If Mayor Francis Slay had given a $100 bill to every person who voted for him in Tuesday's Democratic mayoral primary—rather than spending another dollar on his campaign—he could have saved himself about $623,000 in campaign funds.
Or, if you prefer, had he spent all of his $3.02 million on those $100 dollar bills, Slay could have purchased another 6,232 votes and beaten Aldermanic President Lewis Reed by a real landslide, rather than the pedestrian 10-percent victory margin that gave him an unprecedented fourth term as mayor, pending the formality of stomping a Green Party opponent on April 2.
Perhaps an even more eye-popping statistic was this: Slay gained re-election as mayor of a city of 318,069 people on the strength of a paltry 23,938 votes. He spent $126 per vote, nearly double what he invested last time (in 2009) when the Post-Dispatch marveled at how he had spent $69.50 per vote in trouncing a distant field.
Slay's mandate to govern was provided him by fewer than 12 percent of registered voters and fewer than eight percent of the city's residents. And this is an election that boasted about 10 percent more turnout (22 percent of registered voters) than had been projected by the Board of Election Commissioners.
For more perspective, consider this: When Slay first won election as mayor in 2001, he won nearly twice as many Democratic primary votes—46,090—than he received this week. In that race, former Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr. ran second with 35,326 votes, or 68 percent more than Slay garnered in defeating Reed.
And if we travel back in time just 20 more years, to 1981, Vince Schoemehl won his first of three terms as mayor by receiving 70,507 votes—nearly three times Slay's present total—in unseating incumbent Mayor Jim Conway, whose total of 32,683 votes had been stunning in that it meant he had been beaten by a margin of more than 2-to-1. Today, there's a belated silver lining for Conway: He received 27 percent more votes in his landslide loss than Slay received in his most recent landslide win.
Some of this can be attributed to the city's well-known population slide, but that doesn't explain it all, as the city's population has declined less than 30 percent since the 1980 Census. The drop in voter interest has eclipsed the drop in population, by a landslide of its own.
So here's a possible slogan for Slay's 2016 recoronation campaign: "Here's a Benjamin. Vote For Me."
Slay may be mayor for life. But cash is king.
SLM co-owner Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs Thursdays at 7 p.m.
