Friday, February 19, 2010

Ellsworth Goes Official; Williams Onslaught Locally?

Brad Ellsworth is officially a candidate for United States Senate, reports Mary Beth Schneider of the Indianapolis Star.

The other news of the day is that the filing deadline ended at noon, and word circulating around the election board is that the Brian Williams for Mayor campaign has delivered close to 200 declarations of candidacy for precinct committee person. (I am still trying to confirm the numbers).

This matters because every person elected in May as a PC will cast a vote in next year's mayoral slating. While having a Williams supporter on the ballot does not guarantee a May victory, every Williams supporter elected as a PC gets to pick his or her vice-PC, who also gets a vote, so it's a two-for-one effect.

Before today, the Marion County Clerk's Office listed 813 candidacies for county offices, precinct committee person, and state convention delegate.

The level of activity this year has been pretty amazing, it's been driven by not only the mayoral campaigns, but by Democratic affinity groups, such as Organizing for America, to get as many of PCs who are proponents of their views elected as possible.

While we should expect some ruffled feathers among elected officials or long-time party folks who are upset about being challenged for PC roles, we'll be stronger for it because people who want this will have to start connecting in their neighborhoods earlier than they might without the competition. Anything that makes you sharper sooner is for the good of the party, so we should not complain.

(Excuse me, but I need to go finish my first campaign letter for PC since I have an opponent now. Grrr!)

Stay tuned....


Share/Save/Bookmark

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

onslaught? LOL.

Anonymous said...

Now that the dust is starting to settle, it appears that the onslaught is not as huge as alleged. Williams did manage to slienate a lot of hard working PCs. I agree with the statement that bridges have been burnt.