Everyone it is time we move forward and join together. For the first time both north and south are on the same page. Let us all work together and move forward. We don't want to roll the clock back. Both camps have some great ideas, so let's show the children and the district that we will look to the future.

Veronica is right, but that doesn't mean we can't analyze the results.

And they're damned hard to analyze. Other than being geographically contiguous, it is difficult to find political or demographic factors that distinguish the Clinkscale/Buford wards from the Downs/Jones wards. Both sides seem to have won a fairly representative cross-section of race and wealth. Ward endorsements carried the day just about half the time: The successful endorsements were in Wards 3, 7, 19 and 28, which carried the incumbents, while Ward 22 backed and carried the challengers. In the 15th, the committeepeople backed the challengers (who carried the ward), while the larger membership organization backed the incumbents (who lost the ward); go figure! State reps Robin Wright Jones and Jeannette Mott Oxford backed the challengers in districts where the incumbents prevailed.

Who can make some sense out of this?

Jake Wagman posted ward by ward percentages on the Political Fix blog. If his numbers are correct, KWMU incorrectly listed Wards 4 and 9 with the incumbents, when they actually split: Both went for Buford, but not Clinkscale, with Jones carrying the 4th and Downs carrying the 9th. Obviously both wards were really close among all 4 candidates.

The contest was very competitive everywhere. None of the four major candidates got less as little as 15% or as much as 31% in any ward. (Since voters got 2 votes, it would be more realistic to double all percentages.)

What perhaps is most interesting - the incumbents did well in the areas within the ACC distribution area. This little newspaper is getting some traction.

To address Oracle, the numbers I got show ward 4 with Buford winning (24%) & Clinkscale getting one more vote than Jones (338-337), with Downs 4th at 300.

In Ward 9, Clinkscale won with 245 votes, followed by Buford and Downs both with 252, and Jones wiht 227.

Therefore, I stand by my numbers but agree both were very close.

To correct my previous posting, Ward 9 was a split, but Ward 4 was not, according to my numbers.

Our website has an update to include a list of votes per ward,

http://publicbroadcasting.net/kwmu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=898714