By JOSH RESNEK
Primary Day does not lie.
The totals may exaggerate situations, but the vote totals are real.
The results aren’t quite automatic but then again, they are.
This is to say, this year’s primary is very likely as good as the election, and the outcome, whatever it is, will not change much on November 2.
This is being written the day before the primary election.
The day before an election is a sobering moment for everyone involved.
Let’s look at all three mayoral candidates.
Mayor Carlo DeMaria has worked hard and done everything right – except for threatening people who do not display his signs in front of their homes or business or forcing those who supported Fred Capone or Gerly Adrien to remove their signs and to replace them with his – or else!
The mayor has put up hundreds and hundreds of signs.
If signs voted, there would be no need for a primary or an election.
He is the king of signs.
Signs are about perception.
If signs alone were a measure of who is going to win or to win big, then the mayor’s signage would lead most sensible people to believe you cannot beat all the signs he has.
The mayor has also used city resources to his advantage for political campaigning purposes. City employees hold signs repeatedly. City employees make twice-yearly contributions.
City employees form the core of the mayor’s vote.
However, many believe the mayor has lost the city employee vote, that many city employees are tired of having to do as he says or face termination.
Then there is the general voter population which has changed dramatically during the past four years and might not produce the effect the mayor is expecting.
Then there is the discontent with having the same guy in the same place for so long.
Many, it appears, want a change.
There’s a great deal of negative talk about the mayor that seems to be colliding with those who support him blindly. His core vote is not larger this time around. It is smaller.
It could be a primary that connotes change or maybe not.
The mayor has campaigned across the city. He’s done what he has to do.
The only question is, to what end?
Does he win big? Does win small? Does he win at all? I’ll tell you Wednesday in the paper.
Enter Fred Capone to the contest.
Since May, Capone has run almost maniacally across the city knocking on more doors than all three candidates.
Many say he is going to reap the benefits of all that hard work – and this includes local pols who claim to know what they are talking about.
Many said closer to primary day that the momentum is with him.
We shall soon find out.
Capone has taken the so-called high road. Not much criticism of the mayor, rather, the hyping of himself as the honest, moral, man of integrity if that’s what you’re looking for in Everett city government.
We shall soon find out exactly how many voters are looking for a change or in fact whether or not this is a year for change.
Gerly Adrien has also made a long-term citywide campaign to get herself elected the first female and Black mayor in the city’s history.
She has campaigned to organize her perceived vote and to bring it out on primary day.
Can she do this?
Yes.
Will this be done?
Remains to be seen.
And what if it does happen?
Then the mayor is in a vote squeeze being pressed on the one hand by Capone’s ability to erode the mayor’s vote and then add to this Adrien’s ability to the same.
What does all this add up to?
Check our front page today and you will note exactly what happened.