by the password used on the Mayoral questionnaire, “2Terms.”
It was my original intention to repeat the process again for the general election. Five of the 14 wards up for election this year will have contested general elections, 3, 7, 9, 11 & 13. The Mayoral race will be a 4-way race with the winner the Democratic primary, the winner of the Green primary, a Libertarian and Independent Maida Coleman. But with trying to earn a living in this climate, mid-term tests & projects in grad school and a Seattle & Portland trip planned for Spring Break (3/7-3/16) I don’t think I’ll have the time to do the same for the general election.
I am in the process of revising/streamlining the questionnaire so it works for candidates for Aldermen and Mayor. A link to this questionnaire will be posted here with a few days after the primary. I think with a follow-up phone call to the number on record with the Board of Elections I could verify any answers I receive are indeed from that candidate and not another.
Your efforts are to be commended. Given that Slay’s opponents probably assume that they don’t have much of an audience on this site, and the Mayor is focused on turning out his base, it’s not really a surprise (to me, at least) that none responded. Plus, as most experienced politicians know, the less of a paper trail one generates, the less there is to come back and bite you at sometime in the future! 😉
I’d understand the candidates who are running for the first time not filling out the questionnaire (low budget, hectic schedules), but Slay has a huge campaign budget, and has experienced at least something related to each of your questions. It is sad some public officials have chosen not to inform the public about their views. I’ve made up my mind on this race.
It seems like there’s been an proliferation of local urban blogs over the past year or so (and many of them are very hard to tell apart).
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I would guess that some of the candidates have a hard time knowing which ones are actually read by people (like this one) and which ones are just starting out and are still trying to develop a following.
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That being said, I’d bet Slay knows this blog. But maybe the guy opening the mail at the campaign office doesn’t. You should probably email it to him directly.
I would think the exact opposite of Jason from above. This is FREE advertisement for their campaign, if anyone was going to fill this out, it would be the challengers, not the mayor.
Was the password really 2Term? If I was on Slay’s campaign wouldn’t fill it out either, thinking that it is probably a joke, or some way to extract quotes to bad mouth Slay.
Steve, maybe I’m missing it, but would it be possible for you to give a list of contact information for each candidate? (particularly e-mail, if possible?)
I’d really like to e-mail them about this. The questions on your forms are more important to me and many people I know than any other issues and candidates who do not answer these forms will likely not get my vote. I’d like to tell them that, and I’m sure lots of other people would too.
Having the information readily available in one place without having to go to each candidate’s sites would be really useful.