We’ve been busy putting out the August issue of the print version of FrontBurner, so I haven’t had time to keep up as well I would have liked with all this Trinity business. But our cover just left the building. So here goes. An alert FBvian writes:
On June 22, you reported that “informed speculation puts the number of signatures gathered so far by the referendum-seeking Trinity Vote organization at about 20,000.” Given the 80,000 signatures that were turned in on June 29, it would appear that your “informed speculation” was off by even more than the Dallas Morning News‘ mayoral polling. Was FrontBurner engaging in “intentionally skewed” reporting as Wick previously suggested might be the case with the DMN?
The informed speculation came from someone with a dog in the fight. And, yeah, it was pretty far off. But I do believe that my tipster sincerely believed the information. So I figure Hunt’s referendum team did a masterful job of leaking to the other side information indicating that their own effort was failing — thereby gaining an advantage. By making themselves look weak, they gave the opposition little reason to pull out their big guns.
At least Tom Leppert knows exactly what he has to do between now and November: explain the issue to the city and get people to vote for the toll road. If he does that, he’ll begin his term in office with a bang. If it doesn’t it’ll start with a whimper.
