By Michael Laris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 3, 2009

Can Plunkee the Elephant save Alexandria's Republicans?

Council elections Tuesday in the heavily Democratic city of more than 140,000 will tell.

Ten candidates are running for a half-dozen seats. But Alexandria's GOP couldn't find a full slate of six candidates for that slog. After all, the city voted 72 percent for President Obama in November.

"It's tough to convince somebody that Alexandria is the place for them to run," said Republican Chairman Chris Marston.

So Marston is hoping a cartoon elephant and some mathematical maneuvering can help flip some of those bad numbers.

Each voter is allowed to choose his or her top six candidates. But GOP leaders are barraging thousands of supporters with mailings featuring Plunkee that ask them to vote for just the three Republican-backed candidates, and no one else. That tactic is known as plunking.

"End one-party rule in Alexandria," read one mailer. "Any vote you cast for a Democrat will make it harder for our Republicans to win."

Democrats say the effort shortchanges voters. "It makes a mockery of democracy," said Susan Kellom, chair of the city's Democratic Party, which is running six candidates, five of them incumbents. "It's a cynical attempt to have one of their people come in sixth."

Mathematicians say the strategy is sound.

"From a theoretical standpoint, if you were a Republican voter and you wanted to maximize the rankings of the three Republican candidates, then your best strategy is to cast one vote to each of the Republicans, and don't cast other votes," said Christian Gromoll, an assistant math professor at the University of Virginia.

But whether it will actually help Alexandria's Republicans depends on a set of fuzzier calculations about each candidate, and how much voters value party loyalty, they say.

The campaign has largely turned on another set of numbers -- the city budget -- and who is best equipped to manage city finances. Last week, the council passed a $530 million operating budget that cut 117 city positions and raised the property tax rate by 5.8 cents, boosting the average homeowner's tax bill by $76 a year.

Both camps were trying to pull support from the opposing party.

"I don't think we should be playing games with our electoral process," said Democratic incumbent Justin Wilson.

Republican challenger Frank Fannon IV, initially said he did not support the plunking strategy. Now he does, kind of.

"The national party lines hopefully don't affect the local politics as much," Fannon said.

For a voters guide with candidate Q&As and biographical information, go to: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2009/elections/va/