{"id":6843,"date":"2010-04-28T23:08:10","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T03:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=6843"},"modified":"2010-04-28T23:08:10","modified_gmt":"2010-04-29T03:08:10","slug":"danville-city-council-race-update-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/28\/danville-city-council-race-update-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #7"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Last update: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/22\/danville-city-council-race-update-6-funding\/\">Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #6<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Boom!&#8221; Everything that was known and assumed about the Danville City Council race went &#8220;Boom!&#8221; over the past five days. Let&#8217;s pick up the pieces and see if we can figure out what the heck is going on.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Thursday night, I published &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/22\/potential-change-in-danvilles-mayorship\/\" target=\"_blank\">Potential change in Danville\u2019s mayorship?<\/a>&#8221; here at SouthsideCentral. That was the equivalent of lighting up a big cigar in a fireworks store. I starting getting feedback on the article immediately, so I decided to make that the topic for last Friday night&#8217;s &#8220;Danville Tonight&#8221; StarNews show. FastForward to today and we&#8217;ve now got a sixth candidate in the Danville City Council field. It&#8217;s the &#8220;butterfly effect&#8221; in action.<\/p>\n<p>Neal Morris, former police chief of Danville, has now declared his candidacy as a write-in candidate. Although anyone can be a write-in candidate, you have to file the proper paperwork with the registrar if you&#8217;re going to actively support yourself as a write-in candidate. On today&#8217;s &#8220;Buzz&#8221; show, Morris said that he filed that paperwork today. So what does that mean for the race and the candidates? Let&#8217;s go to a BreakDown.<\/p>\n<p>Incumbents:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Adam Tomer: Tomer has went on record in saying that he&#8217;s not interested in the Vice Mayor position if he wins re-election and that he has not promised my support to anyone for mayor. This statement effectively blows up the plan to unseat Sherman Saunders. Tomer may lose some support from the pro-Campbell voters, but it looks like he&#8217;ll offset that with a strong gain of support from the pro-Saunders voters. Based on Councilman David Luther&#8217;s on-air comments, it&#8217;s a safe assumption that he&#8217;s supporting Tomer as well. Even with those changes in his potential voter base, Adam Tomer is SAFE in this election.<\/li>\n<li>Gary Miller: Miller has played it quietly since out last update, and that&#8217;s not surprising. Miller is also SAFE in this election.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Challengers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Alonzo Jones: Jones has also played it quietly over the past week, and that&#8217;s not surprising either. I&#8217;m not declaring Jones as a lock for this election due to Thomas Motley&#8217;s last-minute push and Morris&#8217; write-in campaign, but Jones remains a strong favorite to win.<\/li>\n<li>John Gilstrap: Gilstrap has consistently had the best campaigning throughout the entire race. He&#8217;s been seen at almost every event with a smile on his face. Gilstrap seems to have across-the-spectrum support from the voters, so I believe that John Gilstrap should win a council seat.<\/li>\n<li>Thomas Motley: Motley&#8217;s got a good support staff behind him, but he&#8217;s got to stay focused to have a chance. Motley got a last-minute infusion of cash into his campaign, so let&#8217;s see how he uses it to get his message out. Motley has declared his support for current mayor Sherman Saunders which should get him some support from voters that wouldn&#8217;t have considered him before. He needs to get that declaration of support out to more people to have a fighting chance.<\/li>\n<li>Neal Morris: Wildcard! Can Neal Morris get the 2000+ write-in votes he needs to win a council seat? In my opinion, it&#8217;s going to be almost impossible to overcome that hurdle with 5 days to go, but in this race, anything truly is possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One trend that we have to watch is the strategies of the voters. You can vote for <em>up to<\/em> four candidates in this race. In previous elections, the predominantly-black precincts have traditionally used bullet voting on the black candidates in the race. (Before anybody tries to jump on me for bringing race into this, they can shove it. The voting records speak for themselves statistically.) It will be very interesting to see if any other voters or voting precincts use that strategy to advance their favored candidate and also to &#8220;vote against everybody else&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>No OddsMakers on this update until I get a community feel on how Neal Morris&#8217; declared write-in candidacy is viewed by the Danville voters. We&#8217;ll have another update coming in a few days.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the silence and a level of denial, I firmly believe that there is\/was an semi-organized effort to make Larry Campbell the new Mayor of Danville. While there&#8217;s absolutely nothing wrong with a competitive race for the city&#8217;s mayorship, having a plan in motion before the city council elections is a start towards a dangerous trend of closed-door &#8220;us-against-them&#8221; partisanship that will be horrible for Danville&#8217;s future.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Last update: Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #6)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Boom!&#8221; Everything that was known and assumed about the Danville City Council race went &#8220;Boom!&#8221; over the past five days. Let&#8217;s pick up the pieces and see if we can figure out what the heck is going on.<\/p>\n<p> [&#8230;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-opinioncentral","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1Mn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6427,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/16\/danville-city-council-race-update-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6843,"position":0},"title":"Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #2","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Update: Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #1 We've had a few surprises but the race picture is getting clearer. Somewhat. Let's take a look at the incumbents: Gary Miller - He's in the race. You can read his kickoff speech here. Wayne Oakes - Surprisingly (to me), he's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6709,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/04\/danville-city-council-race-update-4\/","url_meta":{"origin":6843,"position":1},"title":"Danville City Council Race &#8211; Update #4","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"(Last update - Danville City Council Race - Update #3) We're about one month away from the general election for Danville's City Council. So, has anything changed? Any big moves? Any buzz out on the streets? The answer to those questions is \"Not really.\" but the next few weeks should\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;OpinionCentral&quot;","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6492,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/02\/danville-city-council-race-update-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":6843,"position":2},"title":"Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #3","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The deadline's passed and the field is set. Let's see what's Danville's looking at for the May 5th elections. There will be five candidates on the ballot for four available seats. With Wayne Oakes & Ruby Archie not running for re-election, there will be at least two new members on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6802,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/20\/danville-city-council-race-update-5\/","url_meta":{"origin":6843,"position":3},"title":"Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #5","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"(Last update - Danville City Council Race \u2013 Update #4) The candidate forums are now finished, and it's time to see what the five candidates for the four Danville City Council seats have to do to win. 14 days to go before Election Day, and the City Council race is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5453,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/03\/danville-city-sheriffs-race-update-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6843,"position":4},"title":"Danville City Sheriff\u2019s Race \u2013 Update #2","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Update: Danville City Sheriff\u2019s Race \u2013 Update #1 We're right at the 30-day mark until the election, so let's see what's happening in this race. News: Mike Mondul seems to have the front-runner status, but Thelbert Childress is starting to get his campaign rolling along. Wayne Booth has increased\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6192,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/17\/danville-city-council-race-update-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":6843,"position":5},"title":"Danville City Council Race &#8211; Update #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"January 17, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Four Danville City Council seats will be up for grabs on May 4th. Since the Register & Bee has started the ball rolling with an article about the race, let's start drilling down into some scenarios and play with some speculation. First, let's see who's up for re-election. Gary Miller\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Danville&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}