Why Cy Sun was elected

This is just my opinion, but it’s based on my success at being resoundingly elected in 2001 and 2003. (By the way, I’m not running for office; I don’t live in Pacific any more.) In 2001 I defeated a recently-appointed incumbent with what I recall as a 65 percent plurality. I campaigned with newsletters and hand-made campaign signs, some of which were abstract or had hand-scrawled messages. Two years later I was re-elected with about 62 percent of the vote without using any signs at all.

First principal: If you can fog a mirror, you can probably garner at least 20 percent of the vote. Two candidates would account for at least 40 percent of the vote. You are therefore fighting for the middle 60 percent. If you are good at arithmetic, you realize that my 65 percent plurality meant I captured 75 percent of the votes that were up for grabs. I was stunned. What I learned leads to the second principal.

Second principal:  Voters are not stupid or lazy. More likely, they are tired of the same old slogans. Signs don’t normally persuade. They just tell voters the election is coming. Standard canned literature and slogans probably are not very effectively either. I think these tire and insult the voters. I sent a personal statement of my aspirations and vision to voters, engaging their intelligence. I think they liked that.

I think by being on the ballot (Note: See closing comment below.), Cy Sun already claimed a chunk of the middle ground. And he added to that a message that engaged the voters. Pacific residents were well aware of the scandals and controversy surrounding the city’s public safety director and were aware that this had been going on for some time. A reasonable question was, why wasn’t this fixed? Cy Sun had an answer that resonated: corruption. It just made sense. Why else would the scandals go unpunished?

For years the public had listened to Mr. Hildreth extol his virtues, while many noticed that he tended to eclipse anyone else who had something to say. He’s not famous for giving credit to anybody. And then, when Cy Sun distributed campaign literature criticizing the city, Mr. Hildreth showed his true colors by sending  the police to Mr. Sun’s home. 

When police officers followed an attorney’s instructions to prevent Mr. Sun from destroying public records, I don’t think that’s Gestapo tactics. The demeanor of the young men involved seemed to be highly respectful, and it looked like they wanted to be anywhere else but where they were. But when police were sent to intimidate Mr. Sun over his pointed election literature, they were way beyond any reasonable use of police power, and the Gestapo label fit like a glove. Richard Hildreth was out of line and the police command staff should have referred the mayor to the city attorney.

Regarding Mr. Jones, he appears to have cultivated an appearance of quiet responsibility, offering only a change of faces, but no changes in policy. His failure to reign in Mr. Hildreth’s misuse of a city credit card reinforced that sense of no change, particularly when police review was twisted to imply that Mr. Hildreth had been exonerated. It doesn’t matter that Mr. Hildreth's fans bought that notion of exoneration; what matters is that the middle ground was shifting toward "anybody but Rich."

 When the city council converted the public safety director’s position to civil service, it had the appearance of protecting an overpaid controversial public figure, and Mr. Jones could have raised the issue that the civil service commission was not properly informed of the conversion. If he did make an issue of it, it was so low key as to be forgotten. While Mr. Hildreth’s message was all about himself, Mr. Jone’s message seemed to be that he didn’t have a message, and wasn’t trying very hard.

Cy Sun wanted the job, and his message wasn’t about himself. It was about the issues that had people scratching their heads. He had an  answer that explained what was happening. While it’s unfortunate that he’s not the man for the job, this has been an object lesson on the arithmetic of elections and why public officials have to keep in mind one simple rule: You snooze, you lose. 

(Closing note: Yikes! After publishing the above, I just remembered: Cy Sun never made it onto the ballot. He was a write-in! He didn't start with 20 percent of the votes. He started with zero. How embarrassing. It's embarrassing for me that I said it wrong, and especially embarrassing for two people with name recognition and the power of office to be whipped by a newcomer whose only apparent skill was gumption and whose main resource was voter resentment.)