Wednesday, August 8, 2007

I'm Voting For (a) Smith

I was very surprised with the landslide result in the Democratic primary for Secretary of State.

John Windsor was expected to win the race without much difficulty. He had raised far more money, had more staff, had gone on television, and ran a respectable effort online.

He lost to Rob Smith who received 73 percent of the vote.

One explanation would be that he ran statewide before. He actually was in a runoff with Gary Anderson for the nomination for Treasurer in 2003 so many in the state had seen his name on the ballot twice before.

That alone can not explain the huge total he received on election day.

A friend of mine who is far smarter than myself had a possible solution.

Smith is a common name. There are even a lot of Robert Smiths in Mississippi. People didn't know much about this down-ticket race and went with the name they thought was most familiar. Heck, maybe they thought they even knew the guy they were voting for.

This is the most reasonable answer I've heard.

Rob Smith is a good man and a qualified candidate. He will make an excellent Secretary of State. The question now is how much will the "Smith Factor" play in his favor in the general election against Englebert/Eggbert/Dilbert?

4 comments:

  1. Mr. Smith Goes to Jackson!
    Name-based voting is funny, isn't it.

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  2. Yep.

    I must confess that even though I went to a local candidate forum (and actually spoke for a candidate) in two of the local races I really didn't know who I was voting for.

    They really shouldn't have so many elections at once.

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  3. Downticket races, esp. primaries, can be really strange. Last year in the primary we had Larry Darby, a fascist, racist, nutcase who should never have been allowed on the ballot, running against Mobile county DA John Tyson, Jr., who is a good campaigner with an excellent progressive record as DA. Neither spent much money for the primary -- I guess Tyson figured that Darby's nuttiness would be enough to give him the win.

    In the end, Darby darn near beat Tyson with 48% of the vote. Talking to people afterwards I found many who had voted for Darby because they didn't know anything about either one.

    Reasons given were:
    First name on the ballot (this matters way more than you would think)
    I voted for Darby because we have the same name
    I didn't like Tyson because I know Tyson chicken is a bad employer, etc.
    I thought Tyson might be related to the Mike Tyson who's such a bad guy.

    Are there post graduate students out there writing dissertations on this stuff?

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  4. Interesting analysis Mooncat. It's greatly appreciated.

    I seem to remember that race a little and how close a call it was. (wipe brow) :)

    If there are students writing research papers on how people vote when they have NO information, it would be interesting.

    I wonder if Blink by Malcom Gladwell could shed some light on the subject.

    ReplyDelete