Comments on: Marcuccio Defeats Hoffmann For Mayor; Britton, Gajewski, Newton, Pierzchala On Council

By: Erik Read

Erik Read — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:25:50 +0000

Tom,The “loose slates” of which I was speaking are basically groups of candidates that covary, positively, with one another, as judged by the correlation coefficients of their district vote percentages. In simpler terms, voters who voted for one of the candidates of a “loose slate” were more likely to vote for the other candidates within that slate. I qualify these statistical slates as loose because the correlations are not as striking as was seen for actual advertised slates in Rockville elections past.The voting statistics as analyzed above suggest you, Tom Moore, were part of unofficial Hoffman-Britton-Gajewski “loose slate” in the en masse opinion of the electorate.There is some evidence for a mild negative correlation between your candidacy and the candidacies of the other “loose slate” composed of Marcuccio-Martin-Newton-Onley-Ovase. However, only the negative correlation with Ovase was substantial.There was also a mild negative interaction with “unslated” councilmember elect Pierzchala.I have hypotheses for the genesis of these negative interactions but as there is no exit polling in our municipal elections they’re kind of difficult to test. Either, voters saw these candidacies as idealogically distinct or the candidates were competing for the last of the four council seat votes. Maybe both, maybe neither.

By: Theresa Defino

Theresa Defino — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:32:52 +0000

tom, i just posted about this in the thread about signs.

By: Tom Moore

Tom Moore — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:43:13 +0000

I’m intrigued by talk of “slates” — more than one — in this election. I’ve managed slate campaigns in the distant past, I think they’re not a bad way to get a governing majority elected, but I certainly wasn’t part of one in this election cycle, loose or otherwise. Was I just left out?

By: Erik Read

Erik Read — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:39:01 +0000

Councilmember elect Pierzchala, I will finish my comments directed towards you..I have no doubt that the votes received within the home district of the candidates you mention stem from their years of hard work and not just the recent controversies. Mainly, I think these controversies drove more nettled voters to the polls and once they were there who were they going to vote for? Local leaders they already know is not an unreasonable assertion.

By: Mark Pierzchala

Mark Pierzchala — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:49:17 +0000

One last note from me on this thread. With respect to the Montgomery College situation in College Gardens, any modest boost (if any) I received in the neighborhood from that issue, was (in my mind) much more than offset by the huge distraction that the issue represented to my campaign. I spent many hours on it, mostly but not entirely, behind the scenes. I was no longer the president of the CGCA when this erupted.I like to think that most support that Henn, Newton, and Pierzchala received from their communities extends from a body of work over several years, and not just from the hot issue of the day (and these can be divisive). In College Gardens I’m much more known for coming to a resolution on our park/pond situation while president of the CGCA, than for my mostly hidden role concerning the College, which represents a still unresolved situation.

By: Erik Read

Erik Read — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:00:52 +0000

Councilmember elect Pierzchala,At the risk of putting too fine a point on my analysis, the interactions I was describing are presumably from the perspective of the voters..en masse. To me this suggests the absence of an idealogical similarity that would cause the electorate to systematically vote for you (or Carl Henn) in conjunction with any particular candidate.Thus I am lead to reject a prior hypothesis from comment 8, wherein I suggested…>

…I note the rhetorical similarity in many of your platform planks to that of Marcuccio and suggest that a rising tide for Pierzchala raised the Marcuccio boat, electorally speaking…

My further analysis indicated this was not the case and that the rhetorical similarity I perceived was superficial (time will tell).

Having said all this, I must caution that the thoughts of individual voters cannot be plied with such tools as I have used. For example, you did not receive any of my votes. There were a variety of reasons, but it was in part a consequence of my rhetorical hypothesis and my regional voting strategy and of course, the issues. None the less, I find myself encouraged by the data with regards to your (independent) role on the Council.

By: Mark Pierzchala

Mark Pierzchala — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:29:29 +0000

Thank you Erik. I have enjoyed reading your analyses and I don’t disagree with them. I confirm that I didn’t have any significant interaction with either ‘loose slate’.

By: Erik Read

Erik Read — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:52:02 +0000

Councilmember elect Pierzchala,I never meant to cast aspersions by that observation. It is what it is…a very positive factor in the success of the mentioned candidates. Such influence and benefit need not be made by any conscious effort, it is the natural way of things. No doubt, hard work was involved.Another interesting observation, that I suspect will be made by Roald Schrack, is that a correlation coefficient analysis of candidate votes received, suggest that there were two loose unofficial “slates”.The interesting part is that both you and Carl Henn were independent of significant interactions with either slate or each other (at the district voting pattern level). Thus, I could make the prediction that you will likely serve the role of swing vote on the Council. Again, time will tell.

By: Erik Read

Erik Read — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:03:29 +0000

I took a quick look at the election finances and here’s one notion that can be extracted…For non-incumbant city council candidates, a buy in of $1000 gets you about 1000 votes, each $1.75 spent thereafter correlates with an additional vote for the candidate. This is based upon the combined October 2nd and 28th totals of money

By: Mark Pierzchala

Mark Pierzchala — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:17:42 +0000

I’d like to make an observation on post number 37 by Erik Read. I can’t speak for the Hungerford Civic Association or WECA, but the College Gardens Civic Association has never tried to be a politcal machine. But a greater point: if these are large and active civic associations, then it has something to do with the efforts of Henn, Newton, and Pierzchala over several years to make them so, and it’s a lot of hard work.

By: Cindy Cotte Griffiths

Cindy Cotte Griffiths — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:50:46 +0000

Roald Schrack has sent along an analysis and we hope to post it early next week.

By: Erik Read

Erik Read — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:22:54 +0000

I agree that name recognition is a factor in Rockville municipal elections. I suspect it aided the successful candidacies of Bridget Newton and Mark Pierzchala, but probably not as much as them having been active in civic association with recent controversies (which definitely boosted their district name recognition so they kind of go hand in hand, yet are not the same thing).I suspect, Laura Berthiaume’s mailer on Bridget Newton’s behalf certainly helped her name recognition.Of course, incumbant candidates Britton and Gajewski had a big name recognition advantage that I suspect Hoffman would have had if she weren’t challenged by another incumbant. So it is hard for me to think name recognition was a big factor in the Mayoral election of 2009.I am interested to see what other conclusions will be derived from the available data, especially by Roald Schrack. What patterns have you discerned in the data?

By: Brigitta Mulilcan

Brigitta Mulilcan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:28:28 +0000

The outcome of Rockville election has much to do with name recognition and civic involvement. However, heavy campaigning and large mailings certainly helps get one elected. Remember Giammo who got elected with spending the largest amount of money in the history of Rockville and produced great mailings to all registered voters. Money is a big factor. Review the spending of the candidates and tell me what the result tells you.The analysis of the district votes is most interesting and we all have different conclusions. The bottom line is we have a new City Council who has their work ahead. Let’s support them where we can and move on, the election is over. I love Rockville and want it to get better.

By: Jonathan Smith (an East Rockville alumni))

Jonathan Smith (an East Rockville alumni)) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:16:13 +0000

Ms. Poole – Thanks for the interesting tidbit. I bought into the City in 1999 on Croydon Avenue. That area is still technically called “Croydon Park”. I think Phyllis and others grouped and branded several smaller neighborhoods as “East Rockville” to give that area more clout.

By: Erik Read

Erik Read — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:53:56 +0000

Theresa,I’m sorry I didn’t catch your post earlier. I think the problem with a district representative solution is the uneveness of application. There is also the technical challenge of balancing district populations which affords and opportunity for gerrymeandering. With the at large system, districts are really just a way to manage the logistics of voting.The data generated lends an extra apparent importance to district assignments where in reality it is the Civic Organizations that are the political machines. Is it a coincidence that Henn, Newton and Pierzchala have all been ranking officers in large civic associations that are the largest in their districts?