Election Day Live Coverage

[Cheshire Cat]

Curry's winning speech.  Soak it in with me he tells the crowd.  Said the mayor called him and was courteous.  Curry says he told Brown he would commit as one mayor for one city.  (Lenny, I will hold you to this statement).  Thanking his wife, kids and parents.  Thanking his business partner. I was the underdog. To the crowd, ." All of you stepped up to do what is right for Jacksonville".  Republican party stepped up an made a statement. The RNC stepped up. Robin Lumb thanks (you are losing me Lenny).  Now says it's about one people, one future.  City will be safe again.  Everyone deserves economic opportunity etc.  Thanks etc. One Jax one people, hold be accountable.  We will Lenny.  Now walk that talk. 

How will he make the city safe again? That is what I want to know. He sure can't hire more cops. No money. No higher taxes. Will he crap them? He will fail I'm afraid and not bring any meaningful "change" to Jax. He has proven that negative campaigning is the only way to win in Florida. Oh well at least 4 more years of the same old tired politics. If he does anything useful in the future you all may call me out on this one.

I won't be calling anyone out.  I did not vote for Curry this election because of his negative campaign and his ultra right GOP stance.  I will now simply give the man a chance and see if he does take the "one city one people approach" and how he manages to handle the need for officers and other important services with the current budge constraints.  He said tonight "Hold me responsible" and I will.  But I will always give a person the chance to prove themselves.  I don't wish him failure, I can tell you that because to do so would be wishing harm to our city and I won't do that.  So lets see what he does.  Both he and Brown were virtually the same on many issues.  Lets see what he does now in the real world with the election over.

[thelakelander]

Wow...23 pages! I just read through the last 10. Good contributions from all.

well, I guess this forum has to look forward to 4 years of talking about growth and development in Orlando, Tampa, and Miami. I don't foresee anything of significance happening in Jax for the time being.

Honestly, Jax will be Jax. The economy is improving and no matter who was elected, things will proceed in a similar fashion. This is one of the reasons I never really got too caught up in the back and forth between candidates. Here, we'll still talk development and the cities south of us will continue to outpace us. No offense to us locally. They are signficantly larger metro areas and already have established markets for the type of development many on the forum would like to see more of in Jax.

[Cheshire Cat]

I don't see the good things happening in Jax screeching to a halt.  Clearly Lenny wants to be seen as a positive influence on this city.  Derailing or dismissing current efforts downtown and elsewhere would not help him at all politically or otherwise.  Much of the excitement and growth has been organic and born of the people anyway. Its has always been about what we the people do first. Now we must work to make sure those elected represent us accordingly.

[Charles Hunter]

I wish him - and thus the city - the best.
I do want to see how he is going to pay for hiring 124 (or whatever the number is) cops without raising taxes.  What services will he seek to cut?

[wyttsndrs]

The Jacksonville election results are now trending on Facebook.

[Know Growth]

I have saved "Sportsmen For Curry" bumper stickers for posterity. ("Sportsmen for ______" always weird. Four years ago the Alvin Brown effort equally laughable,only with more punch)
Some figured the 2015 Curry Sportsmen Cause was about hunting certain Duval lands (too bad the Conservatives let the proposed 1800 acre Trust For Public Lands Brannon Chaffee Mitigation Park dwindle way back when....), the award status of the 2015 Curry bumper sticker driven by Port Dredge maneuvers ,first time in decades a conservative politician addressing a "Hook & Bullet" constituency has joined with "Enviros" (and an army of fellow Sportsmen & Sportswomen.....) in supporting the restoration of the Ocklawaha River   AKA 'destroying the dam'

Will present a Curry bumper sticker to Florida Defenders Of The Environment soon.

Cheers!

[fsquid]

Eurovision started already?

[InnerCityPressure]

Hence his logo of our most iconic bridge

Break out the crow for the "I'm with Alvin" crowd, lol. Attacking his campaign signs.....

To be fair, we were mocking those campaign signs months ago.  I have no hard feelings.  I hope he is the best mayor this city has ever had

[I-10east]

Newby V. Pittman...thoughts?

A race that hasn't received much attention. I voted Pittman. Newby seemed like a derp to me. I couldn't find enough info to compare him to Kim Daniels but this is another race I wish there was a better candidate. Reminds me of Daniels v Taylor last election.

I also voted for Pittman. TBH it was my most nonchalant vote in this race. I looked at the TU videos because I didn't know about the candidates; Newby was prepared on the vid (looking at the camera) but he harped on religion much of the video (ala the Demonbuster) which turned me off. Pittman seemed to be less prepared (looking down at her notes throughout) but I liked the message that she brought forth.

[vicupstate]

Curry had that, and being the Republican in a GOP city in his favor.

More Democrats voted than Republicans. I'm not sure how that makes Jax 'a GOP city'.

Look at who wins elections. It isn't Democrats. Many people registered under one party years or decades ago, and never bother to change it.     That is probably even more the case in JAX because municipal elections do not have party primaries. From 1980 to today the dominant party in the South has completely flipped from heavy majority D to heavy majority R.

In some states, most I would say, party registration means something. In FL it is MUCH less so.

[vicupstate]

Newby V. Pittman...thoughts?

A race that hasn't received much attention. I voted Pittman. Newby seemed like a derp to me. I couldn't find enough info to compare him to Kim Daniels but this is another race I wish there was a better candidate. Reminds me of Daniels v Taylor last election.

In every citywide race, the D got 48-49% and the Republican 51-52.  The only exceptions were when the candidate of either party was pretty extreme (Kim Daniels for the D's, Youngblood for the R's).  The Pittman/Newby race seemed to be a 'generic D' vs. 'generic R'. Thus the result. 

The good news for Democrats is that while a minority, it isn't as far in the minority as it was a few years ago.   

[vicupstate]

Well, I think there are a significant amount of Reagan Democrats remaining on the rolls in Duval County. The identity politics of the national Democrat Party just doesn't fly with them, period.

I agree.

And could we give it a rest on the claims of despicable negative campaigning? Both sides, I'm sure, did their fair share of hitting below the belt. Rarely do Democrats in an urban environment pass up the opportunity to do so, so . . . enough of that.

Can you give some examples? Given Curry had no public record to run on, that would not have been an easy thing to do. 

[mtraininjax]

his ultra right GOP stance.

Every candidate circles the wagons for their supporters. Do you think the business people who backed Curry were all centrists? No he catered to his base, his right wing GOP'ers. Now that he has won the election, everyone moves more to the center. He will, history shows they all do.

The problem with Brown was that he was still in campaign mode 2 years after he won the election and never figured out how to work with others, instead alienated them.

Nice to see Curry making the rounds on local TV, on WJXT, they asked him why Brown lost, as an incumbent, Curry's perfect answer "Leadership" and that was absolutely correct. It wasn't the fact that he did not raise taxes, it was not the fact that he gave back part of his salary, it wasn't his photo-ops for every event, it was his lack of leadership.

[vicupstate]

It wasn't the fact that he did not raise taxes, it was not the fact that he gave back part of his salary, it wasn't his photo-ops for every event, it was his lack of leadership.

I agree, but if not providing leadership meant a sure defeat, then Peyton would have been defeated for re-election too. The only real question I have is would Brown have been better off being less 'Tea Party lite' and more of a SLIGHTLY more partisan Democrat.  While he may have gotten some GOP votes with his no tax pledge,etc., I think he took the wind out of the sails of his Democratic base in doing so. He probably lost as many votes as he gained, maybe more.  Had he taken a stronger stand for HRO either during this campaign or in 2012, would he have won?  If he had accepted a modest tax increase (which happened anyway and which his opponent blamed him for) in order to fund some popular programs, would he have been better off?

         

[MusicMan]

Can someone paste a link on here where Lenny Curry lays out his vision for Jacksonville?  Cause I have no clue what his Mayoral term will be like.

By that, I mean in his own words.

I looked back and see that he has never served the public before, only the Republican Party, and that is what I am expecting.