In politics, one often hears of a pendulum, which swings left and right but in theory is best for the greatest number of voters when it approaches the center.
Last week, Whitefish’s city council and mayor elections produced a decisive swing to the left, and one of the winning candidates, John Anderson, says the pendulum is now comfortably resting near the middle, where it should be.
“I don’t think the pendulum has swung too far to one side and, frankly, I think it’s been re-centered,” Anderson said. “And I think that’s the direction people want to go.”
Even Phil Mitchell, an outspoken fiscal conservative who currently sits on the council, said the new council strikes a fair balance between liberal and conservative, which means a diverse cross-section of residents will be represented.
“It will be a kind of even council,” Mitchell said. “It’s going to really force us to work together. It could be a challenge.”
Mitchell, who supported the losing candidates, distributed mailers in the run-up to the election campaigning against three of the candidates who ended up winning. He doesn’t anticipate any tension now that they will all sit on the council together.
“It will be give and take,” he said. “We all have to give a little and we all have to take a little to get some solutions. To be honest, if it’s going to be left and right, it’s going to be a long two years.”
Anderson and Richard Hilder were the top vote getters in the Nov. 8 Whitefish City Council elections with 1,316 votes apiece, according to unofficial Flathead County Election Department figures. Frank Sweeney snagged the third open seat on the six-member council with 1,263 votes.
John Muhlfeld handily beat Turner Askew 1,481 to 682 in the mayor’s race. Both Muhlfeld and Askew are current councilors.
“To say I was disappointed would be an understatement, but the voters have spoken and so be it,” Askew said. “I wish John Muhlfeld all the success in the world.”
Vail and Wise garnered 1,057 and 1,014 votes, respectively, while Life Noell finished with 503 to round out the council field. Whitefish, once again using a mail-in ballot system, had a 53 percent voter turnout, by far the best of the three Flathead County cities that held elections.
“Obviously I was disappointed,” Wise said. “But I was excited about the big voter turnout. People in Whitefish need to pat themselves on the back for that.”
The election was a reversal of sorts from the 2009 election, when Mitchell, Bill Kahle and Chris Hyatt were swept into office with right-leaning support. The candidate who received the fewest votes that year and failed to grab one of the three open seats was Sweeney.
Sweeney said “it made all the difference in the world” to have Muhlfeld, Anderson and Hildner on the ballot this time around. Also, Sweeney believes voters were turned off by some of the controversial outside campaigning, which included mailers directed at him.
“A lot of the negative stuff that was out there wasn’t for anybody; it was just against me or Richard and Muhlfeld,” Sweeney said. “I think Whitefish isn’t that way and I think people didn’t appreciate that and they reacted to it.”
During the 2009 election, Sweeney was often the sole subject of political literature distributed by Rick Blake, a wealthy philanthropist who has been active in city politics in recent years. This year, Blake again zeroed in on Sweeney, along with Muhlfeld and Hildner, though Sweeney thought the tone of the mailers was different.
“It was not nearly as personally destructive as we’ve seen in the past couple elections,” Sweeney said.
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John Muhlfeld, front, thanks supporters after his Whitefish mayoral election victory announcement at the Great Northern Bar and Grill in Whitefish. |
Blake told the Beacon last week he spent $22,786 on this year’s elections, up from $13,266 in 2009. He expressed disappointment in the election results and restated his belief that the winning candidates will spend too much money and get the city involved in lawsuits.
“This group will reverse the progress made on controlling city spending,” Blake said. “They are not taxpayer-friendly. They like to litigate, regulate and spend our money.”
“Having said that,” he added, “I wish each of them the best in their upcoming service to our city and our taxpayers.”
Anderson said the “tax-and-spend label is pure politics.” Pointing to the election results as evidence, he said “voters saw through that.”
“I believe that was political banter,” Anderson said. “That’s all I think it was.”
Of all the candidates, Anderson seemed to be the least pigeonholed by third-party categorizations. Public sentiment, however, generally grouped him with Muhlfeld, Hildner and Sweeney, though he didn’t appear on the mailers alongside those candidates. Anderson said it’s typical in nonpartisan elections for people to try to lump candidates together.
“Frankly, I find myself pretty centered in how I see the world,” he said.
Askew said the doughnut referendum helped the winning candidates by serving as a “rallying cry” for their voting base. The referendum easily passed 1,444 to 738. He said he, Wise and Vail should have done a better job at addressing the referendum by more clearly articulating what he believes are its flaws.
“That was our mistake,” Askew said. “If you look at the numbers for the referendum, the numbers were the same for the candidates who won.”
Wise theorized that the liberal base was better prepared overall for this election than 2009, in terms of “their total approach to the campaign, their get-out-to-vote campaign, mailers and working together as a team.”
“Let’s face it, it’s either Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives,” he said. “Two years ago, the liberals were caught off guard. This time, they were more prepared.”
The new councilors and Muhlfeld will officially take office in January. Given the makeup of the council, Muhlfeld anticipates a number of 3-3 votes, deadlocks that hand him the tiebreaking vote. He points out that the sitting mayor, Mike Jenson, has had quite a few “very important tiebreaking votes,” which is a testament to the current council’s relative balance.
“I’ll be pushing very hard to keep things centered,” Muhlfeld said.
Both Muhlfeld and Anderson stressed the importance of continued interaction with those residents whose candidates lost, which is a road that goes both ways. The elected officials must be attentive to those residents’ concerns, while the residents must do their part by remaining active.
“The folks whose causes or candidates didn’t get elected,” Anderson said, “need to keep speaking up and making sure your voices are heard.”