"On Tuesday, May 7, local Republicans mingled beneath streamers and balloons at Lord Hardwicke's restaurant on Emmet Street, waiting for their City Council candidate, Rob Schilling, to arrive at what had been promoted as a "victory celebration." In Charlottesville's recent history, post-election GOP gatherings have been consolation parties, where the also-rans gracefully accept defeat and urge the faithful to "wait ‘til next time." But as early precinct totals showed Schilling a close second behind incumbent Democratic Mayor Blake Caravati in the race for two seats, the Republicans channeled their nervous energy into chants of "Go, Rob, Go!" Everyone in the room seemed to sense that "next time" had finally arrived.

Thanks to the City's new computerized voting machines, by the time Schilling arrived, the party loyalists already knew their golden boy had become the first Republican in 16 years to win a seat on Charlottesville's City Council. In terms of local politics, the Chicago Cubs had swept the New York Yankees in the World Series. Caravati's first-place finish couldn't console the shocked Dems, who almost immediately began itching to fire their manager.

In the ensuing days, the Daily Progress and local websites carried the Donkeys' plaintive bleating: "How could this happen?" Some blamed biased press coverage, an inexperienced Democratic candidate and a far-left spoiler. There were a few complaints about misapplied write-in votes (Waldo, Jon Bright and Spider-Man were among the names). But most of the analysis adhered to City Democratic Party Chairman Lloyd Snook's posting on George Loper's home page (www.loper.org): "Shakespeare's Julius Ceaser had it right," Snook wrote. "‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'"

City Democrats began gearing up for the campaign as early as last fall, and the party seemed primed to steamroll through another election. The six primary candidates –– Caravati, Alexandria Searls, Bern Ewert, Joan Fenton, Waldo Jaquith and David Simmons –– held forums to discuss campaign issues before the Republicans had fielded a single candidate. Speaking to C-VILLE in February about the lack of Republican contenders, party chairman Bob Hodous remarked that intimidation might have been holding candidates back.

In late February, a handful of Republicans picked their presumed sacrificial lamb, Californian Rob Schilling. A realtor, rock musician and Catholic, Schilling's Ted Nugent tresses flowed over the shoulders of his dark suit as he accepted his party's nomination. In his speech, he talked as much about his haircut as anything else; glossing over a pro-development and "tough on crime" conservativism with a free-spirit image.

The rockin' Republican seemed little threat at the Democratic nominating convention on March 2. The event could have been subtitled "Ain't it grand to be a Democrat," but chinks were beginning to show in the armor.

It took the party four rounds of voting and several hours to choose two nominees. According to convention rules, a nominee must receive 50 percent of delegate votes to get on the ballot. With each round, the candidates with the fewest votes would be eliminated from the contest. Joan Fenton, David Simmons and Bern Ewert all fell, and Caravati won a majority after the first three votes. The final vote pit Searls –– who had come in second-to-last in the three previous rounds –– against Jaquith. Searls won the nomination by merely four votes.

"The Democrats had it coming from the beginning," says Republican Kevin Cox. "They put an unpopular candidate on the ballot."

Like most political contests, this one began with promises of substantial debate. "This is about issues, not about party labels," Schilling declared more than once. But as the race wore on, it seemed that Schilling, as well as Caravati and Searls, were deliberately shying away from relevant and controversial issues, such as the Meadowcreek Parkway, and instead reverting to tired rhetoric like "common sense leadership" (Schilling), "healing old wounds" (Searls) or "let's keep a good thing going" (Caravati). (Only Independent Stratton Salidis, perhaps liberated by his oft-professed expectation to lose, stressed issues, himself arguing for new thinking on transportation and education.)

A series of forums held by special interest groups like the NAACP or Citizens for Jefferson School lobbed vague questions at the candidates. Case in point from the Jefferson School contingent: "How can Charlottesville's past shape its future?" Candidates had many occasions to pander to special-interest groups, but voters gleaned little specific information on what candidates hoped to accomplish — and how they would do it.

Dodging the issues may have been part of the Democrats' strategy. After the election, Searls, who was widely described as taciturn and emotional on Election Night, circulated an email. In part, it said, "My positions on the [bus] transfer station, Priority Press [building] preservation, the Jefferson preschool, and other issues were in contrast to the positions of some on Council, and the campaign was not united in how much difference I could express."

The Meadowcreek Parkway was another source of disagreement between Caravati, who recently moved to support the road, and Searls, who opposes it. Neither spoke extensively about the controversial, proposed road—strange, considering that City Council will likely take its final vote on whether to proceed with Parkway construction later in the summer.

Schilling, too, kept his pro- Parkway position muted. "I think the Meadowcreek Parkway will be good for Charlottesville," he said at his victory party. "But I thought there were other issues that were more important to the people."

Schilling spent most of his time asserting that Charlottesville should elect, rather than appoint, its school board; his opponents claimed there was no popular support for such a change and that Schilling was simply manufacturing an issue.

The candidates' rhetoric gave local news media little to chew on, but Jake Mooney, City reporter for the Daily Progress, caught plenty of flack from Dems for his story on "single-shot" voting. The article, which appeared in the DP's Sunday edition prior to Election Day, covered Republicans' hope that Schilling supporters would cast only one vote, thus lending no support to either Democrat. Several postings to Jaquith's website, www.cvillenews.com, accused Mooney of promoting Schilling. Searls, who says she was not contacted for comment on single-shotting, called Mooney's reporting "unethical."

Still, Republican and Democrat observers agree that Schilling won mainly because he and his supporters outworked a complacent group of Democrats. "When we lose, we lose as a team. ...Rob Schilling won because we did not do our job of getting our voters to the polls," Snook wrote on Loper's website.

At the Republican victory party, Schilling credited a vigorous door-to-door campaign for his win. Meanwhile, Searls criticized the party for cancelling phone banks and for not sending anyone other than the candidates on door-to-door campaigns. "Using a metaphor from ecology," she wrote, "we have been living without an aggressive predator for a long time, and it has damaged us."

Speculation was rife in the days immediately following the election about how the Schilling victory would affect the Democratic Party and its left-wing faction, the Democrats for Change. Some Dems alleged that Searls had retreated from her allegiance to the Dems for Change platform. They claimed her defeat sounded the faction's death knell. But City Councilor Maurice Cox –– a Dem for Change who received more votes than any candidate in 2000 and likely will become Mayor on the new Council –– told the Daily Progress the group should gain power in the wake of Schilling's victory. He suggested that a Dem for Change should replace Snook as the Party's co-chair.

"If somebody else wants the headaches," Snook told the Progress, "I'm not going to arm-wrestle them for it."

As Democrats continue to address their internal problems, they are publicly preparing to cooperate with Schilling; more realistically, the Council should perhaps prepare itself for many 4-1 votes ahead.

The day after the election, Schilling and his wife, Joan, stood at the corner of Preston Avenue and McIntire Road waving "Thank You" signs to passing after-work motorists.

But since only 22 percent of registered voters participated in the election, nearly four-fifths of the drivers likely thought "Who are those cheeseballs and what the heck are they doing?" instead of "You're welcome." " (John Borgmeyer, C-Ville Weekly, May 14-20, 2002)