Perhaps Carol Reed was right about closing strong: With 79 of 534 precincts reporting, the Proposition 1 race is only getting tighter -- separated by a mere 207 votes now. At the moment, the pro-hotel faction has taken the teensy-weensy lead with 22,481 votes, or 50.23 percent of the vote. Which mean CATOH has thus far scored 22,274 votes, or 49.77 percent.
Pulle sends this missive from the pro-hotel's shindig:
Mayor Tom Leppert, looking a bit nervous and tired, just walked into The Loft at Gilley's and was greeted by a standing ovation. One woman even yelled out, "Our leader, our leader!"
"Our leader" took more than a few hits during the hotel campaign, in part because of how he ran the last one. After I asked Carol Reed if she enjoyed this campaign -- "No," she said as she lamented how the other side continually attacked the mayor. I asked her, if, in effect, he'd kind of asked for it, since he did happen to make assurances about the funding and viability of the Trinity River toll road that turned out to be false.
"The statements in The Dallas Morning News editorial were not accurate, and we will address them," she says. "But the last thing we needed to do was have a debate on who said what to whom in the Trinity debate in the middle of this one."
I tried to ask a follow-up question, but Reed nicely shrugged it off.
"You asked me if I enjoyed the campaign, and I told you."
It's a close race.
As for Prop. 2, it's an early loser, as thus far 24,252 have voted against it, while 18,474 have voted for it.
We'll look at the council races shortly, where all the incumbents hold the early lead, but at the moment, Ann Margolin holds the slight lead in District 13 with 4,865 votes after five of 35 precincts have reported. Challenger Brint Ryan has scored 3,145.
