NOREEN: We're still waiting for Superman
The Flintstones will not take us back to the Stone Age and we are still waiting for Superman.
And we are still waiting to see who will be mayor under Colorado Springs’ “strong mayor” system, because Richard Skorman and Steve Bach will face each other in a May 17 runoff election. Skorman edged Bach Tuesday night, in the mayoral race there were no winners, just losers, and the political calculus for the runoff is too complicated to decipher just yet.
In descending order according to the number of votes they received, the five new at-large council members are Jan Martin, Merv Bennett, Val Snider, Brandy Williams and Tim Leigh. Angela Dougan won easily the Council District 2 seat easily and it appeared late in the night that Lisa Czelatdko had a narrow lead over Mike Merrifield in the District 3 race.
The council, with four female members, looks like a group of moderate community builders. The same voters who put them in office repudiated the so-called “Reform Team” assembled by longtime anti-tax activist Doug Bruce.
The erstwhile reformers pledged to stop the city’s water project, the Southern Delivery System, and to nix all tax or debt increases. They essentially wanted the city’s response to the recession to be curling up in the fetal position and surrendering.
They thought that by running as a slate they could pool their resources and buy five council seats. City voters were too smart for that, and not as scared as Bruce and the rest of the Flintstones had counted on.
Developer Brian Bahr’s mayoral campaign was notable for its horrendous failure. Despite spending six figures, Bahr received only 14 percent of the vote.
Bahr dressed up as Superman in a television ad and heaped unfair mud atop City Hall by calling for election monitors, even though there have never been allegations that elections have not been run properly.
Bahr and his handlers tried to make the race about Christian values, using evangelical singer Pat Boone to supply the family values subtext. Mr. Bahr: Perhaps when you dress up as a comic book figure, voters won’t take you seriously.
To those who ran Bahr’s campaign: You know how to divide, but not how to conquer.
The mayoral race may get nasty. It’s what voters created with the strong mayor system — there’s more of a prize, so campaigns will be more aggressive.
Voters will have to decide whether they believe Bach’s ex-wife, who has said he beat her repeatedly in the late 1960s. Bach denies it ever happened.
Skorman is more liberal than the city as a whole. He will have to convince conservative voters he is not a threat.
But at least we’ve dispensed with the comics and the cartoons.
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Listen to Barry Noreen on KRDO NewsRadio 105.5 FM and 1240 AM at 6:35 a.m. on Fridays and read his blog updates at gazette.com
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