Decided, in a sense

Let me try out a theory here.

The election for Erie County Executive will be held on Tuesday. The latest poll says the vote is the proverbial too close to call, 48 to 48 percent.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that Mark Poloncarz, the challenger, has a decent chance of willing the election. (Brilliant, eh?) I'd also say that Chris Collins, the incumbent, has -- if the poll numbers are correct -- already lost it.

Let me think this through. Four years ago, Collins ran as something of an anti-politician. He promised he would bring fiscal sanity to government, in an effort to solve the financial problems that sent Erie County to "adult supervision" in the form of a control board before that. By the way, it's interesting that a Republican, Joel Giambra, was in charge before that election, and that party wasn't "blamed" for those problems by voters.

Collins won that election by a 64-34 margin. That's pretty impressive under any circumstances, and gave him a lot of political capital that he has wielded in the past four years. That's fine, it's the way the game is played.

Since then, there's no doubt that Collins has more or less done what he said he would do in several areas. The control board is gone, albeit because Collins took some of the federal stimulus money and, instead of hiring people, used that money to help balance the budget. Some funding for cultural organizations was cut, causing all sorts of games to go on over budgets. Most of the last round of layoffs came at the expense of social services, which could be considered "playing to the political base" by cynics.

Collins has lost about 16 percentage points of support of the electorate. He has gone from 64 to around 48. If it's 15 points, he'll win according to the poll. If it's 17 points, he'll lose. Either way, is that a whole lot of comfort?

Maybe some local voters have learned the lesson that government shouldn't be run like a business in every way because it isn't a business. Run efficiently? Yes. But the functions are obviously different. For example, a government probably shouldn't try to cut out funding for eyeglasses and hearing aids for the needy, as Collins tried to do, even if it might save some money. If people can't see, they can't work many places.

And County Executives can't be CEO's, no matter what they think. CEO's are used to doing whatever the heck they want, including giving contracts to friends, without any of those pesky checks and balances provided by legislatures and courts.

The campaign, particularly in the television ads, became a referendum on Collins' tenure. Collins has dragged out the national Republican playbook of saying Poloncarz is beholden to unions and will raise taxes, but Poloncarz hasn't provided a whole lot of ammunition there. The most effective ad for the Democrat might have been done by a union, which put up a counter on the screen that went from 0 to 13,000 in 30 seconds -- reflecting the job losses in Erie County in the past four years. Even if Collins can't be blamed for all of, or even many of, the economic ills of the area, it's not exactly a sign of effective job creation either.

What can you do if people seem to like you less the more you appear in public? Keep your face out of TV commercials on Monday? Stay in the (Delaware Park) Rose Garden? It's a tough one, and the answer to how well Collins did it may come on Tuesday.

No matter what happens, losing 16 percentage points of your popularity while fulfilling your campaign promises is a neat trick. It might make some people a little more humble, a little more willing to compromise. But even one friend of Collins says that the current County Executive has trouble talking without using the word "I." Hard to picture that changing, but he may have to do so. Opponents would certainly notice the numbers during a second Collins Administration, if there is one. Even the allies could afford to be a little more independent.

The turnout figures could change what the final numbers look like, and Collins could win by as many as 10 points -- although I doubt it. No matter what happens, though, from a little more than a day out from the election results, it sure looks like the county's political landscape is about to shift. Will be drastically or slightly? I'll get back to you on that one.

Executive decision

It's been an interesting week in the political business here in Erie County.

We have an incumbent, Republican Chris Collins, who was overwhelmingly elected to the office four years ago. Collins ran on the proverbial "I'm a businessman, not a politician" platform that has proved popular in some cases. In this case, county government was a mess, with a control board overseeing expenditures, and Collins promised to clean that up.

Here we are in 2011, and Collins is running for reelection. He is running against Mark Poloncarz, the County's Comptroller. It figured to be an uphill climb for Poloncarz, mainly because of money. Collins has shown an ability to tap into donors to pile up cash in his bank account.

On Sunday, a poll came out on the race. Surprisingly, Collins only led by a couple of points, within the statistical error built into the survey. In other words, it's too close to call. The Poloncarz people were quick to point out what that might mean to his campaign, perhaps anticipating the idea that a donation would no longer be money down the drain. The Collins staff apparently cancelled a public appearance, said their own polling had their man well ahead (without releasing anything), and attacked the polling methods. In other words, the Collins staff said "Holy mackerel, this isn't good" in a variety of ways.

Therefore, we seem to have a horse race. And the reason is fascinating. I looked at the complete poll results, and "everyone" has agreed that Collins has more or less done what he said he would four years ago. He's balanced the budget and shrunk government. However, Collins has gone about his business in such odd ways that a percentage of people dislike him personally enough to not vote for him no matter what he does. That covers everything from charges of ignoring the city in favor of suburban issues (guess where this Republican's votes come from) to asking to lead a parade earlier this year. Among other things.

It sounds like a good recipe for the "Rose Garden" strategy, where a candidate stays out of sight and let's others do the talking for him. Why should your face if it only reminds people of what they think of you? That's a little harder when you don't live in the White House, of course.

The two men got together for their first public debate on Thursday. It was televised on public television. While it's easy to wonder how many people watched it, it certainly creates some conversation that pops up in other areas (radio, newspaper, TV, Internet).

It was something of a coming-out party for Poloncarz, who probably has never been on the news for longer than 20 seconds for a sound bite on county finances. This was a chance to see them both in action for an hour without commercials.

Collins certainly stuck to his talking points about cleaning up county government and keeping taxes low. He had some trouble, for example, when it came to why he took stimulus money that was designed to put people to work and put it in the county bank account to keep taxes down. The incumbent always has a hard time in these debates, because he has to defend a record while the challenge can merely say what he would have done and would do. But Collins did seem nervous and sometimes didn't come within a 3-wood of answering the question, which is always annoying. He also brought a typical bit of arrogance with him -- as one person put it, "He's the smartest person in the room ... just ask him."

Still, it sure seems like Poloncarz missed an opportunity. He seemed to know his facts and figures and attacked Collins whenever possible right after saying "good evening." But I wouldn't call his performance "warm and fuzzy" either.

I'm a firm believer that the more optimistic candidate often wins close elections, as people prefer to vote for candidates who offer a little sunshine down the road. Poloncarz never did that in an hour.

I still think Collins ranks as the favorite to win this race, mostly because of money. But there's a lot of anger out there at the current County Executive over his style of governance, and there's still plenty of time to turn that into votes and an upset win.

In other words, I can't wait to see what happens next.