Resignation Timing

A recent post wondered aloud whether the timing of Mike Christman's resignation was politically motivated:

Rumor also has it that he is working closely with members of the City's Republican Central Committee to ensure that the timing of his resignation is the most efficient for getting another Republican elected. I have personally spoken with and directly asked a member of the City's RCC if this is true and they stated that it is not, and that the RCC has had almost no communication with Alderman Christman since his letter of intention to resign.

We have indeed not had much communication with Alderman Christman, but I can assure you that we would time the resignation strategically if we could.

I suppose the prevailing wisdom is that in most wards, democrats outnumber republicans, so as voter turnout increases there is a higher likelihood that the sheer voter demographics will prevail and we will lose, so a low turnout might benefit us.

But this is like a secondary concern at best. If Republicans for whatever reason go on more vacations then Democrats, then having an election near the holidays would really do us no good.

The real concern is the logistical planning. It takes a lot of effort to find a candidate, organize a campaign, and run a campaign--and once a formal resignation is given, we have less than a month for the primary election and less than a month after that for the general election. Frankly, it's just too hard when you add the stress of the holidays to that mix.

In an ideal world, we would work with a candidate who was thinking of resigning without making that resignation until the proper time as determined by our secret Ronald Reagan themed calender. In this case, the alderman has already announced his resignation, which makes any strategic delay rather inappropriate.

Josh Cohen went through these same decisions when he was elected to the county council, and I would consider it rather commonplace, although that observation is based on a small sample size. If Alderman Christman waits until August of 2008 to resign, the Republican Central Committe can simply appoint someone to replace him and we won't have to worry about any of this!

Don't hold your breath.