And the NO VOTE has it!!

[Teresa]

I'm totally with the yes people, but man did they do a piss poor job of selling the idea. You would think people so concerned with education would spend more time trying to educate the electorate, patiently I might add. That's not how it happened.

Where were you? The Kids Before Politics Campaign was excellent. The message was loud and clear in our community with positive messages all the way around. Lots of discussion online, including here but on many other places on fb and local news sites. Letters to editors. Billboard, mail out, and the YES team took their message to several public meetings to provide information and answer questions.

The campaign was extrememely positive, supported by teachers, supported by good people from all sides, as it was not a political left v. right issue ... it didn't use fear or patriotism or twist any of the facts. Straight up honest and excellent info, the way I would love to see all campaigns!

 

[Leader of the Banned]

It's easy to blame everyone but one's self when your tactics fail miserably. The whole rationale behind this was "If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand". Plenty of preaching to the choir. That's no way to win.

 

[30A Skunkape]

It's easy to blame everyone but one's self when your tactics fail miserably. The whole rationale behind this was "If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand". Plenty of preaching to the choir. That's no way to win.

What you need to think about is that the organizers and active members of "yes" were not many in number, campaign naive, without deep pockets and not able to devote 24/7 to the effort due to work, etc.

I was involved and can honestly say that the only way this thing would have turned out differently, and by differently I mean a closer contest, would have been to literally press the flesh of hundreds of people, flip their no vote to yes and then motivate them to go vote. That kind of manpower simply didn't exist (too bad you didn't volunteer to help!).

'No' had a huge advantage in that all they really had to do to win this referendum was to let the north county voters know that 'yes' was a liberal scheme meant to take away their voting rights. Boy, did that strategy strike paydirt! Believe it or not, we did make an effort to participate in some forums in Defuniak, but the reception was so hostile it became obvious that it was a waste of time. I guess a fair comparison would be a GOP presidential nominee attending the NAACP convention to win votes...just not going to happen. In fact, we made the decision to not participate in the Liberty and Red Bay events the weekend prior to the election. Considering the rhetoric we heard was being thrown around up there in our abscence, combined with a Saddam Husseinesque vote margin in the Liberty precincts of 90.3% voting 'no', we probably made a reasonable call.

Our strategy was to try to get the vote out heavy south of the bay and communicate the message of why folks should be voting Yes, dominate SOWAL, break even in Freeport and were just hoping to preserve body and soul in the north end on election day and pray to get about 40% of the vote up there.

We can always second guess what we did, but given the limited media (and apparent lack of interest in said media to report on the topic), money and warm bodies, it was a huge challenge. I'm not sure anyone could have done much different to change the outcome considering the fact that Yes got stomped in early voting then saw 3900 voters show up in NORWAL on election day compared to 2113 in SOWAL.

And while we did get demolished in total votes, I will take some solace in that we probably did have a large role in getting a 20.7% primary turnout in SOWAL compared to 11% in 2012. I will also assure you, despite being so very short on experience and money, we scared the poo out of some of the usual suspect good ol' boys. One fellow I know that is a big landowner and in the inner sanctum of the "machine" confided in me a king GOB personally called him and told him he needed to "get 30 friends to go vote for a certain BCC candidate and No on the referendum". I'm pretty sure this was the same guy who dropped a $10k donation into the Small Business Association PAC to fund the defense of the elected superintendent. Despite that, we still basically dueled them to a draw in the only part of the county that was contested (SOWAL), with that crew nosing us out by 3.6% of the vote, and we did win Rosemary's precinct and played a big part in getting the voters out to the location with the most ballots cast countywide (Santa Rosa Beach).


So we lost this election. Life goes on. Looking back on it, and having actually been present to see how this board was set up, I can honestly tell you we were in a chess position of having a pawn and king left while the other side had a queen, bishops, rooks and knights intact. But we got many people paying attention, and that is what really matters in the grand scheme of things. I think many folks in SOWAL, including those who voted no may be surprised and frankly disturbed to see the level of contempt our end of the county is held in by our northern neighbors. The numbers don't lie, neither do all the letters to the editor of the Defuniak paper regarding 'outsiders' moving here and screwing up the county values and such other backwards thinking.

I'm optimistic for our county's future, even if our school system lags behind the times. Stay tuned

 

[Leader of the Banned]

You would have done much better if you had articulated a clear message about why an appointed superintendent would be superior. I'll bet a lot of people don't really even know what a superintendent's duties are. You ought to address that first, get people really up to speed. Too many assumptions were made about people's depth of knowledge on this subject, but it's a "no-brainer" right? Then when you have major mouthpieces calling people ignorant and stupid (or implying) for not knowing these things, voters are not going to be too eager to ask a whole lot of questions. That doesn't help the cause at all.

 

[John G]

The point of the Yes vote was made and heard loud and clear!

Turtle wins race...

 

[DaleDalbey]

You would have done much better if you had articulated a clear message about why an appointed superintendent would be superior. I'll bet a lot of people don't really even know what a superintendent's duties are. You ought to address that first, get people really up to speed. Too many assumptions were made about people's depth of knowledge on this subject, but it's a "no-brainer" right? Then when you have major mouthpieces calling people ignorant and stupid (or implying) for not knowing these things, voters are not going to be too eager to ask a whole lot of questions. That doesn't help the cause at all.

I read your posts regularly. They are almost always well reasoned and thoughtful. I wish you had signed on to share your political wisdom with the group during the early stages of this effort . No doubt we could have used it. Posting your strategy now just looks like Monday morning quarterbacking. You are much better than that.

 

[Jdarg]

You would have done much better if you had articulated a clear message about why an appointed superintendent would be superior. I'll bet a lot of people don't really even know what a superintendent's duties are. You ought to address that first, get people really up to speed. Too many assumptions were made about people's depth of knowledge on this subject, but it's a "no-brainer" right? Then when you have major mouthpieces calling people ignorant and stupid (or implying) for not knowing these things, voters are not going to be too eager to ask a whole lot of questions. That doesn't help the cause at all.

And when you have special interests, people with personal agendas, and fringy conservatives whipping up the base with scare tactics and wrapping the flag around the issue (that was brilliant, I will give them that!), there wasn't much we could do short of calling people unpatriotic if they didn't vote yes, or have Jesus himself send a sign. It does make me happy that at least 25% of the population here understands the issue, and that number is certainly going to grow.

I think I am going to file to run for superintendent, and there are about 25 others who are going to do the same (I think one already has?). After all, we are all 18 and live in Walton County. This next election is going to be a 3 ring circus! Won't it be great to have a 5 page ballot? None of us are serious about running, we just want to play the silly Walton County politics game. Of course we will also have a list of basic qualifications that none of us will satisfy, but really, who cares as long as the Walton a County voters get to vote on....an administrator, instead of voting on policy makers, like everyone else does.

 

[Leader of the Banned]

Isn't there also a problem at the state level? Is it true that Florida doesn't require certification for superintendent? If so, shouldn't that be addressed somehow?

 

[Leader of the Banned]

I read your posts regularly. They are almost always well reasoned and thoughtful. I wish you had signed on to share your political wisdom with the group during the early stages of this effort . No doubt we could have used it. Posting your strategy now just looks like Monday morning quarterbacking. You are much better than that.

Why? I didn't understand this issue very well then and I still don't. I'm one of the people I'm referring to. Some of it is finally starting to sink in. The only strategy I could have suggested then, and I'm suggesting it now, is stop being such a bunch of dicks.

 

[DaleDalbey]

Why? I didn't understand this issue very well then and I still don't. I'm one of the people I'm referring to. Some of it is finally starting to sink in. The only strategy I could have suggested then, and I'm suggesting it now, is stop being such a bunch of dicks.

I stand corrected. I thought you were normally a class act. Clearly I was incorrect.