School Board Shocker: Scott’s Appts. Win
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Gov. Rick Scott’s appointments to the School Board did well Tuesday in Democratic Broward.
School Board member Katie Leach won re-election without a runoff, an amazing feat for a newcomer.
Member Donna Korn came in first and will be in a November runoff with Democratic machine politico Franklin Sands.
Sands outspent Korn and he had most of the political endorsements.
Political experts say Sands will have a tougher time in November.
Korn will now get better funding because she has shown she is a credible candidate.
Also, a larger number of Republicans will go to the polls in November and they will not look favorably on a highly partisan Democratic pol like Sands. Plus, Sands will have a hard time raising another $100,000 to be competitive now that he proved vulnerable.
Sands second-place showing was a rejection of his ads attacking Korn as a Scott appointment. In my opinion, voters also obviously recognized that Sands lacked education experience and was a do-nothing legislator who was just looking for a higher pension and medical insurance.
Fueled by Tallahassee lobbyist money and cash collected by his lobbyist son-in-law, Sands outspent Korn by better than two-to-one.
But while the Scott appointments had success, incumbent Robin Bartleman was forced into a runoff.
One possible reason: Bartleman was the only School Board member on the ballot who remained from the School Board that was blasted by a statewide Grand Jury for corruption and misspending.
August 14th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Very pleased that Katie is a winner and that Donna is in the driver’s seat to return to office. They both have done an excellent job.
August 14th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Great news by informed voters (all 10% of us) so how about addressing the Osgood win, in spite of the “Smear” by the “Womens Ministerial Alliance”. We were not fooled.
and does alston even have kids in school district?
August 14th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Ditto to Kevin’s comments. Both are bright women.
August 14th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
Hopefully the voters will recognize Donna’s experience, the fact that she has children in the system, and the fact that Sands was a do-nothing legislator who has no business being on the School Board.
Sands ran a very partisan campaign, for a non-partisan seat, and I think this will backfire in the general election when Republicans will turn out big time.
If he wants to tout himself as “the” Democratic candidate, then look out as Republicans as well as informed Democrats such as myself vote for the more qualified candidate in that race, Donna Korn.
PS I checked out some of the precinct results, and in some of the more heavily Democratic precincts, Donna whipped his ass. Ha ha!
August 15th, 2012 at 9:03 am
Buddy,
I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that you are wrong (and we’ll see in November) about Korn having an easier time in the general than in the primary.
I would argue that (1) because the electorate will be much larger and (2) the electorate will be highly polarized and (3) a much larger percentage will be low information voters who won’t have any partisan cues on the SB race and (4) the “medium info” voters will be overwhelmingly Democrats and MIGHT get the word that Sands is a Democrat… then she’d actually have a TOUGHER time in November.
For example: many “medium info” Democrats will know that Sands is a Democrat, but won’t know that he is, to many people, a “sleaze bag”, so they’ll vote for him IF THEY KNOW he’s a Democrat. Low info voters will vote randomly or not at all. High info voters will replicate what happened yesterday. That all adds up, in my mind, to a close election.
But I totally get the logic of the alternate theory here. We’ll see.
Kevin
August 15th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
@Kevin–
* Donna is a woman;
* Donna is first on the ballot;
Points to Donna from the low info voters.
* Name recognition: Arguably, Sands has name recognition as a legislator, but this is a county wide race so this means nothing to low info voters or medium info voters out of his district. Donna still takes the low info voters (see above).
* Money: Sands has way more money than Donna, but she came very close with little money so this obviously didn’t help him. Many candidates with little money have beaten more well funded opponents as you, Buddy, have pointed out time and time again.
* Money: Donna doing as well as she did in the primary may help her raise money this time.
* Partisanship: Sands will let people know he is a Democrat and that his opponent was appointed by Scott, inferring her affiliation, but Donna won’t stoop to bringing partisan politics into the race. Low info and medium info voters who turn out in the general to vote because it’s a presidential election year won’t care as much about party affiliation. In fact, many registered Democrats are reluctantly voting for Obama, and have considered or are considering switching their vote this November, so they may not be swayed by Sands’ blatant attempt at using party affiliation in this non-partisan race.
* Partisanship: Only real super committed Dems care about this. Many people in this county are registered Dems who will vote for the person, not the party. See Sheriff race results from 2008.
* Partisanship: An analysis of the results in heavily democrat precincts with super voters will show that highly informed voters in those precincts (read major Democrats) didn’t necessarily go with party affiliation, choosing Donna over Sands, so if highly committed Dems were willing to go against party, and less committed Dems won’t care, Donna has the advantage. Also, this Democratic county has elected non-Democrats to county wide positions in the past (Navarro, Lamberti, Lockwood, etc.)
I agree it will be close, but in the end I predict Donna wins.
August 15th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Mrs. Korn can count on at least one vote in November that went to Andy Luciani yesterday.
August 15th, 2012 at 10:12 pm
Make that 2 votes! Go Donna!!
August 16th, 2012 at 9:37 am
@Donna will win:
those are all excellent points. We’ll see in November.
Kevin.