One last bla bla bla on the primaries

This is truly “pulled from my butt” stuff, but I’ll go for it anyway.

We had such a paltry turnout in Multnomah County that anyone hoping to extrapolate from Tuesday to the general election is playing a fool’s game. It’s possible that the big winners came close to maximizing their votes; ie, everyone who supports Collymore or Saltzman, for example, voted in the primary and there are not many more left. That’s probably far from true, but their strong showing this week does not necessarily translate into big wins in a general election. Not only does Loretta Smith have the time to make the case for herself, without the distraction of 358 other candidates in the race, she’s likely to have a bunch of money to do so. There’s no way to know what a larger turnout might have done. It’s likely the winners would have stayed the same, but maybe not.

Turnout matters. A lot.

Second, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dan Saltzman looks at the results of the primary and decides he’s in good position to challenge Sam for mayor in 2012. There are not a lot of people with the name recognition, proven electoral record, strong community support and, perhaps most importantly, nothing to lose by running. It’ll be midterm for Saltzman, so his seat won’t be at risk. And he’s already declared war on Adams, so the legendary vindictiveness won’t be a factor: it’s already been deployed. Will people choose to support Saltzman over the incumbent mayor? Those who want to get rid of Adams probably will. A lot of people may stand off to the side. A lot depends on what goes down over the next year. If Dan and Sam kiss and make up — they’ll make peace publicly, of course, but how genuine will that be? — then perhaps Saltzman will decide he’s happy as a Councillor. But if they continue to spar, and if Saltzman actually is hurt and angry over his (deserved) removal as PBB Commissioner, then he may decide it’s up to him to take down Adams.

Good luck on that, Dan. If that is your scheme.

Finally, Jesse Cornett will take a lot of shit for finishing so poorly with all that money. He does not deserve that. That he qualified for public financing demonstrated he is a person of substance; Volm outdistanced him in the voting, but she couldn’t get even halfway to public financing. Perhaps Cornett should have spent more on tv, radio and direct mail. Perhaps he should have gone after the low-hanging fruit of inner eastside Portland left East County alone for now. Perhaps he should have ignored the police issues. Lots of people believe they know better and will piss all over him. The fact of the matter is this: none of those people had the courage to run against Saltzman. The failure will lay at Cornett’s feet, of course, but anyone who knows him knows he ran a principled campaign. He wanted Saltzman to be held responsible for his failures, and Saltzman was: the Mayor canned his butt from the PBB. He wanted East Portland to get a real campaign effort, and they did. Even in defeat, he did not run and hide. He stayed with the people at his campaign headquarters, thanked people, took his whupping like a man.

Dan Saltzman could learn from that example, too.

Finally, I looked at the results from around the state, and I see so many races where the incumbent had more total votes than the challenger, regardless of party. It appears that the power of incumbency may play a larger role in primaries than the general. The winners in the general election seem to reflect their district pretty well. Oregon Democrats have a big, and growing, registration advantage over the GOP, which is reflected by Kitzhaber getting more than the twice votes of Dudley (and Bradbury outpolled the Republican runner-up). Dudley and the Rs will surely spend millions to try to overcome that gap, but a strong campaign from Kitz — and he has a great campaign team — should negate that easily. Kitz will probably win 55-45 in November, but it should be an easy 55-45.

But what do I know?