It's less than two weeks before delegates vote on AFM officers in Las Vegas. I usually try my hand at predictions before the election, and sometimes I call some of the races right. Obviously there's nothing as remotely predictive as polling in an AFM election, so predictions are really little more than a gut feeling about how the candidates are doing. But it's an interesting exercise to perform, and perhaps to read as well.
President
Tom Lee is unquestionably facing the toughest opponent for re-election in his career. Both Ed Ward (2005) and Hal Espinosa (2007), while both credible candidates, carried significant baggage into their campaigns. Ray Hair is, to my mind, a much stronger candidate than either.
First of all, Ray's been around for a long time, and everyone knows him. That's almost always an advantage in AFM elections. What's more, Ray did something very unusual in the AFM - after getting bumped off the IEB in the late 90s, he essentially re-invented himself and got back on two conventions later. During that time he's built a reputation as an outstanding local officer. His undeniable gift for self-promotion didn't hurt in building that reputation, but being a really good local officer is hard to fake. Without his ability to promote himself, he'd still have been an outstanding local officer. But, if he hadn't so good, all the self-promotion in the world wouldn't have convinced so many AFMers otherwise.
In addition, while everyone carries baggage into an election, it's very hard to paint Ray as a tool of the RMA or anyone else. Obviously Tom is trying to do so, but there are no bullets in that gun. Nothing in Ray's record even hints at him being closer to the RMA than, say, Tom Lee was in 2001 when he was first elected. I suspect, in fact, that Ray has made the RMA fewer commitments than did Tom when he first ran. Why should he? He knows the RMA will support anyone who isn't Tom.
And, of course, he is a formidable retail campaigner, as delegates to past conventions know. In the AFM, the only kind of campaigning that matters is person-to-person, and Ray is good at that.
Meanwhile, there has been a vague sense during the past year that the USS Tom Lee has sprung a leak. Whatever one thinks about Tom as a union president, there's no denying he's been a very successful union politician over many years, one equipped with first-class political instincts. But this year has seen several instances of Tom making decisions that created real enemies for him without any corresponding political benefit.
There was no good at all served politically for him by pissing off the symphonic player conferences, for example -but he did, and over the most important symphonic decision any AFM president makes. Maybe there are some delegates somewhere that cheered him on for showing ICSOM who's boss. But there are likely many more whose reaction was "what the f*ck is he doing - and why?" ICSOM and ROPA and OCSM don't have a lot of raw power. But they do have members in most AFM locals. And they've made their unhappiness with Tom known.
Then there was the incident of Tom appointing a bunch of employers to the Jingle negotiations union-side negotiating committee. Generally no one outside the committee cares who gets appointed to such committees. But Tom went out of his way to appoint people guaranteed to piss off 802, RMA, and anyone else who believes that employers belong on the other side of the table.
Why? I can't imagine anyone more likely to vote for him for having done so. He certainly could have picked some rank-and-file for that committee who were not people that 802 or RMA wanted him to without raiding the ranks of the employers to do so and thereby changing the question from "who gets to choose committees" (insider baseball) to "does the union work for employers?' which is a matter of first principles.
But Tom has never lost an election for AFM office. He is perhaps the AFM's ultimate political mind, and no one with any sense would write him off, especially when his back's to the wall. And there are many delegates who will vote for Tom on principle. I'm not sure they control as many votes as those who would, at this point, vote for anyone but Tom. But Tom does have a real base of support.
I suspect Tom is guaranteed 30% of the vote by his base, while Ray is guaranteed the same percentage, or a little more, by those who would vote for anyone but Tom. The problem for Tom is twofold: Ray is not "anyone," and Tom has given him a lot of ammunition. Tom's in real trouble. If he gets out of it, though, it's hard to see who could beat him in the future.
Vice President
This is a very interesting race. Neither of the two major candidate is more than marginally credible by traditional standards. Bruce Fife is handicapped by being relatively unknown to the delegates, and in particular by never having served on the IEB. I suspect, in fact, that he would be the first VP in a long time not to have been an IEB member first.
But Harold Bradley has a problem as well. He got booted out of office in Nashville, and not being a currently serving local officer has always been an insurmountable obstacle for a candidate for any AFM office (excepting, of course, presidents running for re-election). Most the delegates like Harold. But, regardless of how his loss in Nashville is spun, he lost. In an election by delegates all of whom won Local elections simply to be in Vegas at all, this is going to matter.
So the delegates will either elect the first AFM VP never to have been on the IEB - or the first AFM VP to have lost his bid for re-election to his Local office. I suspect they'll do the first, but this one could hinge on who gets elected president as much as the merits of the VP candidates themselves.
Secretary-Treasurer
Also an interesting race, in part because the incumbent, Sam Folio, is both running for re-election and has put forward a Recommendation to abolish the office. Sam has been a part-time S/T at best, and people knew that even before one of his opponents, Leonard DiCosimo, began pointing that out. (I haven't received any literature from the other candidate for the office, Quentin Solano, but he has run before without garnering many votes, so I suspect that the race is really between Sam and Leonard.)
If I were a betting man (and I'm not; not a dime spent betting since I started going to AFM conventions in Las Vegas in 1993), I'd bet on Leonard. A year when the AFM is going broke is a bad year for the incumbent to campaign for re-election, especially when many of the delegates don't believe the incumbent spends a lot of time actually doing the job.
VP from Canada
I'm told that some weird sh*t has been going on in Canada recently. But Linda Cara does not appear from the outside to be a credible candidate for Monarch of the Canada by any traditional criteria. I suspect that, if Bill Skolnik were viewed as truly vulnerable, someone else would be running against him.
International Executive Board
Three of the five incumbents (Billy Linneman, Bob McGrew, and Joe Parente) are running for re-election. I suspect that McGrew and Parente will get back on. Linneman has the same problem that Harold Bradley does - he lost his re-election campaign for Local office - but he doesn't have the goodwill that Harold has built up over years and years with the delegates. He might win if Tom does really well, but he's most likely toast.
That leaves three spots with nine other candidates running for them. I suspect that, of the three candidates from large locals (Tino Gagliardi from NY, Dave Pomeroy from Nashville, and Vince Trombette from LA), at least one will get one, and quite possibly two will make it. I wouldn't try to predict which two, although for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I think that Tino will get the most votes of the three. Of the remaining candidates (Dan Cerveny, Karen El-Chaar, John Head, Martin Hodapp, Tina Morrison, and Cortaz Paige), I'd bet on Tina Morrison and John Head getting the most votes. But I wouldn't bet a lot.
So there you have it. There could be a lot of change in the ranks of AFM elected officers; there's almost certainly going to be some. But basically it's wide-open at this point.
"Then there was the incident of Tom appointing a bunch of employers to the Jingle negotiations union-side negotiating committee."
I just read this but I have been warning about employer control and influence of the AFM since my campaign letter published in the 1997 International Musician, I had been beating my head against a wall in the AFM for years as most of the the local officers and delegates are "Employers" under labor law of musicians they are suppose to represent.
After pulling down copies of all webs sites to all AFM Officers and Local officers connection the dots by their own admission they "Are the Employers" but they mis-classify their workers as independent contractors so they as employers can escape S.S.I.-F.I.C.A., workers compensation and underemployment taxes -insurance.
So I was running around asking "Employers who are Voting Delegates to the AFM Convention to vote for me so I can get "More for the Musicians" never gonna happen as they are not going to vote against their own selfish interest as employers masquerading as union officials.
This is what Ned Guthrie warned me about before he died i was to young and didn't get it I saw it by the convention in 2007.
The US Government does nothing to police the union corruption and it is sad that as long as employers sit in AFM offices there is never going to be a chance for the AFM to be a labor union.
Michael Troy Moore
[email protected]
Posted by: Michael Troy Moore | June 19, 2010 at 02:40 PM
Robert wrote:
Vice President
This is a very interesting race. Neither of the two major candidate is more than marginally credible by traditional standards. Bruce Fife is handicapped by being relatively unknown to the delegates, and in particular by never having served on the IEB. I suspect, in fact, that he would be the first VP in a long time not to have been an IEB member first.
So the delegates will either elect the first AFM VP never to have been on the IEB - or the first AFM VP to have lost his bid for re-election to his Local office. I suspect they'll do the first, but this one could hinge on who gets elected president as much as the merits of the VP candidates themselves.
Actually, there have been two VPs who had not first been on the Executive Committee, that I know of.
The first was Tom Kenney, president of the Sacramento local, who ran for AFM VP in 1983 against sitting VP David Winstein of New Orleans, and won. Kenney's time was short-lived, literally. He had a fatal heart attack during his first term, and Mark Massagli was appointed to the post.
The second was Harold Bradley. Harold was appointed to the VP post vacated by then-VP Tom Lee when Lee became Secretary-Treasurer after engineering Steve Sprague's ouster in 1998. Harold had not previously served in any Federation capacity.
Posted by: Ken Shirk | June 18, 2010 at 08:50 AM