The 2014 elections were a disaster for Democrats!
In Indiana, Democrats continued to lose ground in the legislature. Losing two House seats and three Senate seats. Democrats now have just 29 House members and 10 Senators. Leading political pundit Brian Howey of the Howey Political Report says Indiana’s become a one-party state.
The only place in Indiana, and one of the few places nationally, where Democrats were very successful was in Indianapolis/Marion County.
Here Democratic incumbents ALL won re-election. Republicans couldn’t capture more than 46 percent of the vote county wide.
Except for Republican Wayne Township Trustee Andy Harris’ re-election win, Democrats swept Center, Lawrence, Pike, Warren, Washington and Wayne township offices.
It’s more significant that the Democrats’ sweep occurred during one of the lowest turnout general elections in Indy’s history.
Democrats’ big victory was partly due to their secret weapon – Marion County Republican Chairman Kyle Walker.
Walker’s campaign strategy was built on a ticket that included three African-American countywide candidates, and not running candidates in Democratic legislative districts.
In a Democratic dominated county, a campaign that would’ve aggressively introduced Terry Dove, Duane Merchant and Emmitt Carney to our community could’ve pulled sizeable Black and independent votes.
Instead those three got the fewest votes of any Republican county-wide candidates.
In fact the sheriff’s race wasn’t even close. Walker and his political braintrust crafted Carney’s strategy which never introduced Carney to voters or articulated Carney’s positions. Voters never got to know him.
During the campaign’s final days, two of the most absurd campaign incidents occurred.
One was pundit Abdul-Hakim Shabazz putting out false word of a bogus “poll” saying Carney was tied with Layton.
The second was Mayor Greg Ballard holding a press conference endorsing Carney, 16 hours before the polls opened.
The election created some positive new pages in Indianapolis’ history; the election of two African-American women to critical county-wide posts.
Myla Eldridge overcame the opposition of some Democratic Party bigwigs and ran a spirited campaign across the city/county. Now County Clerk-elect Eldridge, she’s the first African-American Marion County Clerk.
For the first time, an African-American and a woman holds the critical, constitutional position of Marion County Circuit Court Judge. It was a poignant moment seeing the tears of joy and history on Judge-elect Sheryl Lynch’s face election night.
Then there’s the obscenity of outside influence and $300,000 to $500,000 in outside money which bought three seats on the IPS school board.
IPS Board incumbents were outgunned by paid volunteers, earning more than legitimate polling place workers, to help elect Mary Ann Sullivan, Kelly Bentley and unknown Lanier Echols.
For the first time in a long time, IPS, a 79.3 percent minority-majority student district, will be governed by a majority-white school board.
For the IPS Board incumbents the news was bittersweet. They knew the progress IPS had made because of their selection of Dr. Lewis Ferebee as superintendent. They knew the district has moved from an “F” to a “D” in the new State Accountability Grades. It also meant IPS voters didn’t know that the charter school Commissioner-elect Echols works for is one of those low performing “D” charter schools that comprises a majority of the city’s charters.
Meanwhile, in an old fashioned, non-outside money/influence school board race, an African-American, Rochelle Olaleye, was elected to the Wayne Township School Board. Previously, Blacks on that board only represented the old Wayne desegregation area.
African-Americans Regina Randolph and William Turner were re-elected to the Pike and Washington Township School Boards respectively. But efforts to elect an African-American to the Warren Township School Board again failed.
Two African-Americans, Kimberly Bacon in Lawrence and Gerald Coleman in Wayne, were elected small claims court judges. Along with Brenda Roper in Center and Garland Graves in Warren, four of the nine township small claims court judgeships are held by African-Americans. Another historic first.
Finally, as many expected, Mayor Ballard confirmed he won’t run for a third term.
In a short 1,118 word speech to a hastily organized rally at the City Market, Mayor Ballard described what he believes to be his major accomplishments.
In his 2008 Inauguration speech, Mayor Ballard devoted 208 of the 1,246 words to public safety.
Last week, the Mayor made NO mention of this city’s No. 1 concern – crime and public safety. The omission of public safety in his address was telling and perhaps one of the major reasons Ballard’s not running again.
In 2008, Ballard talked about “revitalizing neighborhoods.” Last week he talked about several specific apartment developments, which haven’t really shown any signs of revitalizing their areas.
The self-proclaimed “Best mayor for Blacks in history” ignored the city’s minority communities in his speech. The only mention was bragging about reducing the backlog of discrimination claims and reducing processing time 75 percent.
I’ll be writing later this month on the upcoming mayor’s race. Why it’s not a slam dunk for Democrats and what African-Americans should be looking for in a new mayor.
See ‘ya next week!
You can email Amos Brown at ac-brown@aol.com.
