Voters who have settled on a Ward 6 candidate: Why are you supporting your chosen candidate?

[keithn.livejournal.com]

I'm just curious from people who are not the candidates or linked closely to any of them - how did you reach your decision? I have personally found that for the issues I care about, I can't see much of a reason to vote for one candidate as opposed to any of the others. So I'll probably end up voting based on some other reason I haven't decided on yet. They all seem like good people.

I'm wondering as to what is driving other voters. I'm probably not a typical municipal election voter (as a young and relatively recent renting resident of 4 years) but I'm willing to bet some more people like me are here on DSLJ.

Comments

[ron_newman]

I am disinclined to vote for Charlie Chisholm because he did not participate in the "Ask Me Anything" forum here and also declined to meet with the writers and editors of the Somerville Journal. I'm still quite undecided between the other three candidates.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I plan to vote for David Lieberman, as I know someone who knows him well personally, and thinks he's a standup guy. I agree that excluding Chisholm the platforms are pretty similar and they all seem bright and like they might do a fair job.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I agree that there's not a whole lot of differences between the candidates' positions, and they all seem capable and good-hearted. I am currently leaning towards Chisholm for several reasons:
1. He has the most experience with government and leadership roles. (I was originally leaning against him because he seemed like an old-guard conservative candidate who might be too set in his ways, but I haven't seen any evidence of that. I particularly appreciated his explanation of why he's not a Democrat, due to a wave of conservative Democrats in state politics in the early '90s.)
2. He's lived his whole life in Somerville and seems familiar with the history of many local issues.
3. He has a principled stance against taking donations from developers, and seems to emphasize anti-corruption positions.
4. He's the only one who mentioned sidewalk snow removal, a pet peeve of mine.
5. In general he seems to have offered concrete actions (e.g. buying sidewalk snowplows like in North Reading) rather than just identifying problems to focus on.
6. He's a math teacher and I like math. :)

I am disappointed that he doesn't seem comfortable communicating on the Internet (didn't participate here and his answers in other online forums were often too brief) but for me that isn't quite enough to outweigh the other reasons.

[sarahx.livejournal.com]

As a disenfranchised green card holder, I'd love to have a say in choosing those who spend our property taxes. Or our state and federal taxes. No taxation without representation is a long-dead ideal, isn't it?

I'm supporting Lance Davis

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I have a whole lot more to contribute than the discussion I see here already, but I'll share my reasoning anyway.

I have decided to support Lance Davis, but feel that David Lieberman and Elizabeth Weinbloom are close runner-ups who I would not be disappointed to see elected either.

I ruled Chisholm out quickly, both due to bits and pieces from his other bids for office and because the set of things in his campaign materials that seemed to be either in left field or individual peoples issues and I didn't get a sense of understanding a big picture or a strategy for what Ward 6 needs.

Between the other three candidates, I mostly did not see a huge difference on paper. Lance's endorsements, fundraising and relationships with other leaders who think he's a reasonable guy to work with make me think he has an edge on being more successful both in campaigning and in working with the city if he's elected.

For better or for worse I do see that there is a little more focus"keeping families with kids happy in Somerville" in his perspective, reading between the lines. That both gives me a good feeling --- as a family with kids, nice to have a representative who personally gets some of my perspective -- and gives me a little pause because Somerville's great diversity is ALL OF families with kids, families without kids, one-person families, co-op households, grad students, Tufts undergrads with rich parents who can actually afford the rent, and families that aren't all 2.2 kids and a chicken in every pot, and "old Somerville" and "new Somerville" and having too much of any of those on the BoA could lead to skewed perspective. I think that Lance does appreciate all of that and is not going to be a one-issue or one-demographic representative, though.

Lance is the only one who happened to come to my door at a time when I happened to be home. (David left a card and a note, and Elizabeth either didn't come by or didn't spend as much on fliers to leave one behind.) I'm pretty sure that having a conversation with one smart, personable candidate who I was mostly in line with and felt would listen to my concerns and have experience and ideas about using tools available to the city made him stand out to me. I admit that if the other two had caught me before primary day I might have been more inclined to vote for them! I would be happy to see any of the three advance to the next round.

I have to admit I'm curious what moniker the Times would give Lance, Elizabeth, and David though, to top Princess Rebekah. ;-)