Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 5, 1994 TAG: 9405050159
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
With three-fourths of the votes counted Tuesday night, John Parrott seemed ready to make a concession speech.
He made his way around the small crowd gathered at Republican headquarters on Brandon Avenue Southwest, quietly thanking everyone for their help during the campaign.
After all, he'd been stuck in fourth place all night, and if there's one thing the construction engineer knows how to do, it's count.
This time, he counted too soon.
A few minutes later, the Republicans who were crowded around the tiny television set squealed in delight - as the final batch of returns showed Parrott vaulting into the third and final winning spot in Roanoke's City Council race.
The vote from South Roanoke had just come in.
This was more than just an accident of timing; South Roanoke put Parrott over the top in more ways than one.
Republicans picked up a seat on Roanoke City Council thanks to an unusually lopsided turnout pattern that saw traditional GOP neighborhoods in South Roanoke vote in disproportionately high numbers.
"In a race like this, you'd assume a low turnout," said state Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County. "Running in a city that's traditionally Democratic, you'd think the Democrats would be able to turn out voters in their base areas. And it just didn't happen."
Only 25 percent of the city's 39,814 voters took the time to vote. Four years ago, the last time Roanoke had a council election without a mayor's race, some 31 percent of the voters turned out.
But turnout wasn't down across the board - and that was the key to Parrott's victory.
Five of the six precincts that showed the biggest drop in turnout from 1990 to 1994 were in Southeast Roanoke and along Williamson Road, both traditional Democratic strongholds.
For instance, in the Jefferson-Riverdale precinct of Southeast, voter turnout dropped from 26 percent in 1990 to 15 percent this time. At Williamson Road No.2, turnout fell from 42 percent to 27 percent.
But while turnout was down in Democratic neighborhoods, that wasn't the case in the most reliable Republican ones. At Fishburn Park and Lee-Hi, turnout stayed about the same. And in South Roanoke, turnout was up - dramatically.
At the South Roanoke No.2 precinct, it increased from 35 percent to 43 percent; at South Roanoke No.1, it surged from 36 percent to 48 percent.
Put another way: In 1990, when the Democrats swept the City Council races, the four most reliable Republican precincts accounted for 19 percent of the vote. This year, they accounted for 26 percent, and gave Parrott the boost he needed.
Nearly four out of every 10 votes Parrott received came from those four precincts.
Why was turnout down so much in Democratic neighborhoods? Al Wilson, the city's Democratic chairman, was at a loss to explain. The lack of issues to mobilize Democratic voters played a part, he said. "If Girls, Girls, Girls [a Franklin Road Southwest nightclub that features bikini-clad dancers] is the controversy in the campaign, then there isn't a controversy."
For that matter, South Roanoke neighborhood activist Pete White couldn't explain why turnout was up there.
Some Republicans suggested one reason may have been the get-out-the-vote drive the party organized there; they set up a volunteer phone bank targeting voters in South Roanoke, urging them to the polls.
To be sure, both Democrats and Republicans had other explanations for why Parrott won.
Parrott ran stronger than most Republicans do in some blue-collar neighborhoods; he finished second in some Southeast precincts and placed third in places along Williamson Road.
Gary Waldo, a lobbyist for the Roanoke Education Association and a key Democratic strategist, suggested older voters there identified with the white-haired Parrott.
Some Republicans pointed out that, being in the construction field, Parrott had more appeal to working-class voters than a more conventional Republican businessman might. "I don't want to say he's a blue-collar businessman," Bell said, "but he does project a one-of-the-people kind of image."
Parrott's television ads in the campaign's closing days featured him wearing a hard hat.
To many strategists in both parties, it was a given that Democrat John Edwards would lead the ticket and become vice mayor; he proved them right by placing first in 22 of the city's 33 precincts.
Edwards "is from an old Roanoke family," Waldo said, which plays well with more conservative voters. "And he's got very good relations with labor people and good rapport in the black community. There isn't any section of the city he won't do well in."
Meanwhile, Democrat William White - one of two blacks on council and the only one on Tuesday's ballot - piled up a big chunk of votes in predominantly black Northwest Roanoke, enough to earn him second place.
That left a three-way scramble between Parrott, Democrat Nelson Harris and Republican Barbara Duerk for the final spot. Duerk failed to break through in the blue-collar neighborhoods of Williamson Road that a Republican needs. She blamed cultural obstacles. "There are still a lot of barriers," she said. "Barriers between neighborhoods. A lot of people said they weren't going to vote for me because I'm from South Roanoke."
Yet Duerk didn't get the votes she needed from South Roanoke, either. She finished third there and in middle-class Raleigh Court, but still ran well behind her GOP ticketmate, Parrott.
In the end, the election was a contest between Parrott and Harris, who finished third in most of Northwest, Southeast and along Williamson Road - but didn't get the votes he needed in Raleigh Court and was crushed in South Roanoke.
Money may have made the difference, Wilson said. "When you've got two candidates with not a great deal of name recognition outside their own neighborhood going up against each other, and one has a $10,000 to $20,000 budget and the other has $3,500, the guy with the most money is going to win."
That was Parrott.
by CNB