African-Americans voted overwhelmingly against it. Hispanics supported it. Anglo voters were divided.
That's the post-election analysis of the Miami-Dade strong mayor referendum by Dario Moreno, director of The Metropolitan Center at Florida International University.
About 78 percent of Hispanic voters, 57 percent of Anglo voters and only 8 percent of African-American voters said yes to Mayor Carlos Alvarez's proposal.
The four black county commissioners ran a vigorous campaign against the measure, arguing that it would diminish their community's voice. It worked. Those four commission districts were the only areas that voted down the referendum.
A Miami Herald analysis showed that heavily Democratic precincts strongly opposed the measure boosting the Republican mayor, while majority Republican precincts favored it.
Another interesting factoid: early and absentee voters favored the referendum, while the Election Day vote was split. Had the county commissioners gotten their act together earlier, they might have prevailed.
I just can't believe they couldn't defeat this. I was on the fence on the issue, and would have liked to see a good campaign.
What we got was amateur hour from the county commission and unions. No message, no organization, no nothing.
Posted by: Octavio | January 27, 2007 at 04:41 PM
Mayor Alvarez is underestimated again.
Posted by: Alphonso | January 27, 2007 at 04:44 PM