Unlike previous School Board elections in this century, no pop favorite has emerged, and no one is stamping Prof. Kelly Kent or Anne Burke or her teammate Scott McVarish as likely to win one of the two open seats that will be decided Tuesday night.
The reason: By running as an entry, Burke-McVarish have jilted the odds, tilted the pinball machine, knocked the prediction game cockeyed. Like a couple, though they are not, they want voters to think of them as a single unit, not twins, just a compatible, inseparable unit.
Most days, Mr. McVarish says, they have campaigned together. What are the advantages? “Campaigning by yourself is lonely,” he said this afternoon. “When you campaign with someone else, you have someone encouraging you to continue on. When you campaign by yourself, sometimes it is easier to listen to your tired feet or sweaty brow and stop.”
Their tactic will be praised as brilliant if they walk onto the School Board arm in arm, having persuaded voters that they are two desirable sides of one philosophical coin, splendidly complementary.
If only one of them crosses the threshold, will that discourage future pairs from teaming up?
Or will Dr. Kent, whose supporters are known almost legendarily for bullet voting, sprint right past Mr. McVarish or Ms. Burke?
Not one forecast of a tight or lopsided race has been made. Clues are more scarce than barbershop quartets on Bald Mountain.
In recent years, Karlo Silbiger and Scott Zeidman, political opposites, dashed into Closing Day as heavy favorites. Instead, they found themselves congratulating the actual winners on Election Night.
No Need to Repeat
This was the first race of the century where all candidates were equally and impressively able to articulate their views with faultless clarity.
Again, unlike past campaigns, the three candidates like each other. You could see them schmoozing with a smile at the next cocktail party.
Dr. Kent said she is proud to have run a positive campaign. Mr. McVarish is wary of a potential bombshell falling out of the Culver City sky over the weekend.
Her succinct message for voters as the clock ticks down is: “Diversity is crucial on a policymaking board.”
The newspaper caught up with her this afternoon as Dr. Kent was about to knock on a voter’s door.
“Since tomorrow is Halloween,” said the mom of two young ones, “I will spend most of the day dealing with Halloween and the kids. We also have a funky turf replacement situation at my house, and I probably will be working in my garden. That will be nice because I have not been able to do that for months.”
But after Sunday morning’s time change, “I will be back to walking and calling. We will be phonebanking and walking each day, and Tuesday will be get-out-the-vote day.”
Email by a Female
If she could make any changes, Dr. Kent said she would expand email communication and letter-writing.
Mr. McVarish said he/they will be doing “some walking. Mostly, though, it will be mobilizing identified supporters. It’s just a lot of work. We will be working hard until the last minute. Then we will see if we either worked too hard or not hard enough.”
Many would agree with his next assertion:
“The election is pretty well set at this point. If it is close, then the last few days matter. If it is not, they don’t matter. Nobody can predict.”
Has Mr. McVarish, an intensely, comprehensively prepared lawyer, done everything he could to win?
“I am in a fulltime job, running a law office. Campaigning for three months has proven more difficult than I had anticipated.
“In any situation in my life, whether in a courtroom or in political campaigns, I always have been the hardest working person around,” Mr. McVarish said. “This campaign I am not so sure that was true.
