congratulations mayor slay

(P) I know the polls are open another half hour, but I feel pretty confident calling it. To be fair, I've never thought anybody had a chance against Slay. But my experience this evening adds a little more specificity to that thought.

Upon arriving at my polling place about 6:15pm, I was greeted by two folks with the 26th Ward Democratic party. They had two pamphlets, both of which a more cynical person might conclude were almost purposefully designed to undersell Mayor Slay, as if the fact his name is on the ballot is an afterthought. The first one, the 26th Ward sample ballot, includes names of five Democrats. Only one of them, Mayor Slay, is running for a contested position. The other one highlights President Obama, Senator McCaskill, oh yeah, and our Mayor.

Then, I was greeted by a gentleman with the Green Party. Now, as an aside, the Green Party has always fascinated me in St. Louis. Urban politics is not my native tongue, and it's particularly confusing for a 'third' party to actually be the second party in your town. We suburbanites are trained from an early age to accept that there are two major parties and these parties compete with each other for voters. The actual truth, that regionally in many rural and urban areas, there is one major party and several minor parties, is a lot messier and thus not introduced to confuse us white kids from the suburbs. If we're told that the Libertarian Party believes in smaller government and the Green Party believes in universal healthcare, it raises sticky questions about what exactly the Republican and Democratic Parties believe.

Anyway, back to tonight, the Green Party rep had one flyer, and this was specifically for their Mayoral candidate (they are not running a candidate against Darlene Green). It sported the basic message, 'a new day' on one side [ie, a new day from Slay, gotta love those implied marketing slogans], and more detailed policy information on the other.

I was not greeted by anyone from the Coleman or what's-his-name camps (addendum, I of course looked up the Libertarian's name, Robb Cunningham, but I thought it fair to admit that 20 minutes after staring at his name on the ballot, I couldn't recall it).

This is of course informal, unscientific, and only reflective of my precinct after work. It's much like the initial impression you get from a marketing campaign, when you first hear that slogan or see the packaging or something. Gut instincts aren't always right, and they certainly aren't rigorously researched. But if Coleman was counting on enough anybody-but-Slay voters, I think McCowan did a good enough job of earning votes in his own right that even if there's more organized opposition to the Mayor than at first glance, I think Slay walks away with this pretty easily. At about 6:20pm, I cast ballot 165 in my precinct. That's about how many people were waiting in line at 6:00am for the general last fall.

I of course could be wrong. But the Mayor elected my freshman year in college looks to be headed for his third term. Which, interestingly, has actually been very rare. Only three St. Louis Mayors have served three or more terms since about the Civil War. The stuff you learn.

Speaking of stuff you learn, one last tidbit I feel almost embarrassed to have just discovered today. Apparently, McCowan's family van was attacked by an arsonist last week. I don't have any reason to doubt Mr. Rainford's assurances that Mayor Slay had nothing to do with it, but it's very interesting to say the least. I read about it today on CounterPunch when I was googling the race. You'd think that would be big news, particularly since it's not like anyone's scared McCowan could actually win the race, but in fairness, I suppose it is hard to compete with the Women's Final Four, Opening Day, and that airplane-stealing Canadian.