EDITORIAL:Gender politics factored into council election

There are are always surprises in politics, and this year’s City Council race was no exception. One of the most interesting aspects of the race was the role that gender played.

Laguna native son Kelly Boyd defeated — by a thin margin of 139 votes — seven-time City Clerk Verna Rollinger, considered by most politics-watchers to be a shoo-in for the job and said to have run the “perfect campaign” to boot.

Heads were being scratched all over town when the shocking news came that Rollinger — who had never lost an election over seven consecutive city clerk races — was fourth, last out of the field of four vying for three open seats.

Now comes the ruminating and speculating over what went wrong with Rollinger — and what went right with Boyd.

Boyd had the help of the city’s macho Firefighters Assn., locked in a bitter labor dispute with their bosses, the City Council. The Firefighters clearly wanted a change and declined to support either of the two incumbents.

Apparently they didn’t want Rollinger, either, leading some to charge that the male-dominated group wouldn’t support any woman for the post. That’s an easy accusation to make but highly unlikely.

On the other hand, the women — at least the incumbents, Toni Iseman and Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider — were holding hands throughout the race, refusing to turn on each other and encouraging people to send them back to the council as “a team.”

This led some to see the three female candidates as a triad that would march into office lockstep, and there were open admonish- ments by supporters to vote for “the women.” But it was not to be.

Ironically, the very people accusing the firefighters of sexism are those who tried to use gender as a selling point for their team. And it didn’t work.

For her part, Rollinger had the backing of a group that most would agree has been a city powerhouse for decades, Village Laguna. That’s why Village Laguna supporters and critics all thought she’d have no problem getting elected.

But even Village Laguna, with its lengthy track record and fundraising ability, could not move their candidate past Boyd, despite the fact that Village Lagunan Iseman was the top vote-getter in the race.

Go figure.

But strategy, not gender, was the key to winning this race.

Since the election involved three seats and four candidates, Boyd and the Firefighters probably figured his best chance was to stand apart and not align with any of the other candidates — whether of the female persuasion or not. He thus reaped the crossover, split and bullet votes in a race that turned out to be quite tight.

It was a winning strategy.