The results are in on Thursday night’s “straw vote poll” for 9th District congressional candidates, taken from a teeming Rendezvous Restaurant crowd at a fundraising event organized by the Shelby County Democratic Party.
TA DA! The envelope, please.
The overwhelming winner, with 56 votes, was lawyer Ed Stanton, Jr.
Finishing second with 19 votes was a relative newcomer to the local political scene, one Tyson Pratcher, now serving as a state director for New York Senator Hillary Clinton. (Pratcher’s accomplishment was all the more impressive since, unlike the others who got votes, he was unable to attend and to address the crowd, having reportedly suffered a plane delay in transit from Up East.)
Third place was taken by free-lance consultant Ron Redwing with five votes. This, too, was something of a feat – since Redwing had publicly protested the $50 straw-vote fee as a “poll tax” and said he had advised his supporters not to show up and pay it.
Candidates Joe Kyles and Lee Harris each got two votes.
Bill Whitman, a new entry, was there and addressed the crowd, but got no votes.
Nobody else, absent or present, garnered any votes.
Granted, this was an unscientific poll. Take it with a grain or, if you please, a whole shaker-full of salt, but it was the first head-to-head matchup in which local Democrats got to express a choice for the record.
