Primary Wrap Up

Chris Potter on the wins by young, progressives Erin Molchany and Ed Gainey and Matt Merriman-Preston's role in the election. Also, how this bodes well for a bid for mayor by Bill Peduto.

Sue Kerr on Brian Sims being on course to becoming PA's first openly gay state representative.

Howard Fineman on the 'Clinton Party' wins in PA.

And, kudos to the Post-Gazette for their unendorsement.

I had a feeling...

...When I heard Matt Merriman-Preston, political consultant to Natalia Rudiak (& Chelsa Wagner & Bill Peduto), talking up independent mayoral candidate Kevin Acklin in this video interview with Bram that Matt might have more than a passing interest in Acklin.

This evening I received a email invitation from Merriman-Preston to join the Acklin for Pittsburgh Facebook group.

So, I guess we know what Matt will be up to after his vacation.

(Acklin filed petitions on the 19th to secure his place on the ballot in the November 3rd general election.)
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Big Election Wrap-up

I think that we can all agree that City Council victories by Natalia Rudiak and Robert Daniel Lavelle do not bode well for Lil Mayor Luke or his coattails.

Change Lukey would rather not believe in:

Bram's interview with Matt Merriman-Preston, political consultant to Natalia Rudiak (& Chelsa Wagner & Bill Peduto), is definitely worth a look. (And, as I'm sure Matt knows by now Lil Mayor Luke did not break 60%.)

That Dastardly Dowd refuses to apologize to Pittsburgh's Favorite Grandson.

For the junkies who like to obsess over numbers, graphs and maps there's Allegheny County's web site, Chris Briem's last few posts at Null Space, Pitt's map and the Post-Gazette's ward map.

There's a discussion on the "power of the blogosphere" as pertains to elections in the comments section of this Slag Heap post. IMHO, the blogosphere in general can be used to raise awareness, to raise funds, to move the conversation and occasionally to actually make news. All of this is more likely to occur on the national level where you can have a viral effect -- not so much here with Pittsburgh's older demographic. That said, as Pittsburgh's MSM (print anyway) tends to read the blogs, it's probably easiest here to make the news (as in the case of the Smith Liar Flier or MacYapper's Opie in handcuffs story).

In those same comments, Potter makes the point that, "In the case of district 2, my guess would be that your door-knocking for Blotzer did more to help her than anything anyone posted online."

Here, I'm in agreement. but I'll add that having someone work the polls can be a big asset as well. Case in point would be Hugh McGough's performance in the 16th Ward. While precincts 3 - 13 pretty much had the same results as his overall unfortunate performance (cause who'd want to vote for someone for judge who was highly recommended by the Bar and endorsed by both the P-G and the Trib...). However, in precincts 1 and 2 where there was a poll watcher (and inattentive Committee folk) he came in second and third respectively. Don't know if someone clued Don Walko that a majority of voters were walking in with McGough flyers or if he went to all the polls, but he and his wife came running over with more yard signs.

Speaking of 16-1, at least a couple of registered Democrats complained that when they went to vote, the screen gave them no choices for mayor and only offered them the option to write-in a name...hmmm, just like a Republican ballot would function. A technician was called and confirmed that nothing was wrong with the machines/software. Ya think maybe a poll worker was occasionally keying in D voters as R's? This would be the same polling place that had to temporarily shut down at 7:00 PM last November because of some poll worker freak out. Voters ended up in line until 9:30 (well, those who didn't give up and leave).

Finally, speaking of temporary shut downs, could the biggest victim of Tuesday's results be Matt H?


Time will tell...
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