Joe Riley always runs hard for re-election, but in the end it’s always a blowout. He’s now 10 and 0:
Joe Riley wins big
Incumbent secures 10th term as mayor
Joe Riley, the only mayor most Charlestonians have ever known, handily won re-election Tuesday to a fresh four-year term that he has said will be his last.
Riley received more than 67 percent of the vote, swamping his four opponents and assuring that he will keep the full-time job that city voters first gave him in 1975, according to complete, unofficial results.
Riley gave a victory speech Tuesday night, well before all votes were counted, as most initial precinct tallies showed him with a commanding edge over his closest opponent, City Councilman William Dudley Gregorie.
“I think it’s safe to say that this campaign is cruising to victory,” he told more than 100 jubilant supporters at Jason’s Deli in West Ashley.
Riley repeatedly used the “cruising to victory” phrase, a not-so-subtle reference to the city’s heated and ongoing debate over cruise ships. Riley has defended the cruise industry and said the city is doing enough to regulate it.
Opponents, including some downtown neighborhood and nonprofit groups, disagreed, and some of them poured money into Gregorie’s campaign and possibly into a separate political committee, Citizens for a Better Charleston, that mailed many pro-Gregorie, anti-Riley fliers.
A recent federal court ruling means that such groups can raise unlimited amounts of money for political campaigns without disclosing donors’ identities.
Riley said those mailings backfired.
“The people of Charleston … spoke to that secret committee, spoke to those scared fatcats, spoke about evasion and skirting ethics laws, spoke about filthy dirty campaign tactics, big money, and the people of Charleston said we do not want this in Charleston. This has no place here.”…
Amen to that, Joe.
Not much else to say except congratulations again to America’s best mayor.
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I was very glad to see Joe was re-elected. Yes, sometimes the people get it right.