Slay, by a yawn

Here's how things look to me in the St. Louis primary election to be held a week from today:

Democratic Primary

All the so-called "smart money" is on St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay to win renomination and reelection easily. I think the election will be closer than most people expect, but that Slay will still win.

Slay enters the campaign with enormous advantages:

• Financing. The last report showed that Slay had raised nearly $3 million, with $1,180,771 still on hand as of February 19. He has outraised his closest challenger by an incredible ratio of 88-to-1. Slay is using his cash to saturate the media with well-produced positive ads that run unchallenged on the airwaves.
  
• Public political support. The Slay campaign claims the formal endorsement of three quarters of the city's ward organizations (including some African American wards) and much of organized labor, including the powerful Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that could ordinarily be expected to be first in line to challenge the establishment.
• Tarnished opponents. Former Alderman Irene Smith has already lost to Slay once, in 2005, and it wasn't close. She is best known for her principled filibuster against a 2001 redistricting bill in which she seemingly urinated into a wastebasket in the aldermanic chambers to avoid losing the floor, an action that brought negative national attention to both herself and the city. Last-day filer Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman, rightly or wrongly, is regarded by many as a mere stalking horse and a puppet for hidden interests.
  
• Divided opposition. The once (and to some extent still) vociferous opposition to the mayor, especially in the African American community, has two African American challengers from which to choose, while Slay is the only candidate appealing to his constituents: whites, pro-lifers and the business establishment. With only a candidate running in just one ward, even Republicans (to whom he appeals) are totally free to cross over and vote for him.
  

But Slay's successes have also engendered the biggest obstacle to his re-election: complacency. While his campaign is taking nothing for granted, most of his rank-and-file supporters are totally confident that he will win. The grassroots campaign of his opponents will not reach his supporters, contributing to their overconfidence. Still exhausted from turning out to vote in large numbers last November, many voters who favor Slay won't see much point in taking the trouble to go out and vote for him.

Slay's strongest challenger is Smith, around whom most African American activists have united. She is the champion of those who believe Slay is out to eradicate the interests of black people. She has a solid base of support in the black community, many of whom regard her urination incident positively as a demonstration of the lengths she will go to stand up for them. Coleman's candidacy will not seriously erode Smith's support there.

Slay's demotion of Fire Chief Sherman George was a symbolic deal killer for many African American voters who had voted for Slay over Smith four years ago. Aldermanic President Lewis Reed's electoral success with black voters over incumbent Jim Shrewsbury (who, unlike Slay, had actively tried to cultivate black support by compiling a record that was quite favorable on black issues, other than his fateful ruling that led to Smith's urination incident) two years ago presages a much improved performance by Smith with black voters this time around. If Slay runs better on the north side next week than Shrewsbury did two years ago, it will send a message that how one addresses black issues doesn't matter.

Just as important is the intensity of Smith's support. Her supporters hate Slay, perhaps as much as they hated George W. Bush. When it comes to voting behavior, hatred is a much better motivator than love. The intensity gap may actually produce larger black turnout than white turnout, something that hardly ever happens.

In contrast, most white voters (other than the teachers union) are happy enough with Slay, and some who aren't neverthess regard the alternatives as worse. Unlike blacks, many whites were offended by Smith's urination incident, and many of the whites who oppose Slay will find Coleman's candidacy more appealing. Ironically, Coleman's candidacy will harm Smith's more with whites than with fellow black voters.

But, as explained above, white turnout will be low. That will make things a lot closer than most expect.

I expect Slay to win, but with less than a majority:
Slay 49%
Smith 39%
Wesley-Coleman 12%

Green Primary

The other game in town is not the Republican Primary (no Republican filed for either citywide office and only one Republican filed for alderman in any ward), but a first-ever contested primary in the Green Party. (A Libertarian candidate also filed for mayor, but he is unopposed in the primary.) Long-time activist (and thorn in the side (or other anatomical location) of the Gateway Green Alliance) Don DeVivo is pitted against organizational recruit Rev. Elston McCowan.

A Green primary is uncharted waters. How many people will sacrifice the chance to vote in the Democratic primary to vote in the Green primary? Last August, only 18 voters eschewed the chance to vote in either the Democratic primary (in which the main events were the Koster-O'Donnell-Harris race for Attorney General and the Zweifel-Simckes-Powell contest for State Treasurer and assorted local party committee races) or the Republican primary featuring the Hulshof-Steelman tiff, to vote in an uncontested Green Party primary. There were 27 Green primary voters in 2006. Contested primaries naturally draw better, but how much better when in competition with the Slay-Smith-Coleman contest?

People who have voted in past Green Party primaries know DeVivo's name, because this is his fourth run for citywide office on the Green ticket. But they don't amount to very many votes. His neighborhood activism in the Forest Park Southeast and Wells-Goodfellow neighborhoods have not translated into many votes in the past.

The former party leadership (who failed to file for re-election to their party committee seats) allied with the Gateway Green Alliance recruited McCowan to make a serious run at Slay, but many of them live in St. Louis County and are therefore ineligible to vote. Other McCowan supporters will be tempted to vote instead for Smith in the Democratic primary.

I give the edge to McCowan in a primary drawing fewer than a hundred votes.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this primary is whether the racial voting patterns that dominate Democratic primaries will surface in the party primary of as progressive an electorate as the Green electorate ought to be. DeVivo is white, and McCowan is black, but neither is believed to have entered the race because of the race of the other. In what pattern will Green voters respond?