Drew puts a fine (and sharp) point on racial voting patterns, tells race-based voters to "stay home in November"

Frank Hyman's guest column here at BCR on primary election day painted a dark -- or make that pasty white -- picture of some of Durham's electoral politics, with the former City Councilman noting the element he's observed over the decades of white candidates earning votes that at times appear to defect from the moderate-conservative Friends PAC's recommendations when they endorse black candidates.

His position was widely debated here at BCR (as it has been elsewhere), but the primary results saw similar results in numbers and precincts between two somewhat dissimilar challengers, Durham Libertarian party chair Matt Drew in Ward 2 and long-shot John Tarantino in Ward 1.

Tarantino lost by a few percentage points to Hughes, but Drew squeaked past Sylvester Williams and Darius Little to earn the runner-up position and a slot in the November general election.

While thankful to continue, the race thing hasn't escaped Drew's notice, with the challenger tackling it head-on in a refreshingly forthright message on his campaign web site two weeks ago.

In a post titled "Mr. Pointy" -- a reference to the title character's Big Bad-besting armament in the cult classic series Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- Drew doesn't hesitate to call out the possibility of racial voting patterns, and to ask those that might have supported for him for those reasons to not support him at all.

Voters do have a right to vote any way for any reason.  However, voters also have a duty to vote responsibly, to vote based on what they believe is best for Durham.  I strongly believe, and I suspect that Mr. Clement agrees, that voting based on race is definitely not best for Durham – no matter who you are voting for.

If you are a voter, go look in the mirror and honestly appraise yourself and your reasons for voting.  If any of the reasons you voted for me include the fact that I’m white, I have a message for you:

Please stay home in November.  I don’t want your vote….

You also need to re-examine what Libertarians are about, because you clearly don’t understand anything about the person you are voting for.  If you vote for me based on race, you do so with the understanding that I fundamentally disagree with you and will not represent your interests on City Council.

If one of the reasons you voted for Mr. Clement is because he’s black, I want you to do something for me.  I want you to approach a man who has honorably served on the City Council for 26 years, a man who fought against open racism in the great Civil Rights battles fifty years ago, a man who has certainly seen and suffered more racial ugliness in his life than I can ever know, and I want you to tell him to his face that you voted for him because of the color of his skin.  I hope that if you did that, he’d politely tell you where to shove it.  And he’d be right, because you are insulting many of the ideals he and many others have paid a huge price to attain.

It's a strongly-worded piece that's worth reading in full.

Drew's chances of victory are small, as his views on the role of government and taxation aren't likely to resonate much with Durham's liberal voter base.

But here's hoping that his wishes for race and racially-motivated voting can be borne out over time.

(Speaking of things escaping notice: I missed this post on Drew's web site until it was called out by the Herald-Sun's Ray Gronberg in his profile of Drew a few days ago, so credit where credit's due for this one.)

Comments

[alex]

Drew would be a breath of fresh air for Durham. Intelligent and thoughtful on policy.

Clement always seems to take the PC party line - afraid of rocking the boat and keeping a low profile year after year. Throw the bums out.

[Erik Landfried]

Drew's example of a city where at least most of his ideals have been implemented is Houston.

Houston, Texas.

If you want Durham to start to resemble Houston, then by all means, vote for Drew.

If you've ever been to Houston, time to re-up Clement one more time.

[alex]

I hate Houston. The place will never have the soul or vibrancy Durham now has.

But I think Drew's point is that Houston features restrained government, and this has made it attractive to businesses, which is the main reason its economy has boomed, which is why more people are moving there. The more expensive Durham gets (and all these programs do cost money and cause either taxation or invasive tinkering), the less attractive it is to business.

Of note, The Economist just ran an article about how surprisingly livable Houston has become, due its business freindly culture, greenspace (all kinds of space, really), and inexpensive living. It also noted an extremely welcoming community to outsiders, being perhaps the only US communinty with enough elasticity (er, market freedom?) to assimilate massive simultaneous migrations from New Orleans and Mexico during a nationwide recession. The critiques of Houston are obvious, but its successes should not be overlooked.

Durham's success ultimately hinges on its ability to recruit businesses to open here or move here, then flourish.

In this sense, Durham could benefit from restrained government, lower taxes and a better small business environment. A voice to this end on the City Council would not hurt.

[Kevin Davis]

@Alex: Why is it that the lowest-tax region of the US (the South) suffers a constant brain drain in most regions to larger West Coast and Northeast cities, and is able to draw generally lower-skill work at lower wages -- while much of the Fortune 100 maintains their corporate HQs in New York, Chicago, and LA?

Or a more local example: which are has the more educated workforce, high-tax Chapel Hill or low-tax places like Johnston Co. and Alamance Co.?

I'm not saying taxes aren't a factor, just that the argument that low-cost is the one and only attractive to businesses is a bit of a red herring, to my view.

FWIW, I grew up in a city (Orlando) that's always heralded itself as a low tax haven. Cheap land, easy to develop, greedy absorption of a massive service sector job base in the form of Disney. All the while relying on a sales tax and property taxes to fund growth -- and on the latter point, bending over to cap property tax increases for homesteaded residents, creating bizarre tax distortions in turn.

The result today? Underfunded schools, an awful road network and a ranking in the top 10 nationally for congestion, horrible crime, and an impoverished, core city with less than 10% of the metro population, surrounded by unannexed, squabbling little peasants of suburbs.

Sure, the wife and I could pay less in taxes if we moved to Orlando from here. But our quality of life is much higher. Similarly, there's times she misses the "city" atmosphere in DC or Boston, and I suspect she'd gladly pay the much higher tax levels to live in an urban center again.

Different strokes for different folks -- but I just don't see the low-taxes mantra really leading to big economic differentiation.