Among the postmortem takeaways and failed predictions associated with the 2015 Culver City United School District Board of Education race was the convincing win by school board –elect member Kelly Kent, the repeat of an online campaign to discredit certain candidates and the strategy that the $106 million capital bond would be the topic that most votes cared about.
Political strategist Jewett Walker Jr. said the slate of school- board member elect Anne Burke and Scott McVarish did not have a message that resonated with the electorate on Nov. 4 and voters rewarded political newcomer Kent for running an issue-oriented campaign.
Walker, who was not affiliated with any campaign, called the decision by parent group United Parents of Culver City-backed candidates Scott McVarish and board member-elect Anne Burke to make the election a referendum on the bond showed a striking disconnect with what the electorate wanted to hear from the candidates.
“The bond measure passed almost 18 months ago. Why were they talking about it in this election?” asked Walker, who has managed municipal and statewide campaigns.
Kent, who won the most votes in her first run for office, echoed Walker on the election night. “I really think that was a bad strategy. At the [school] district level, the bond is very important but it wasn’t so much to voters,” she said.
Walker said one of Kent’s campaign mailer listing her priorities regarding academic instruction was a critical factor in her victory. “That resonated with people. In school board races, people want to hear what you’re going to do for their kids,” he said. “[The slate] focused on the bond to the detriment of all other issues that people care about.”
In the aftermath of the election, supporters of McVarish and Burke took to online blogs to lament “bullet voting,” where a voter makes a conscience choice to vote for only some candidates or measures on a ballot and not all of them. One Kent critic, who unsuccessfully tried to derail her campaign by manufacturing a controversy about her alleged decision not to place her hand over her heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, lamented, “Locally, citizens voted, not for the best team, but mostly for the candidate they wanted to see on the board,” without offering any empirical data.
Walker said sour grapes ruminations after an election are typical but added that bullet voting, to the extent that it occurred, proved to be a winning strategy due to the number of candidates, open seats and the fact that Burke and McVarish chose to run together. “When you run as a slate, it dilutes the vote when there are only three candidates and two seats,” Walker explained.
He also thought the McVarish-Burke team was hurt by former school board member Laura Chardiet’s decision to appear in campaign literature as well as place a last minute robo call to voters three days before the election. Chardiet, whose tenure on the board ended on Nov. 10, was the duo’s campaign manager.
“That was amateur hour. I’ve never seen that before in my life,” he said. “It was a bit much to have a campaign manager insert herself into a campaign.”
Chardiet could not be reached for comment.
Walker, who lives in Culver City, also said the ‘slash and burn” nature of the robo call, as well as the concerted effort to tarnish Kent’s reputation through mudslinging on local blogs proved to be a turnoff to voters. And the slate candidates did not do themselves any favors when they presented themselves in public, he added.
“I thought McVarish was too aggressive and too confrontational,” he said. “No one likes a whiner- and he’s a whiner.”
The biggest boost that Kent had was her core of advisers, which included Councilwoman Meghan-Sahli-Wells, former Councilman Gary Silbiger, his wife former CCUSD board member Barbara Honig and their his son Karlo , a former school board member.
“[Culver City resident] Claudia Vizcarra also helped her with her blog posts that pointed out the issues and positive things that Kent was running on,” he said. “[Kent] has some very committed people around her and that’s always a good sign.”
But of all the factors that he thinks went into Kent’s resounding victory, the decision to run as a slate and bullet voting are at the top of the list. “First of all, bullet voting is not illegal. And second, the minute that [Burke and McVarish] announced that they would be running as a team, they were doomed,” Walker said.
While some have predicted that Kent’s victory was a decisive blow to United Parents of Culver City’s political operations, Walker isn’t so sure. “They still have three members on the school board, so I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “But [Kent’s] margin of victory indicates that there was a repudiation of the school board becoming an all-UPCC board.”
Gary Walker contributed to this story.