It’s been a couple of weeks since the City Council elections. I intended to post my retrospective within 48 hours of the polls closing, but after writing the first draft decided I needed to let the dust settle and mull over the numbers a bit. Here at BTB.org Central we still don’t have final reports from the Board of Elections on who spent what, but we know at least 90% of what we need to know, so here goes.
AMERICAN MAYOR
Conan O’Brien once joked,“In New York, we had primary elections for mayor. To improve their chances, all five candidates changed their name to Rudy Giuliani.”
Nothing more really needs to be said about our race for Mayor here in Raleigh.
LIVIN’ LARGE
No real surprises here, with both incumbents Mary-Ann Baldwin and Russ Stephenson winning as handily as expected. Baldwin took about 1,500 more votes than Stephenson did, with almost all the difference coming from one District. Baldwin got 34-36% of the vote in all districts but C, where she got a whooping one out of every two votes.
In 2007, District C favored Baldwin and (failed) candidate Paul Anderson heavily over Stephenson. This year, without an African-American candidate in the race (Anderson), Stephenson faired better in C, primarily because Champ Claris and Lee Sartain did so poorly there. It’s an odd phenomenon – there isn’t a hill of beans difference between Claris and Baldwin aside from age and gender, and there isn’t a Baldwin policy that benefits the predominately African-American district, but to Baldwin’s credit she has established herself as the darling of Southeast Raleigh. Of course, this is the district that has elected James West to five consecutive terms in office, despite having proven wholly ineffective at improving the lot of the District.
Expect Baldwin to run for Mayor at her first opportunity, which will be when Meeker decides to call it quits. She has proven that she can raise big money from Big Real Estate, and that she can fool some of the people all of the time. She will be a formidable opponent against any candidate, Democrat or Republican. There’s constant prattle about Stephenson and District A Councilor Nancy McFarlane both wanting to succeed Meeker, and the occasional call from the streets that District D’s populist Thomas Crowder should take his rightful place in the catbird seat. But only Crowder could put up a real fight against Baldwin’s Big Real Estate Money Machine, and even he would likely get crushed by its weight.
Baldwin’s Achilles heel is that she can be her own worst enemy, but so far she has only stubbed a couple of toes and not ripped a tendon. Take the recent flap about using $1700 of her campaign funds to take a trip to China. The N&O reported that “Baldwin said the trip offers chances to learn about the Chinese economy and viewed the trip as an extension of her council duties.” Yeah, right. With no serious opposition this year, it didn’t become an issue in the campaign. But raise the stakes a few notches in a contentious race for Mayor, and if Baldwin is not considerably more careful she could be her own undoing.
Champ Claris never got his campaign going out of North Raleigh, and out of the Big Real Estate community. He won 24-25% of the vote in Districts A, B, and E (North Raleigh), but only 7% in C and 10% in D (Central and South Raleigh). He essentially ran on the classic Republican platform that government is hugely wasteful and the solution to all our problems is as simple as making “our City Government as efficient as possible by trimming waste and focusing on accountability, top to bottom.”
As weak as Claris’ message was, he still got almost 4x as many votes as Lee Sartain. Sartain came out of the gate looking like a serious candidate, but it didn’t take him long to demonstrate that he had no clue what this City is about. The cornerstone of his campaign was a City drive to encourage businesses to use State tax incentives to locate in a very small area in Central Raleigh. Uh, Earth to Sartain, businessfolk know all about tax incentives, they don’t want to take a course in Economics 101 from a City Councilor. On several occasions, Sartain attacked Baldwin for being a shill of Big Real Estate (which she is), then came out with the idea to strip away the recently initiated PROP program and related legislation that has helped at-risk neighborhoods – something only a shill of Big Real Estate would propose. In place of the PROP, he proposed a Blue Ribbon Commission that would recommend reform.
Pssst, Lee, over here buddy, this is your pal Earth again - the PROP was the result of recommendations put forward by a Council-appointed Blue Ribbon Commission of stakeholders from both neighborhoods and the real estate industry.
There was a core of liberal Raleigh politicos who were touting Sartain as the City’s next Redeemer. He got 7-9% of the vote in every District except D, where he polled over 15%. He even managed almost 25% in one precinct there, and 22% and 19% in two others. There is no doubt that these folks were primarily wooed by the prospect of the first openly gay Councilor. That clouded their thinking, and they never looked clearly at what Sartain was really offering, which wasn’t much else. Sartain is young and inexperienced in politics, so if they want to stick with him, they are going to have to groom him. A lot. A whole lot.
DISTRICT 9
Nancy McFarlane gets an A-minus, as the incumbent minus an opponent in District A. It is a blow for liberal democracy everywhere when only 10% of our citizens even turn out to vote, and only two of eight seats in a City as large and vibrant as Raleigh are practicably contested.
And a C-minus for James West, who won handily in C. Which guarantees that District C will continue its long slow rot for at least another two years. West had an opponent on paper only, and could only muster just over 5.5% voter turnout.
In District E, there was never any question that North Hills Manager Bonner Gaylord was going to smash his fellow Planning Commissioner Waheed Haq. As I already told y’all, everybody who is anybody in Big Real Estate was throwing money at Gaylord. On the other hand Haq, as of the last campaign report filed, had only two donors that live in the City of Raleigh, and only one of those lives in his district and could vote for him. The other ten donors scattered around the country: Cary ($300), Morrisville ($500), Knightdale ($200), Goldsboro ($250), Siler City ($1,000), Ramseur ($500), Kentucky ($1000), West Virginia ($500), and the left coast (San Fran for $300). The one kafir who donated gave $200 - he owns a pawn shop and ran an subterranean campaign again District D’s Thomas Crowder (Crowder spearheaded recent legislation that limits where in the City new pawn shops can operate).
Gaylord is what he is, a nice enough fella whose interests extend as far as his boss’ investment opportunities. Like Claris, he wants to cut City spending and trim government. That’s literally all he has in the idea department – less spending, more North Hills.
Haq, a sad excuse for a planning commissioner, would have made an even worse City Councilor than Gaylord. I do give him some credit for at least making a showing. Over the past few years, the local Muslim community has been making some efforts to participate in the democratic process. It’s not gone particularly well, and at more times than not the community is its own worst political enemy.
But no way no how is District E - the District that followed up Councilor Coble with Councilor Isley and will now install the manager of North Hills as its leader - is going to elect a Pakistani immigrant that frequents a mosque that is also home to several alleged terrorists. The mosque’s recent clampdown on its historically insular interactions with the larger and largely Judeo-Christian community insures that a muslim City Councilor will be a long time in coming. But Haq continues to put on a happy face and offer himself up for public service, which takes some measure of courage that has to be respected. For that, Khalilah Sabra, Assalamu Alilkum aa Rahmatulah aa Barakatuh.
But the campaign is not behind Haq yet. Haq likes to hold himself out as an engineer, though he is not. His campaign website says he is the president of Associated Environmental Consultants & Engineers. IndyWeek refers to him as a Civil Engineer. The N&O calls him an “engineering consultant.” Even the North Carolina Board of Ethics says he got a masters in engineering from NC State.
In North Carolina, you have to be licensed by the State, through the NC Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, to call yourself an engineer. Furthermore, any firm referring to itself as an engineering business must have a license from the same board.
Haq does not have a license to practice engineering. Associated Environmental Consultants & Engineers does not have a license to sell engineering services.
To pile weird atop artifice, the NC Secretary of State says that Associated Environmental Consultants & Engineers, Inc. was dissolved in 1991. Haq has several other corporations registered with the State, including Ace Engineering Consultants, Inc., Rana, LLC, and A&M Ventures, Inc. (none of which are licensed to sell engineering services).
So how does Haq sell engineering and contracting services (he doesn’t have a contractor’s license either)?
A little bird tells us that he hides behind the licenses of a friend, Siraj Chohan. Chohan is a state employee who works for DENR .
We’ll let you know what the NC Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors has to say about Haq, and what NC DENR has to say about Chohan.
Earth to the Muslim Community of Raleigh – next time you choose a public face, don’t pick someone who was appointed by Governor Easley to the NC Board of Ethics, ‘cause you gotta know that chances are that such a character is morally corrupt.
Tomorrow – the two real races, Districts B and D.