According to the New York Times, Harlem may very well elect a white city council member for the first time in several decades. Cynthia Doty is the only white candidate in the Democratic field against seven African-American opponents, leading to a potential scenario in which the seven black candidates split the black vote, thus propelling Doty to victory.
A remarkably similar electoral dichotomy, oddly enough, took place in the election of my high school’s homecoming king my senior year. There were ten candidates to be king, and something like nine of the ten were football players (that the team was winless that year, as it had been the two previous years, apparently had little to no effect on their popularity).
Anyway, the nine football players split the jock vote more or less evenly, and the 10th candidate (a theater/stoner type) was elected king. Perhaps, in a slightly more significant election, we’ll see the same thing happen uptown.
Posted by Stephen Silver at July 20, 2005 06:15 PM