Dicey election dissection

Did the Star-News have it right after all, that Arcadia voters still vote along racial lines?

It’s difficult not to at least consider that unfortunate conclusion based on the outcome of a strongly contested City Council election Tuesday that featured three candidates of Chinese descent who lost to three Caucasian candidates.

by Scott Hettrick

Let’s hope that isn’t the case, although we can’t really prove otherwise today. Let’s hope that voters, at least the disappointingly few of them who bothered to cast a ballot (only a paltry 3,178 went to the polls Tuesday, and less than 26% of overall voters cast a ballot in person or by mail), based their decision on experience and proven performance rather than risking a vote on either a youthful candidate or on two relatively unknown candidates who happened to be Asian.

Whatever the reason, now, for one of the rare times in recent memory, the Council, representing a population that is about half-Asian and probably a typical percentage of women, will have neither sitting in the Chamber chairs at the twice-monthly meetings. Instead, there will be five white guys, all in their late middle-age or retired.

Before I go any further, let me offer congratulations to Bob Harbicht, Mickey Segal, and Peter Amundson, our returning champions to the City Council on which they have each served admirably for many years, Bob and Mickey in multiple runs as Mayor, and Peter surely about to deservedly become our next Mayor in a couple weeks since he is presently Mayor Pro Tem.

Harbicht and Mickey trounced the rest of the field, each getting nearly 24% of all votes (Harbicht had six more votes than Segal), and Peter the next closest and really the only other competitor of any consequence with nearly 20% of the vote.

We know the city is in capable hands with these men. While they have been on the job, the city has long been one of the best in the country in terms of financial stability, physical infrastructure, public schools, police and safety, parks, recreation, youth sports programs, senior services, volunteerism, and many other factors. And Harbicht and Amundson are incumbents who have been on the Council as Arcadia has been declared the best city in California to raise kids two consecutive years by Business Week magazine.

Nonetheless, the election results are, at the very least, curious and worth examining.

Matt Denny’s Ale House Restaurant

For instance, one Arcadia City Council candidate spent hours every night with his wife walking miles of residential streets, knocking on doors and meeting residents face-to-face. Another did a lot of that and also spent a whopping $112,000 on his campaign. And a third did none of that, held few, if any campaign rallies, bought few ads, did not participate in any Internet blogging available to all candidates for free, promised nothing new, and assured he would make no changes in Arcadia (his mantra from Day One: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”), and spent only $11,000 on his campaign.

Despite their efforts and expenditures, the first two of those candidates, Jason Lee and Paul Cheng, came in dead last and next-to-last, respectively. The third of those candidates, Harbicht, shockingly to many, including current, former, and future City Councilmen watching the results come in, was the top vote-getter of all six candidates on Tuesday.

At the very least, Harbicht could be applauded for what proved to be the winning and most cost-efficient strategy — his 4,563 votes cost him only $2.41 per vote, as compared with the $50.18 (and counting) that Cheng spent on each of his 2,232 votes.

A cynic might conclude that it’s unfortunate and sends a discouraging message that the candidate who campaigned and participated the least in the process, and who promised to do nothing any differently, was the biggest winner. But, even if that were the proper conclusion to draw, we would have only ourselves to blame for giving him the most votes.

The real answer is probably that Harbicht, after multiple terms on the Council for several decades, has nothing left to prove, and he knows that voters feel comfortable with him, so why should he or voters fiddle with a proven formula. That, and the other candidates just didn’t offer a compelling enough alternative.

Those other candidates, all of Chinese descent, Sho Tay, Paul Cheng, and Jason Lee, collected only 13%, 11.5%, and 8% of the votes, respectively.

And that, despite the fact that the combined money spent on campaigns by these three candidates was more than $171,000 through March 27/28, almost triple the Caucasian candidates with a combined total under $70,000.

So, what happened to the bottom three?

Some say the results proved correct the advice said to have been given to all three candidates as well as a couple other Chinese-American residents who considered entering the race, to limit the number of Chinese-American candidates to one or two. Otherwise, the Chinese-American vote would be too fractionalized, lessening the chances that any of the Chinese-American candidates would win, the theory went. The final numbers could be used to defend that argument as perhaps having been a better strategy to adopt.

On the other hand, despite three strong Chinese-American candidates who many assumed would assure a stronger turnout among that demographic,  Tuesday’s voter turnout was one of the lowest in many elections, at least regarding an election with this many candidates and three open Council seats. The last time three seats were up for grabs in 2006 there were nearly 9,000 votes cast (34%), compared to less than 7,500 (25.9%) on Tuesday. Most parties agreed beforehand that a big turnout would certainly favor the Asian candidates since new or infrequent voters would likely favor new candidates.

It didn’t happen. Why not? Why didn’t the Asian voters come out (if that was indeed the case)?

Some theorized that within the Chinese media and Internet sites, the rhetoric turned very personal and mean-spirited from the outset and only got worse as the campaign went on. For instance, one commenter called one candidate’s wife old and ugly. In recent days I have been told that Chinese media has been reporting that Chinese-American voters were so turned off by the tone of the campaign that they were not going to vote.

A more pointed theory is aimed at a specific familiar politician who several candidates believe instigated strong negativity against all three Chinese-American candidates on the Internet for their own political gain.

Whether any of that is true or if it would have made a difference in the outcome of Tuesday’s election will never be known.

It’s encouraging that Sho Tay plans to stay just as active in community activities as always, and that Paul Cheng plans to become much more involved. “This is my city,” Cheng said proudly to me just before midnight Tuesday amidst many supporters still gathered at his headquarters on the northwest corner of Santa Anita Ave. and Duarte Road.

That’s the attitude we should all embrace: “This is my city.” That, and this parting sentiment posted by Cheng on his blog here at ArcadiasBest.com at 1:12 a.m. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning:

“Thank you for the opportunity to serve you. We must now move forward by supporting our elected officials to make Arcadia an even better place.”

Well said.

— Scott Hettrick