Not a Catastrophe

So Matt Beato has now lost the race for City Council. I will now determine what this means, what this doesn't mean, what I would like to have, and what I don't know.

What This Means

• The Three-Person Rule will remain unresolved: Councilman Freiling, who supports reform of the rule, won re-election by wide margins. However, former mayor Granger lost narrowly to highly anti-reform candidate Judy Knudson. This means that the rule will remain in limbo for the next couple of years at least, as the council will be divided among pro-reform and anti-reform elements who will not view the rule as central to their governance.
• City noise regulations will favor non-students: The turnout by non-students was high enough to counter any student bloc vote, and thus rulings will still be made in favor of the more numerous non-students.
• Limousines and identity politics are not the best response to perceived marginalization in city politics: Forgetting the sheer waste of student funds that providing stretch limousines was (student activities vans do the same job for much less), it is now clear that an identity-based campaign for a council seat is insufficient. Regardless of the number of students registered, the citizens of Williamsburg will have a plurality of votes. Thus, putting forward a student candidate heavily dependent on the fickle student turnout profile (see limousines) is not going to be a winning formula unless the candidate is capable of appealing to citizen voters on the issues on which they move their votes: property taxes and schools. Perhaps Sievers was more able to do this in 2006 when he ran, or he may have had a larger proportion of anti-incumbent voters than Beato in this cycle. This election shows that the 157-vote defeat in an election without student votes that Sievers sustained was a fluke, as Beato lost by a larger margin in an election with more favorable demographics.

What This Doesn't Mean:

• The City Council can ignore student concerns: They can't for the same reason they couldn't before the election: We can vote still. Depending on the turnout model one uses, anywhere from 30-60 percent of registered student voters turned out. For young voters in any non-presidential election, these figures are actually rather high! As student political thinking matures (go figure first go-round we'd screw it up), if these turnouts remain the same students will be able to carry the balance in some races. What this election shows is that students cannot elect a candidate. Students can and ought to, however, enter coalitions with candidates friendly to their interests. This can get student opinion on Council, as was the case with Freiling.

What I'd Like to Have:

• An exit poll! It would make all this speculating a whole lot more certain. As it stands, nobody really knows anything, not even how many students voted. After-the-fact surveys, especially those conducted by the annoying folks at Rock the Vote (STOP TEXTING ME GODDAMNIT), will surely be subject to social desirability bias, distorting crucial findings which would affect future student political action strategies.
• Specifically, information on under-voting: Compared to the 2006 City Council elections, there were 1907 "whole ballots" (total votes/seats available) in the '08 race versus 1748 "whole ballots" in '06. Did students go to the polls for Beato alone, or only two candidates? Surely some did, but how many? For whom did they vote? Could this practice have gifted Knudson a seat? Wanna-be Michael Barones need to know!

What I Don't Know

• What the loss does to the Flat Hat: The paper had been a big booster of the Beato candidacy and likely will blame low student turnout (which I do not believe was the case) for the defeat. Will this affect readership?
• What the deal with the limos was: When I take up my position with the Informer in the fall, I intend to rip Valerie Hopkins et al. a new one for spending my money on limousines to get out the vote for Beato. That is, of course, for another day.
• What Beato does now: Other than sitting on the Soil and Water Conservation board (it's easy to win when no one runs!), it is unclear what Beato will do in wake of the defeat, as he had previously resigned his position as SA Senate Chairman. I do not know if he holds a Senate seat still.

Fair Play/Yellow Card: Blowout Edition

In the spirit of The Flat Hat's "Cheers and Jeers" feature, this edition of Fair Play/Yellow Card will be cumulative!

Fair Play

• Taylor Reveley-Without question, his forward-looking, pragmatic governance in the wake of Gene Nichol's (never heard of that guy) resignation has put the College in a better position for next year than any dared hope.


• Matt Beato-The dare-I-say-likely Councilman has run an aboveboard campaign, committed to moderate policy in both student-city relations and general city governance. If he wins, one hopes that his term will be defined by care and moderation, in addition to the signature achievement that reform of the absurd three-person law would be.


• Tribe Basketball-res ipsa loquitur.


• Tribe Women's Soccer, Women's Track, Women's Tennis-for bringing athletic glory (and some silverware) to the College while no one watched.

Yellow Card

• The Flat Hat-for showing a committment to journalistic excellence commensurate with rewriting and reproducing press releases. Journalism isn't class-you can ask questions, even of people you like, and a hundred people DON'T issue sighs of dread.


• The Virginia Informer-for incredibly biased coverage of almost everything. Even though controversy is the paper's raison d'etre, I cannot say I've read anything positive about an administrator in this paper. It is right to criticize error, but it is also right to commend proper actions.
  
• All the folks who wore T-shirts reading "If Nichol isn't welcome here then neither am I"-see you next fall.

Straight Red

• Artists-whether it is Aliza Shvarts' heaven-knows-what sort of bullshit at Yale or the dude in Guatemala starving dogs to death, it seems that putting anti-Bush words to pretty good music or depicting various nudes just isn't hardcore enough for them these days. Look, I'm all for free expression, but a simple code of behavior is necessary right now. Perhaps "Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal" would be a start.

And now, the first annual Robbie Savage award for being an all-around wanker and stuff:

• Gene Ray Nichol-could his actions in wake of his non-renewal have been any worse? Not content simply to resign, he issued an email blaming politics for his termination and inciting protest among his "Tribespeople" (my quote). Although I myself was neutral, and would have accepted the BOV's decision either way, by the end of the week I couldn't help telling Nichol to not let the door hit his arse on the way out. That, and Reveley's exceptional performance in the special legislative session puts your claims to absolute shame. Good riddance to bad rubbish.