POL WATCHER
Like most of you, I’ve been dissecting the Indianapolis Star’s latest poll on the Mayor’s race. It shows incumbent Bart Peterson leading challenger Greg Ballard 43-39. Libertarian Fred Peterson polls at five percent. Some are criticizing the poll saying it under-represents African-American voters, so the Star did some adjustments based on 2004 voting patterns.
With all due respect to my friends at 300 N. Pennsylvania, I honestly don’t think the more African-Americans you ask about the condition of the city will change things all that much. I maintain that the high income and property taxes disproportionately impact African-Americans more than their white counterparts because of the greater percentage of poor and working class Blacks, due the smaller population.
But ignore the Mayor’s race numbers for just a moment and look at a more telling number, the City-County Council races. Forty percent of the voters say they plan to vote Republican, 32 percent Democrat. I don’t see any scenario where someone who would chose a Republican for Council would vote for a Democrat for Mayor. That shows the fundamentals favor the Republicans in this race. Democrats are privately worried as evidenced in this clip by their District 14 candidate Gloria Harvey on my morning radio show. Hey, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Peterson campaign manager Mike O’Connor dismisses the poll, saying it doesn’t reflect the internal information they have. O’Connor is one the smartest political operatives I have ever met, but I’m calling him out on this one. If Democrats had a poll that showed something contradictory, they should “open the kimono” and put it out there. By not doing so, this feeds into the theory promulgated by the Indy Undercover crowd that Democrat internal polls also show the race a virtual tie.
Regardless, this race has now entered into a new phase. I maintain that Bart Peterson is now the most dangerous political opponent you could face, because he is now in a position he has never really been in before; the position of losing. He still has more than a million dollars in the bank. That money will have to be spent on a ground game and getting out the vote. The polls prove the Mayor’s television campaign is not working, because the more people see him, the more they dislike him. His only saving grace is to turn out the vote, otherwise come November 6, the voters will turn him out.
