Loose leaves from yesterday's local election

Meandering personal reflections on the Pruitt-Turner results (see post update below) that, thanks to today being Friday, I have failed to put into a smooth narrative. I'm treating this stream of bullets as open, so I may add more as the day goes along:

• State House District 58 Rep Mary Pruitt can and probably will be beat the next election (assuming she runs). While Steven Turner did not get nearly as many votes as Pruitt's previous challenger, Jason Powell, he did eat into her win margin. Pruitt's base is shrinking and she has no one but herself to blame.
• Steven Turner was no stronger than Jason Powell as a challenger. There is no evidence that I can see that Turner's GOTV was stronger than Powell's. 2006 and 2010 races were Pruitt's to lose.
• Turner's enthusiastic support of the Music City Center may not have hurt him, but it sure didn't help him in a district that expressed ambivalence about MCC. In this case, what didn't help him get around 200 votes hurt him.
• Turner should have been as mum on the MCC lightning rod as he was on May Town Center. Or at least he should have muted the zeal, given North Nashville's concerns about MCC.
• Future challengers have got to develop the same GOTV machine that Pruitt has built. A little more diversity might help: incorporate the interests of poor and working class people beyond the paternalistic mantra "jobs, jobs, jobs," maybe? Diversity is not merely a matter of ethnicity.
• Future challengers should increase their reach beyond the factions of Democratic Party regulars who (con)descend to act as if they understand everything about local politics.
• Blaming voters is not the best way to defeat Mary Pruitt in the future.
• Future challengers should stop running on what Mary Pruitt doesn't do for the district. Go negative when you have to, but don't make it central to the campaign.
• Beating or leveraging Mary Pruitt starts today, not at the beginning of the next election cycle. Resign yourself to neglect until the next election, and Pruitt will definitely neglect us.
• Morning 100-degree heat and severe afternoon lightning storms may have kept many typical voters at home. However, Turner's more energetic base could be expected to go to the polls regardless of conditions. Would Pruitt's win have been bigger but for the elements?

If you like the local Democratic Party, you'll love today's primary in Tennessee House District 58

Nothing either Mary Pruitt or Steven Turner has done or said in the past 3 weeks since I declined to participate in today's Democratic Party primary circle jerk has made me rethink my stance.

Mary Pruitt will still do nothing for 58 or anyone else. Steven Turner may have all the energy in the world, but if it exclusively helps wealthy donors and developers who finance the county party, what good is that, broadly considered, for local communities? Some local Democrats would have you believe bread crumb economics is good for all of us. I say better to have done nothing at all.

Both Pruitt and Turner spoke to the last Salemtown Neighbors business meeting. Neither one said anything to make me think either would be in tune with neighborhood issues and balanced growth. Mr. Turner continued to court the geeks by emphasizing broadband and internet access (without regard to campaign donors who would profit from virtual expansion), and the rest of his talk was straight out off website memes on economic development. Ms. Pruitt failed to answer a simple question on how she would act as an advocate for neighborhood concerns about an expanding state highway bordering Salemtown, dodging by saying in effect that she would listen to any concerns we had.

My only litmus test in the 58 primary has been that either candidate show me how they stand for neighborhoods in their district over self-interest and moneyed influence. Both have failed.

There is no amount of fear-mongering or fabricating oversimplified choices between "the good" and "the ideal" that convinces me that there is an authentically redemptive choice here.

Mary Pruitt does nothing. That's clear. It's not clear to me that what Steven Turner might do would be good, at least not a common good. My guess at this point is that Mr. Turner has enough momentum in a rapidly changing district to win today. If so, I hope my neighbors who value balanced growth, sustainable development, and consistent progressive governance are not disappointed one day if Mr. Turner helps leverage community choking growth legislation that serves special interests and his wealthy campaign donors. I hope I'm wrong. I hope one day I don't have to say I told you so. I hope we all don't have to look back one day and say, "Nothing would have been better than the something they plan for us" (don't find that logic persuasive? Apply it to Bells Bend and state-sponsored sprawl).

Davidson County Democrats do not seem to be interested in balanced growth and sustainability issues unless you can add value on them, so they don't care either. Democrats here are basically useless on matters of economic sustainability, democratic input at the legislative level, and substantive community development.

I would not discourage anyone in this House district from going to the polls today if they see it their civic or patriotic duty. I would encourage them not to delude themselves into thinking that things could get better just because anyone is better than Mary Pruitt.

Today's election is not about District 58 or you or your family or our neighborhoods or anything else they want you to believe. It is about rival younger and older factions in the local Democratic Party, pure and simple. There is no good, there is no perfect. It's party-style snake oil. If you're into partisan politics, by all means, go vote for Pruitt or Turner, but do not try and convince me that the choice of a winner has not already been made: it's the local party apparatus, the sluice of campaign finance. The rest of us have already lost.

However, I still might have to go vote against Eric Crafton in the Juvenile Court race.

UPDATE: The unofficial results tonight with 172 of 173 of precincts reporting are:

• Mary Pruitt -- 1,308
• Steven Turner -- 1,158

Compare the nearly 2,500 votes cast today to how most of the 3,660+ votes were cast 4 years ago:

• Mary Pruitt -- 2,012
• Jason Powell -- 1,414

A lighter turn-out seemed to make little difference this year in the ultimate goal of beating Mary Pruitt. Even though Jason Powell got more votes in 2006 than Steven Turner did today, the latter lost by less of a margin than the former. If Mr. Turner had energized a couple hundred of perhaps more liberal voters or community activists to the polls, instead of appealing to business interests and the Democratic Party faithful, he just might have done what Mr. Powell couldn't do with more votes.

Dear 58: early voting starts today and I will not be joining you

The Tennessean's local beat journo Nate Rau asked for my opinions yesterday on the state House race between Mary Pruitt and Steven Turner, some of which you can read here. I have fielded several queries on why I have not taken a stance on this election, given my expressed dissatisfaction with Ms. Pruitt and Mr. Turner's seeming embrace by local progressives. This post is my attempt at a more full explanation.

A recurring (and perhaps the strongest) argument for voting for Mr. Turner is that Ms. Pruitt has been "absent from the legislative process in any meaningful way." Indeed, the constituents of 58 have been underrepresented by Mary Pruitt. She did not give any indication that she fought for security measures on Bicentennial Mall after a Germantown woman was raped not too long ago. She showed up to the Hope Gardens' community meeting on the Greyhound bus terminal relocation, but she did not make it plain in word or deed that she would be the community advocate in the face of Metro insularity. She chooses to remain invisible.

However, Turner campaign supporters are hard-pressed to explain exactly how he would be a better option other than "anyone would be better than Mary Pruitt." Given what I have read of Mr. Turner and heard from him, I have reservations about voting for him.

Let's assume that Steven Turner would be more proactive than Ms. Pruitt and that he take leadership positions on House committees, crafting legislation. If he is proactive and prominent in working for the Democratic Party establishment and the wealthy business interests who fund their fights with Republicans, how is that an improvement for all of us in 58?

I attended the North Nashville community meeting Erica Gilmore called on the Music City Center proposal a few months ago. Mr. Turner stood at that meeting to express unqualified and enthusiastic support for building a convention center. He did not bother to acknowledge community concerns about obligating Metro's General Fund (which pays for everything from brush clean-up to adequate policing) as a safety net for construction overruns.

However, the prospect of tapping into the Metro budget to prop up a convention center exposes infrastructure like parks and street and alley maintenance to risk. Steven Turner came across as callous on an important neighborhood issue, although his passion for MCC is entirely consistent with the priorities of local business interests. Support for a convention center is not necessarily a deal-killer for me in the voting booth, but I was not mobilized by Mr. Turner's appearance. He seemed more committed to growth than to softening the blows growth makes on communities.

My concern arises from precisely that kind of appearance. Let's grant that he may be more proactive on committees, with legislation than Ms. Pruitt has been. That may be good for the Tennessee Democratic Party, but to whom will he be beholden? I have yet to find a case where Steven Turner would balance his advocacy for commercial interests with a defense of neighborhoods.

His website collapses community development into economic development while referring to local businesses and young professionals. He makes no mention of balancing growth and infrastructure and quality of life in neighborhoods.

His commitment to education refers to "modernization." I do not know what that means, but it sounds like the kind of public school privatization that Davidson County Democratic leaders like Mayor Karl Dean support.

And would Steven Turner lead a House fight to build 2 or 3 bridges from West Nashville neighborhoods to Bells Bend to sprawl urban developments and retail across rural greenspace? I know next to nothing about his commitments to conservation, but would he be so bold as to undermine every other neighborhood's community plan by striking blows at those of West Nashville and Scottsboro-Bells Bend under the guise of "creating more jobs" in North Nashville?

So, the idea that just putting anyone more proactive than Mary Pruitt in the 58 House seat does not motivate me to participate in the Democratic Party's primary. This primary strikes me as inside partisan baseball: should we replace an entrenched do-nothing Democrat with a Democrat who may be exclusively in the pockets of developers and corporate big shots? Either way the people who win are not the people of 58. So, I intend to exercise the grace of doing nothing during this primary.

Bad form: CM Lonnell Matthews sends constituents combined flood relief meeting info and Steven Turner campaign fundraiser ad

Thanks to Mike Peden for forwarding the e-mail below that CM Lonnell Matthews sent to his District 1 constituents. I am not sure whether this violates campaign ethics laws, but pigging-backing a fundraiser for a candidate for General Assembly with a mailer on North Nashville flood relief seems crude to me. Isn't sending out campaign material under the Metro government insignia plainly unethical?

Click on image to enlarge.