Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Stealth candidate fails in Solon

Stealth candidate fails in Solon

Not a shocker in Iowa City's school board race yesterday. Patti Fields and Liz Crooks will be nice additions to the board, and I hope Jerry Gilmere gives it another shot.

The fireworks were in Solon where challenger David Asprey, one of the leaders of last year's attempt to toss some gay-tolerant texts out of the classroom, narrowly lost to incumbent Dick Schwab. Schwab has been an outstanding community leader, both on the school board and in the community, and it's disappointing that Asprey even came close.

A couple interesting things in the returns: while the correlation isn't exact by precinct, it's remarkable that the Schwab vote was so close to the YES vote on the funding measures. Perhaps the twin Republican agenda of Bible-thumping and tax-cutting was at work. It's just weird that a district that voted 71% yes on a major bond for a new high school five years ago just barely passed a routine school levy yesterday.

It's also funny to watch Clear Creek-Amana for the remarkable unanimity with which Amana voters seem to vote. This time they outvoted Oxford and send a former board member back after a one year absence.

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