"Mayor-elect Greg Fischer Can Thank Black Vote For Win". Hal Heiner FAILED To Accept Offers Of Help With Black Vote. You Go Figure!
Mayor-elect Greg Fischer can thank black vote for win
By Joseph Gerth
Clarence Yancey has been around western Louisville politics for a long time. Some 55 years to be exact.
So, he can tell you that three weeks ago, Louisville's African-American community played a huge role in Louisville elections.
In fact, Louisville's next mayor, Greg Fischer, owes his political life to black voters.
“We got him elected,” said Yancey, who often punctuates his sentences by agreeing with himself. “Um hmmm.” , Had it not been for voters in Louisville's black neighborhoods three weeks ago, Republican Hal Heiner would have won by about 13,000 votes or 6 percent, according to an analysis by The Courier-Journal.
And several other races would have come out differently — especially a couple of judicial races decided only after recanvasses of voting machines.
As it was, Fischer won by more than 6,000 votes — a narrow three point margin.
It wasn't just Fischer that African Americans backed, it was Jack Conway and John Yarmuth and other Democrats, as one would expect, and judicial candidates — many of whom hired Yancey to promote them.
And what helped Fischer most was that while blacks often vote in significantly lower percentages than whites, in a number of precincts identified by the newspaper as being majority black, turnout was at or near 50 percent.
Overall, voter turnout in Jefferson County was 53 percent.
When they did vote, blacks overwhelmingly supported Fischer.
Take for instance in western Louisville's M103 precinct, which votes at Carter Traditional Elementary School, where 53 percent of registered voters cast ballots. In that precinct, Fischer won 819 to 14.
In all, Fischer won the majority black precincts identified by the newspaper by a margin of 91 percent to 9 percent — and one would assume that the African-American vote for Fischer was even higher since some of those precincts have significant numbers of white voters, who were more likely to back Heiner.
What happened?
The NAACP mounted a get-out the vote effort, as it usually does. And the Democratic Party used robo-calls from President Barack Obama to spur folks to the polls.
But Yancey said part of what spurred the black voters was having several African Americans running for office — including four judicial candidates who were appointed to their seats by Gov. Steve Beshear.
If he planned it that way, it may have been the smartest political move of Beshear’s administration — ensuring black turnout in an election year when Democrats needed it most.
"That helped," Yancey said.
But Yancey, the Democrats' 43rd Legislative District Chairman, says that the most important thing that folks like Fischer had going for them was some old school politicking on his part.
He took candidates and their spouses around western Louisville, helping them drum up votes and he gave his seal of approval to 22 candidates that he included on sample ballots.
It used to be common for influential political figures to hand out sample ballots that listed the names of the people for whom folks should vote, but that's gone by the wayside a bit as campaigns have become more high tech.
"The senior citizens, they don't always know who to vote for, um hmmm," said Yancey, who is in his 70s and still thinks there's a place for the sample ballots.
So he handed out thousands of them in 61 precincts in western Louisville — dropping them off at barbershops, old-age homes and just about anywhere folks would let him.
“Yancey's (and Son's) Picks,” the sample ballot says.
"I'm confident in my sample ballot," Yancey said in an interview.
So how did his sample ballot do?
Of the 22 people he endorsed, only U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway (who won Jefferson County) and District Judge Sadiqa Reynolds (who won Yancey's 61 precincts) lost.
Um hmmm.
By Joseph Gerth
Clarence Yancey has been around western Louisville politics for a long time. Some 55 years to be exact.
So, he can tell you that three weeks ago, Louisville's African-American community played a huge role in Louisville elections.
In fact, Louisville's next mayor, Greg Fischer, owes his political life to black voters.
“We got him elected,” said Yancey, who often punctuates his sentences by agreeing with himself. “Um hmmm.” , Had it not been for voters in Louisville's black neighborhoods three weeks ago, Republican Hal Heiner would have won by about 13,000 votes or 6 percent, according to an analysis by The Courier-Journal.
And several other races would have come out differently — especially a couple of judicial races decided only after recanvasses of voting machines.
As it was, Fischer won by more than 6,000 votes — a narrow three point margin.
It wasn't just Fischer that African Americans backed, it was Jack Conway and John Yarmuth and other Democrats, as one would expect, and judicial candidates — many of whom hired Yancey to promote them.
And what helped Fischer most was that while blacks often vote in significantly lower percentages than whites, in a number of precincts identified by the newspaper as being majority black, turnout was at or near 50 percent.
Overall, voter turnout in Jefferson County was 53 percent.
When they did vote, blacks overwhelmingly supported Fischer.
Take for instance in western Louisville's M103 precinct, which votes at Carter Traditional Elementary School, where 53 percent of registered voters cast ballots. In that precinct, Fischer won 819 to 14.
In all, Fischer won the majority black precincts identified by the newspaper by a margin of 91 percent to 9 percent — and one would assume that the African-American vote for Fischer was even higher since some of those precincts have significant numbers of white voters, who were more likely to back Heiner.
What happened?
The NAACP mounted a get-out the vote effort, as it usually does. And the Democratic Party used robo-calls from President Barack Obama to spur folks to the polls.
But Yancey said part of what spurred the black voters was having several African Americans running for office — including four judicial candidates who were appointed to their seats by Gov. Steve Beshear.
If he planned it that way, it may have been the smartest political move of Beshear’s administration — ensuring black turnout in an election year when Democrats needed it most.
"That helped," Yancey said.
But Yancey, the Democrats' 43rd Legislative District Chairman, says that the most important thing that folks like Fischer had going for them was some old school politicking on his part.
He took candidates and their spouses around western Louisville, helping them drum up votes and he gave his seal of approval to 22 candidates that he included on sample ballots.
It used to be common for influential political figures to hand out sample ballots that listed the names of the people for whom folks should vote, but that's gone by the wayside a bit as campaigns have become more high tech.
"The senior citizens, they don't always know who to vote for, um hmmm," said Yancey, who is in his 70s and still thinks there's a place for the sample ballots.
So he handed out thousands of them in 61 precincts in western Louisville — dropping them off at barbershops, old-age homes and just about anywhere folks would let him.
“Yancey's (and Son's) Picks,” the sample ballot says.
"I'm confident in my sample ballot," Yancey said in an interview.
So how did his sample ballot do?
Of the 22 people he endorsed, only U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway (who won Jefferson County) and District Judge Sadiqa Reynolds (who won Yancey's 61 precincts) lost.
Um hmmm.
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posted by KYJurisDoctor at 10:39 AM
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