Oh yeah, there’s still a city council campaign going on. Let’s look at what’s happening.
The first 15 days of the campaign season are usually slow, and this virus “lockdown” has made it even more slower. But that’s not going to stop me! We’ll make this a short paragraph (or sentence) about what’s happening with each candidate and I’ll throw in my opinion along the way. Because that’s what makes it fun! We’ll go with all 5 incumbents and then the 4 challengers. To make it fair, I’ve randomized the names. Let’s bring on the Incumbent Big Board!
- Sherman Saunders – Another four years, another re-election campaign. No kickoff event. No campaign introductory statement. No nothing. Predictable and predictably boring. Nothing to see or be alarmed about here.
- Fred Shanks – Fred had a campaign kickoff event that looked like a state candidate would have, and I was impressed. He got out and did some door-to-door campaigning (he did WHAT?). He’s the most aggressive incumbent out there right now. He’s got a lot of support from county residents and that will get him exactly SQUADOOSH in the final vote totals. Fred doesn’t want to be “last person in”, but he’s way too concerned about that.
- Lee Vogler – Lee’s doing the social media thing to perfection again. I expect a daily Lee Vogler photo somewhere and I haven’t been disappointed. He knows how the game is played and he’s doing everything he needs to be doing. And at the part of the game, it’s smooth sailing.
- Madison Whittle – Madison’s put his active campaigning on hold, and the only bad thing about that is bad for everybody else. That means he’s not spending a lot of his money right now, and will have it for the endgame. Again, Madison’s got a lot of county supporters which won’t help in the voting booth, but who cares?
- Larry Campbell – Quiet. Too quiet. Dangerously quiet. And Larry is dangerous in the strategy game. That’s a good kind of dangerous, of course. Like every incumbent, he knows how to play the game.
Feh. I tried to make that exciting and fun, and probably failed. Now let’s look at the challengers. I need another Big Board!
- Barry Mayo – Barry’s running an excellent strategy campaign so far, with colorful signs and his photo on them to get name recognition. But a recurring problem with these challengers will be “How do they get their message out?” with these public restrictions in place. It’s going to be mostly written communications for at least the next 15 days. Mayo needs to get a heavy social media presence going soon to beat that problem.
- Sheila Baynes – Sheila went all-in early with her campaign strategy, rebranding herself as SHEila Baynes. SHEila. Get it? SHEila. She’s a SHE. Yeah… thud. Breaking up that Good-Ol-Boys network by saying she’s not a boy is um…interesting. But that’s not getting much traction so far. Sheila needs to point out how involved she is in the community and weigh in on important issues to impress people, and not point out that she is the only candidate with internal plumbing.
- Gordon Lyles – I have no idea what the hell is going on.
- Thomas Motley – No.
And there you have it, our first update on the Danville City Council 2020 election. We’ll have more coming up here on SouthsideCentral!
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