I’m watching in the aftermath of the Sioux Falls School Board election, and seeing that a former educator (Marc Murren) and incumbent (Kate Parker) won the evening. And I’m not surprised.
Of the winning candidates, Murrren seemed to have broad based community support and consistent branding.
Kate Parker seemed to have phoned it in, but as the incumbent you can do that. But, it also showed with how close Anthony Pizer came to her vote total, with Parker coming in second at 2322, and Pizer at 2120, just 202 votes shy.
Pizer seems to have had a clear message, as well as fairly good support. But I think I would have made that logo bigger on the sign. Subtlety has no place in a political campaign.
Looking at materials from others in the race, I saw awful yard signs, inconsistent logo use, and a few other missteps which did not help them.
Paulette Ludens had an ok and readable logo, and seemed to use them consistently.
But then from her facebook, I can see she also had nice 3-inch buttons. Which for what she spent on them, she could have bought door hangers. In fact, if you look at the news story on what candidates spent – at $1320 in campaign spending, you can see one reason things did not gel for her at all.
In addition to being underfunded, and possibly under-advertised (at $2185 in expenditures) Cory Begley’s campaign might have been hurt by the fact he kept shifting his branding. Because his design work just seems to have been a hot mess, with at least THREE different logos..
with the campaign choosing the worst one for their yard sign..
Sorry guys, but is someone supposed to be able to read any of that while going by at 25 m.p.h? Because all they’re seeing is a star, a name with an odd & stretched font that’s challenging to read, and some other stuff they can’t make out.
Design sins aside, it’s pretty apparent that to be serious in a Sioux Falls School Board race, just to meet the basics to fully cover the land area and to cut through the competing chatter, they need to plan on raising/spending $15-20,000.
I agree with your assessment of the proper budget for a SF School Board campaign. When I ran in 1999, I based my budget on “How much should I plan to spend per voter to reach them X number of times using these named strategies (mail, signs, radio, etc.). I then took the voter registration list and identified who actually votes in school board races – a small subset of total registered voters and a small subset of those who vote in general and statewide elections. In fact, I found that half of my 11 (!) opponents hadn’t voted in a single school board election in the preceding four years! BTW, I came in second out of 12 candidates for the one open seat.
What’s more, it turned out that one of my opponents hadn’t voted in Minnehaha County because he was also registered in Lyman County and did all his voting there. He lived in Sioux Falls but owned land in Lyman County and voted there to protect his property interests, he said. I am assuming that subsequent automation of voter registration has enabled the SD Sec’y of State to better identify dual or multiple county registrations of the same voter.
Excellent analysis & critique.
PP said: ” to be serious in a Sioux Falls School Board race, just to meet the basics to fully cover the land area and to cut through the competing chatter, they need to plan on raising/spending $15-20,000.”
Sad but true.
As we know DWC’s interest lies mostly in campaign advertisement/signage. Why no critique for Kate’s signage choice? Did she even bother with that aspect?
What I find more interesting is that the Education Association endorsed and the SF residents elected someone who, when asked, “How would improve STEM offerings and performance in the district?”, responded with, “What’s STEM?”
what I think was interesting was that the two candidates favored by the 2 Republican women’s groups in Sioux Falls did not garner as many votes between the two of them (1847 + 1661=3508) as the top vote getter who received 3522.
The ladies need to do better. If they are going to support candidates they need to do more than clap prettily at lunch and dinner meetings. Get off yet butts, girls!
Here’s another *possibility.* Let’s say 3600 Republicans, 2000 Dems, and 500 independents voted. Each could vote for two candidates. Most R’s & some independents supported Murren, giving him the solid win. But with their second vote, half the Republicans supported Cory and half supported Paulette. The right-leaning vote was divided among 3 candidates, whereas the liberal vote was concentrated on two. Hence, liberals re-elected Kate, despite bringing far fewer voters to the polls. Fielding 3 republican candidates for 2 seats was a tactical error — one the left adroitly avoided by having one withdraw from the race.
When you say: “The ladies need to do better. If they are going to support candidates they need to do more than clap prettily at lunch and dinner meetings. Get off yet butts, girls!”
Which two womens’ groups are you hectoring? Minnehaha Lincoln? did they endorse?
“Why no critique for Kate’s signage choice? Did she even bother with that aspect?”
I didn’t see any signs out for her. Were they terrible? Honest question.
The Far Left will continue to win the Sioux Falls school board elections as long as the elections continue to be held separately from the other elections. The Republicans in the state legislature need to put a stop to that practice. The voter turnout was only 5%, which means that the teachers, their spouses, and their union allies were sure to win.
I agree; why not have them at the same time? If there is a legitimate reason let me know, and there may well be.
As I am sending all my kids to private school starting this Fall, I don’t have to contend with the public schools, but I still want the schools to produce good citizens who actually have an education when they get out.
Oh get off your partisan high horse. How do you sleep at night with this fear of “The Far Left”? Maybe you can come up with some way to suppress voters who don’t think like you.
Which of the candidates who were elected were far left and what ideals do they espouse that lead you to label them as such?
“The Far Left” will continue to dominate education as long as the conservatives fail to show up.
Voter turnout was 5.13%
6,133 voters showed up out of 119,411 registered voters.
The Sioux Falls school district has over 1800 teachers. if you figure each one of them has a Significant Other, that’s 3,600 voters right there who bothered to show up.
Minnehaha County has 52,226 registered Republican voters. The election results reveal that the Republicans DIDN’T SHOW UP.
It doesn’t matter when the school board elections are held. The simple fact of it is that the Republicans, many of whom can be heard frequently complaining about the state of education, the liberal agenda, the appalling 30% remediation rate of incoming freshmen at our public colleges and universities, DIDN’T SHOW UP.
The old adage that “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world” has been replaced by “it takes a village to raise a child.”
Parents and grandparents have been replaced by professional educators, because the world is run by the people who SHOW UP. The educators showed up, and the parents and grandparents didn’t. Period.
Ann Anonymous:
Ironic and hilarious you’d mention “voter suppression” in this context since the reason the school board keeps a separate election is to suppress voter turnout.
They need to change the vote date on both city and school board elections. This is done to suppress the vote. Change to 2 or 4 tear terms from 3. Easy fix and encourages voter participation.
Troy, if your Republican Legislature wanted to change that they’d find a way.
Weak dodge of your hypocrisy.
And ironic, instead of you exercising your free speech to condemn the school board which has the power to change their election schedule in two weeks, you advocate less local control to be exercised by Republicans.
Hypocrite on voter suppression in rhetoric and worse, complacent on voter suppression in action. Talk about phony.
Hmm. I didn’t advocate for a change in schedule, it was someone else. It was also someone else who first mentioned the Legislature should take that option away. Really all I’ve stated so far is that instead of bringing this fear of “the radical left” into elections that are supposed to be non-partisan, which is why they’re separate, maybe people should just go vote.