Last week Davenport Mayor Gluba lost his reelection attempt big time. There is no sugar-coating a 67% to 33% loss. But if there is any attempt to dismiss the dismissal as anything other than a general objection over his performance the last two years, well the evidence is otherwise. His reelection was not overwhelmed by a particular weakness in any ward, or overwhelming turnout in some. He lost every ward, winning only three precincts out of 32 — one by 1%, one by 3%, and one by 5%.
The St Ambrose stadium issue might arguably be the most geographically localized issue but in the adjacent precincts we see that Ray Ambrose, the incumbent alderman with two of those precinct and the same basic position on the matter as Gluba, won those precincts handily.
Gluba never had any adequately financed opposition prior to his losing race. The only real contested race besides this one was his first – in 2007 – where he won big but not as much as he lost this time. That year every ward and the alderman at large races were contested. That the Democrat leaning wards were contested helped with turnout which helped him because of his prominent identification with Democrat politics. In 2009 and 2011 he ran uncontested. In 2013 the writing was on the wall when write in candidate Phil Yerrington achieved 24% of the vote on a few hundred dollars in campaign spending.
Gluba’s downfall was exposing himself in his last term as the hardcore liberal he is. His attempt to make the gambling casino essentially a city enterprise and his open arms to illegal immigrants at tax payer expense, encouraging more of the same, especially identified him to voters. We tried to associate him with Obama in 2013 but the mayor’s position seems innocuous or removed from partisan politics in too many people’s mind. That is until it is repeatedly exposed as subject to partisanship as Gluba certainly managed to do this last term.
On a final note we offer these sequential pictures to demonstrate to Mayor Gluba that one does not need to bow to Chinese tyrants as he did on American soil. The pictures are of the meeting of the Free Chinese leader and the Communist Chinese overlord last week in Singapore, a neutral city-state.
The picture in the lower right is of course Mayor Gluba being introduced as Mayor of Davenport to the same Chinese tyrant at the Moline Airport in 2012. Notice the difference in posture.
