Thank You, Linda Stewart

Tuesday’s Orange County Mayoral race demonstrated a clear and present fact: the Black vote is essential, particularly if you’re a Democrat.

The effervescent and animated personality of Linda Stewart demonstrated that fact. Handily. Underfunded and dismissed as too eccentric, Commissioner Stewart unveiled the necessity of the urban vote in Orange County by virtue of her performance.

Although she lost, coming in third, Ms. Stewart clearly received a significant portion of the Black vote and showing fellow Democrat, Bill Segal the necessity of reaching out to minorities.

Bill Segal should be alarmed.  His down home style and rustic approach to what is an increasingly urban landscape in Orange County did not serve him well. His predominance in the ever diminishing ‘rural’ Orange County, revealed the failure of his campaign team to embrace and engage Pine Hills and other minority neighborhoods.  Segal was trounced in the ‘hood’, notwithstanding the earlier endorsements received from key Black legislators in Orange County and even his Republican rival, Teresa Jacobs, did better than he did.

Orange County Democrats be warned. We now live in an era sarcastically called, the “New Normal”.

With plummeting home values, sky high unemployment and disillusionment with the go-go growth of the past, Orange County voters want something better, something more sustainable than the paltry paying jobs of the past.

They also want inclusion.

Thanks is due Linda Stewart for her part in demonstrating that, even in this day and age of radical right wingers, and Tea Party drivel, minorities in Orange County will play an increasingly significant role in local politics.

Thanks Linda, you did good.