Posts Tagged ‘John Lewis’

Sometimes public officials exit public life very gracefully.  Sometimes they don’t.  The Arizona Republic reports today that Gilbert Town Councilman is dropping out of the race for Mayor.  He was second place to top vote-getter John Lewis in the primary, and the two were headed for a May run-off.  Skousen cited health concerns in his family as the reason to exit the race.  I admire a guy who recognizes priorities in life.

Incumbent Mayor, Steve Berman, came in third in the primary and is lashing out in a disappointing, but not surprising way.  He is quoted saying that Skousen is an “unethical flea.” Then he went on:

“He should have said during the primary election that he was running to pull votes away from me to help someone else get elected,” Berman said. “He bastardized the electoral process. Lewis comes into office under a cloud with the question of what would have happened if we had had a real election.”

Berman needs to take a deep breath and recognize that there isn’t some grand conspiracy against him.  He had a long run as mayor, and people want a change in direction.  The absurdity of Berman’s quote is that even if EVERY Skousen vote had gone to Berman, Berman would have still lost to Lewis.  Lewis received nearly 42% of the vote, Skousen got 20% and Berman got 16%. 

The truth of it is that had Skousen not been in the race, Lewis would have won the seat outright with more than 50% of the vote.  There is no cloud following John Lewis, it is the bright sunshine of a new day.

Either way, Berman is gone, which given his propensity to create negative drama, is a very good thing.

John Lewis was the top vote-getter for Mayor of Gilbert today, with more than 40 percent of the vote in a race that was supposed to be close.  Second place for a spot in the run-off is Don Skousen with about 20 percent of the vote.  Incumbent Mayor Steve Berman came in third with about 18 percent.

I have not blogged about the Gilbert race because I am the general consultant for Lewis and I have kept clients out of my blog to this point.  But I’m a happy camper tonight.  This shows what a real grassroots campaign can do to cut through the noise of a crowded field.  There were a few super stars (other than John and his wife LaCinda) who made this happen: Chad Heywood, who managed the campaign, Jill Geigle and Lori Wood who repeated their stellar performance from the Yes on 102 campaign to make sure that the volunteer phone banks never went quiet and Miranda Culver who helped keep the volunteers coming to the phones.

I can’t tell you how many times I have sat in campaign meetings, seminars, candidate trainings, etc. and heard high-priced “expert” consultants dismiss the importance of phone banks in campaigns.  I have always enjoyed the vindication of wins that come from not straying from that strategy.  It got John Shadegg elected in his first primary, it got Tom Coburn elected to the U.S. Senate, it pushed the Prop. 102 initiative into double digits, and now it put John Lewis firmly in the pole position for the run-off.

John is a stellar candidate, a wonderful man, and he’s going to make a fantastic Mayor.