Yet, people who come HERE actually want to know about you and your ideas. Why pass this up?

Anyway, I am not going to hunt down candidates and and beg them to act in their own best interest this year. I am busy with my own campaign. Speaking of which, this site is one of the things I will be using, like a smart candidate SHOULD. If any candidate has sense enough to use this, he or she will have to write me and ask for author permissions to be turned on for them. I will turn none of them down, nor will I interfere with their posting. Frankly, I don’t have time for such monkey business.

Anyway, if your favorite candidate is not blogging here, don’t give me any grief. It’s their own fault!

Send requests for permission to dontwc@gmail.com.

What will I do in the future? Well, I am a candidate for the City Commission in March, so I will be busy. That election will only have 3 races going on, so it won’t be hard to get the required information to each of them. I certainly have sense enough to use this site, so I won’t deprive myself. But after that, I am at a loss. I have even invited non-candidates who are knowledgable to blog here, and few are motivated to do it. I used to repost some of the Sun’s articles here, but they don’t offer enough value for readers. I have preferred writing here myself, but I don’t always have time. I am not a professional journalist, and this site makes zero money.

What most readers seem to want is to be told who to vote for. I am serious. I have a “fantasy ballot” that I have posted elsewhere, and it is in demand. Perhaps I should just solicit similar ballots from a cross section of people and let everyone decide who they trust. Maybe that is the way to go.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions, I am open to them. But whatever you do, GO VOTE!

Cast Your Vote

Free Vote Casters by Bravenet.com

Over the years, however, I have been surprised at how good they have been at nailing some of these races. Maybe it’s just luck. Maybe the visitors here are a reasonable sample. Whatever the case, I’d like to look at these polls and the dynamics of the August 24th election to do a little crystal ball-gazing. My hunches do not constitute and endorsement. I may not even be happy about them. But they are food for thought, and may help a candidate or two get an idea of where they need to put more effort.

Donovan vs Pinkoson

This poll shows Pinkoson winning handily. It is a Democrat Primary. This poll likely skews toward white voters, so it may not indicate Pinkoson’s support by the African American Accountability Alliance (4As). This group endorsed Pinkoson this year. In 2008 it endorsed Mike Byerly, who defeated Rick Bryant in a respectably close race. Byerly was a sitting county commissioner who’d been elected county wide twice before. I believe the 4As made the difference. Pinkoson is also a 2 term commissioner and he has the 4As endorsement. Jack Donovan is a 2 term city commissioners who, frankly, is not very popular outside of his district. This could be a Pinkoson blowout.

School Board 1

The 4As did not endorse in this race because none of the candidates got a majority. Bonnie Burgess and Felecia Moss, the two African-Americans in this race, will probably do way better than the paltry numbers they are posting on the poll. This may keep poll leader Rick Nesbit from getting over the 50% mark even as he leads April Griffin. Ms. Griffin and her crew had better get out to the East side and knock on a lot of doors if she wants to win in the first round. So far, it looks like a Griffin/Nesbit runoff in November.

School Board 3

Gunnar Paulson got the 4A’s endorsement, and it looks like a first round knock out so far. Jodi Wood has been campaigning for over a year, and makes a good impression on voters at the forum, but he has no money left and Paulson is the Teachers’ Union pick. He has money and organization, and during a Democrat Primary, activist Democrats are very reliable voters. Paulson is their guy. Unless Jodi Wood can reach those African American voters by canvassing these last 9 days, he will probably fall to Paulson.

School Board 5

The two big players in this race, Carol Oyenarte and Jancie Vinson, may be in a runoff in spite of Oyenarte’s lead in the poll. It is just close enough that the Teachers’ Union and 4A’s endorsement of Vinson may get her in a runoff. But the spread is wide enough to make me think that Oyenarte may win it all in a squeaker next week.

Overview

Candidates toward the bottom of the ballot must always remember that the top of the ballot will be a factor in turnout. Most voters do not get jazzed about school board and county commission races. But if there is a marquee lineup at the top, like Crist vs Rubio promised to be, it can be a game changer. Likewise, when Crist dropped out of the Republican Party to run as an independent, it changed things for these races. The McCollum vs Scott primary has gotten so nasty that there is no driving force to get Republicans to come out in any greater number than usual. Meanwhile, the Democrat Primary has a Senate race in which African-Americans may come out to defend Kendrick Meek from Jeff Greene, and a Congressional Primary that pits long-timer Corrine Browne against Scott Fortune. These contests may be drawing cards to get out the East side vote, and this will help anyone endorsed by the 4As.

Alachua County Democrats only: County Commission Primary
Jack Donovan 42 (35%)
Lee Pinkoson 78 (65%)

All Alachua County voters: School Board 1
Bonnie Burgess3 (2%)
April Griffin 93 (53%)
Felecia Moss 5 (3%)
Rick Nesbit 66 (37%)
David Palpant 10 (6%)

All Alachua County voters: School Board 3
1. Wayne Gabb 36 (23%)
2. Gunnar Paulson 72 (46%)
3. Jodi Wood 48 (31%)

All Alachua County voters: School Board 5
1. Jennifer Deachin 9 (6%)
2. Carolyn Oyenarte 85 (59%)
3. Chris Smiley 14 (10%)
4. Jancie Vinson 37 (26%)

This is just a simple web poll on the school board candidates. Please check out their web sites listed on the 2010 candidates’ page and then take the poll! Then pass it around to your friends! It’s almost like a real election…

This poll is over. Thanks to the few who participated…just like our real elections.

If you have a problem with my imitation of Bret Favre, my dithering between running and not running, just remember that it’s the worst thing you can say about him this year. And if that’s the worst thing you can say about me, then I can live with that.

Web site coming soon!

Don Marsh

Next year, on March 16 to be exact, Gainesville is having an election for Mayor, and I have to admit that I was tempted. I am deeply dissatisfied with our city government. The candidates who have signed up thus far leave me nonplussed on a good day. I feel like I am suffering from taxation without representation, and I want to do something about it. However, there is one thing that I learned from 2002 that is even more applicable than it was then: running for public office is costly, and I am not talking about campaign costs. I am self-employed, and in 2002, even though I still worked full time while campaigning for 10 months, I completely lost focus on my business and I had a huge shortfall that year. Last year, when the bottom fell out of the housing market and the stock market was in the tank, was the first time ever, in 28 years, that my business actually lost money. I am still digging myself out of that hole, so this is a bad time for me to be a candidate.

Back in 2004, in order to stay involved in local politics and supply some service to the people who run in local races, I started a website that would make it convenient for voters to find the candidates all in one place. I also contacted candidates and told them I would give them all the space they wanted on that site for free. I took pictures, went to forums, and reported on what happened on that site. It was time consuming, but cheap to do. And it didn’t hurt my business, because doing this was nothing like being a candidate.

Over the past several years there have been two big disappointments. One is that candidates don’t really use Alachua Voter Guide in any meaningful way. They just think this is my blog, and they hope I will write favorably about them. The fact is, I DON’T WANT TO WRITE ABOUT THEM AT ALL! I have offered them all a username and password and begged them to blog here themselves. I only write what I do because they don’t write at all. The second disappointment is that voters just don’t care about local candidates and what their local officials are up to. On election day, local races are an afterthought. People come out in pretty good numbers to vote for or against someone they either love or hate at the top of the ballot, and most everything else is voting in the dark. Our city commission races, which seldom have the big races as a drawing card, usually get only a 12-15% voter turnout. It’s only different when the vote coincides with a presidential preference primary. Then it zooms up to 30%. This past primary was different because of the hyped Obama candidacy.  That gave us a staggering 46% turnout. All of which is still pathetic.

Although I will not be a candidate in the near future, I will still be pouring my free time into Alachua Voter Guide. But frustration with our local government AND voter apathy has made me realize I have to amp up  my own writing. I believe that I must care a lot more than the candidates do about outreach, because they seem to be content with fighting over the same pool of voters who make up that 12% of the electorate who care enough to pay attention. More people must pay attention.

I believe that we have a democratic process for two reasons. One is to choose people who will represent our interest. The other is to get rid of them when they fail to do so. If there is no accountability, we may as well appoint them as commissars for life and just be good little drones and do whatever they tell us. I am afraid that too many of us already have that role down cold.

Stay tuned. It’s nest-whacking time…

This past election cycle the Sun did such an appalling job of covering the local elections that I asked one of their reporters what was going on. I was told they just did not have the manpower anymore. In spite of what some conservatives may think, the Sun’s in-house cartoonist, Jake Fuller, was not let go for ideological reasons. He was just another employee they could not afford to retain.

Newspapers everywhere have been losing ad revenue to the Internet. That does not mean people are spending their ad money on Internet advertising. It means that many people who used to use the classifieds are now taking advantage of free ads on craigslist. Craigslist is all over the country, and the Gainesville chapter is thriving. Since some businesses are also diverting a part of their advertising budgets to the Internet in the form of their own websites and search engine optimization and Google Adwords, and other venues, newspapers are missing more than a few sales.

You may not think that this impacts you because you can get so much information online for free. But, someone is being paid to cover national and international stories because they have a bigger audience, which means it’s easier to sell ads for that market. Our problem is that no one really covers our local politicians adequately. An even bigger problem is that local politicians are an afterthought at best, so there is very little financial reward for advertisers and, by extension, reporters, who would cover local meetings and their associated shenanigans.

The past few years I have offered ALL politicans, no matter what their ideological stripes, free reign to get their messages out at no cost. Cue the crickets. They also seem to have little interest in telling you any more than what makes a flattering bullet list on a shiny brochure. Therefore, I am giving up on their lot. No, that doesn’t mean I will be withholding space from them and denying them the right to get out the word on this site. It just means I am through begging them, and wasting my time chasing them around and asking them to tell YOU what they are up to.

I believe that our last best hope is that a small band of us will start taking up the task of informing our friends and neighbors about local candidates and local issues. In short, I need YOU. We need you. Our local government needs you to stick your nose in its business and write about it here. You don’t need to cover everything; just adopt a cause, an advisory board meeting, a politican, an issue, and write about it here. All I ask is that you try to be fair, try to get both sides of any concerns, and PUT YOUR NAME ON IT.

I love the Internet, but I am weary of the anonymity that allows people to say anything without any accoutability at all. I have no problem with the comments section of each article being that way, but if you are going to report, you should be willing to put your name on it. If we are going to do a good job and replace the Gainesville Sun, we are going to have to set a high water mark for credibility.

Did I say replace the Gainesville Sun? Yes. Fortunately, this is not too tall an order. Not only have they been inadequate; there is no prognosis for them to get better. We cannot wait for things to magically improve. And we cannot continue to let our local politicans and candidates get away with their minimalist leadership.

What will you get out of this? Some measure of gratitude from your many readers, and the satisfaction that comes with doing a public service. I have made nothing at this since 2004 when I started. Yes, I have an innocuous ad for my business, but it’s the least I should get for the trouble. And I cannot say that I have gotten even a single job out of it. Instead, I get a great lift when someone from overseas sends me an email saying that he or she can now make an informed vote on an absentee ballot because of this site. I know that what I am doing matters. I just wish I could do more. But, I am like most of you: a busy person with work, a family, and other obligations. But I will give a small slice of my life, and income, to help make local voters better aware of the issues here in Alachua County. Do you not have a small slice of your life to give to improve our community?

It’s a New Year, and you can engage in a new mission that really matters. Just send me an email and include this information:

Your REAL name
A phone number when I can reach you and verify your existence
A brief resume of what you have to offer, or what you plan to cover

Email this information to me at dontwc@gmail.com. I will get back to you with a username and password and some brief guidelines. They will not be onerous.

So, what will 2009 bring? I am gunning for more accountable leaders, more informed voters, and better solutions for our community’s challenges. Is it too much to hope for?

Don Marsh