Dan Besse & other Dems Win in Winston-Salem

Submitted by Jake on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 7:02am

All Republican challengers to council lost, including a stealth write-in campaign against Molly Leight in the South ward. Blue NC member Dan Besse (SW), successful Democratic primary challengers Derwin Montgomery (E) and James Taylor (SE), unopposed Democratic Mayor Allen Joines, and the other Democratic nominees for council in NE, N, NW, and S wards won. West ward is still held by a Republican who ran unopposed.

The incumbents were weighed down by screwups in the financing of the baseball stadium, the incentive package to recently departed Dell, and a bunch of pissed-off new residents in annexed areas. Despite this perfect storm of local reactionary fervor combined with the national teabagger craze, conservatives made exactly zero gains in W-S.

To make it worse for them, all those teabaggers' heads are currently exploding over NY-23. Though I'd trade that for Maine Q1 anyday.

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Dan Besse is as good as they get

Submitted by James on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 7:51am.

Congratulations, Dan. And thanks for standing tall for we the people. It gives me hope when great people like you and Gordon Smith and Mark Kleinschmidt and Anthony Foxx can carry the day in this crazy state of ours.

Richard Burr's hometown is the bluest in the state.

Submitted by Frank Eaton on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 10:11am.

Not many people think of Winston-Salem, Richard Burr's hometown, as the Democratic redoubt that it is. But unless I'm mistaken, we vote Democrat more reliably than any other city in North Carolina.

We have an incredible Democratic Mayor in Allen Joines. He's entering his third term after running unopposed for the second time.

We have veteran Democratic incumbents Wanda Merschel, Vivian Burke, Molly Leight and the truly irreplaceable Dan Besse.

They are joined by DD Adams, a veteran community organizer who will surely be a dominant personality in city politics from here on; Derwin Montgomery, a senior at Winston-Salem State who proved that students didn't vanish in a puff of smoke after the 2008 election; and my friend James Taylor, a juvenile court counselor who will bring an understanding of street level neighborhood issues we've sorely needed.

(And you know what? The one Republican on our board is an alright guy, too.)

That's 8 to 1, Democrats to Republicans on the Winston-Salem City Council. We have the lowest taxes and fees of any large North Carolina city. For the most part we have zoning on lock-down, making our neighborhoods and green spaces off-limits to invasive development (thanks, Dan). Our progressive leadership is approachable and supportive of innovative ideas in the businesses of the arts, sciences and entertainment.

And now that we've been reminded that the voters of this city GET IT, we'll turn our energies to Richard Burr's homecoming. Just one year from today...

I wish it was true at higher levels too

Submitted by Jake on Wed, 11/04/2009 - 11:09am.

It doesn't help that county commission and school board districts, along with state and federal legislative districts, are gerrymandered like crazy. County government has two districts--a mainly minority one with 2 seats on each board including central and east W-S, and a mainly white one including everywhere else with 4 seats. Commission has 1 at large member and school board has 3. The representation of the districts is (roughly) proportional to population, but it's not right that a majority of commission seats and 4 of 9 school board seats come from a single district.

I grew up there, and wish I could be as enthusiastic about the place as Frank. While it's heartening to see the effort put into revitalizing downtown, there is a very long way to go to heal the damage sprawl has caused in the other parts of the city, and building the northern beltway is not going to help at all.

Thanks.

Submitted by Dan Besse on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 11:29am.

Thanks for the good word everyone.

If it wasn't obvious, a tough re-election campaign is why I've been completely MIA from BNC for the past months.

For your entertainment, I will try to get around to putting up some post-election analysis on WS sometime in the next couple of weeks. I'd do it today, but the backlog here is daunting.

Thanks again.

Dan Besse

So good to see you.

Submitted by James on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 12:05pm.

I hope you'll take a minute to send your thoughts directly to Larry.

Forsyth County

Submitted by XTalkerNC2 on Thu, 11/05/2009 - 12:43pm.

While the city council in Winston-Salem is 8-1 Democratic, the Republicans control the Forsyth COunty Commission and the Winston-Salem/Forsyth COunty Board of Education. Republicans also dominate the county's legislative delegation. What's that about?