It's celebration time - spread the word about our newly elected officeholders - Conley Tillson to the Wayne County Clay Township Advisory Board and Steve Coffman to to the Henry County Liberty Township Advisory Board!
Township Advisory Boards oversee the approval of the township budget and have a few other fiscal responsibilities.
3 comments:
If local and county offices are easier to win, why did the LPIN put so much emphasis on the statewide races? Seems like a flawed strategy to me... We could have possibly picked up several more local wins.
Anonymous - good question and I'll answer it from the perspective of the state chair and staff.
First of all, Secretary of State is the ballot access race and we have no choice.
Second, for this election we encouraged people and the county organizations to run multiple candidates for small, local office, and some came forward and did that. Several county chairs worked hard (like Rex Bell) to get people to run in the small districts, but with limited success. Thus, the number of people running in small districts this year was very disappointing to me.
Third, we don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I've asked many a candidate to run for a lower level office and they say no - they aren't interested. I've rather have them run then not run.
Fourth, running at a higher level is a legitimate strategy to support wins in lower level positions. The win in Henry County appears to have happened because of Rex Bell's state house race.
Fifth, by law, the LPIN controls the state level offices (federal, general assembly, state offices, prosecutor and judges). The counties are responsible for the other positions. We try to encourage the county organizations to run candidates in small districts, but sometimes we are not successful at it. I'm loath to become a Democrat or Republican and force federal style top down enforcement on county organizations - but it is tempting at times to do so.
Sixth, many of us (including me) may have been a little guilty about looking too much towards 2007 and the appealing races that we can win next year - a lot of effort has already been placed on this - and I think it did effect the number of candidates we had this year.
But your question is preaching to the choir (me) and I believe we must run harder and better and in more local races in smaller districts. Our experience is that we win them and if not, are very competitive.
I'm hoping that in 2007 I see more candidates in smaller districts.
Mark, if you already have 2007 candidates lined up, you should get them listed in the Candidate Tracker at lp.org. It could give them some exposure, and hopefully financial support from across the country.
Post a Comment