September 21 is Primary day, cast a ballot, it’s your right, select 2 candidates
By JOSH RESNEK
Barring the unforeseen consequences of last-minute revelations and surprises, very little the candidates do at this point will change many hearts and minds of enough voters to make a difference next Tuesday.
Most of the voters who will come out have already made up their minds.
All three mayoral candidates have identified their respective votes.
The job of them getting them all to vote in next Tuesday’s primary is what matters most.
On Tuesday night at about 8:30 p.m., the city’s voters will have chosen the finalists for the November election.
This is to say, about 5,200 to 5,500 of the city’s estimated 23,000 registered voters will decide who is running in the November election.
Who will it be?
Will it be the mayor and Gerly Adrien?
Will it be the mayor and Fred Capone?
Will it be Adrien and Capone?
What matters most about the final outcome on September 21 is who scores the biggest vote and how close was the second-place finisher?
If the mayor tops the ticket by a wide margin and Adrien is second, can she overcome not only the wide margin but the question about what Capone voters will likely do?
If the mayor wins by a wide margin over either of these two beating him is problematic but not impossible.
If Adrien tops the ticket and the mayor comes in second by a wide margin or even by a slim margin, there is the belief held among the political know-it-alls here that the mayor is likely done – finished.
The same is said about a result that has Capone topping the ticket and the mayor coming in second.
He is, again, likely finished with an outcome like that.
But what happens if the mayor is bounced in the primary, that his time is proven to have come, that the people reject his leadership and send him packing?
Can this happen?
Only God knows and he isn’t saying.
It is an impossible thing to predict history before it happens.
What if Capone and Adrien come in one and two or vice versa?
What then?
Who would become the favorite to win in a battle between these two city leaders, one, an educated successful Haitian Black woman and the other a white, Italian lawyer?
Only the most foolish and blind among us would predict that DeMaria is going to lose – after all – he refers to himself as the mayor forever.
Then again, with about one week until the election, the mayor might have already lost as not much is going to change between now and election day except perhaps the mayor’s treachery against the city clerk being further revealed and impacting negatively on the mayor before the primary.
Could further revelations about how he took $96,000 from Cornelio prove to be decisive for the mayor and his opponents?
We will find this out next week.