September 15, 2006
Campaign 2010 Already Heating Up...in Ward 3
We're barely getting over the September 12 Democratic primary and already we're hearing whispers of the 2010 election. Jonathan Rees, the Ward 3 candidate known for his, let's say, "creative" use of online resources to run his campaign, may be smarting from his trouncing on Tuesday (he mustered 29 votes for the council seat, or 0.21 percent of the total votes cast), but he's not out. Not at all.
In a posting on a DCPages.com messageboard, Rees yesterday announced his intention to challenge incoming Ward 3 council-member Mary Cheh in 2010. He wrote:
I want the residents of Ward 3 to have a Council Member who represents them which Mary Cheh has already shown she will not do by whom she aligned herself with.Let's see. Rees spent 15 months campaigning this time around, and got 29 votes. Should he start now and spend the next four years pounding the pavement, our sources tell us he may move beyond the 100-vote mark. Then again, the more Rees campaigns, the stranger his campaign gets. He's managed to spam voters into submission, argue that banning gay marriage makes good business sense, create blogs to attack opponents, and make the Post go batty. Come 2010, he may be the only one voting for himself.I am "that" person who will do for you what Mary Cheh will fail to do as I will not do what Mary Cheh has; namely, I will not stab the businesses and voters in the back and cave in to special interest groups as she did late in her 2006, campaign.
When I ran in the 2006, primary, I did so more as a test run by only spending $500.00, use of the internet and friends but for the 2010 primary, I will be heavily financed, heavily backed on the streets of ward 3 and build alliances of people who did not vote for Mary Cheh.
If you are one of the 24,000 Democrats in ward 3 who did not vote for or want to see Mary Cheh as our next Council Member and think we can do better, then contact me now so together we can build a strong opposition to her and in 2010 make her a one term council member.
What could we expect over the four years? We dare to say we're curious to find out.
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I thought he got 28 votes - was there a recount?
There was one precinct that had some electronic voting issues, which caused the final count to be delayed. Rees recieved a single vote from that polling place, pushing him from .18% to .21%n of the electorate.
I am still trying to figure out how he was able to impersonate so many people in such a short period of time.
This guy makes Robin Ficker look sane.
So much for the cliche, you can't keep a *good* man down.
"Rees spent 15 months campaigning this time around, and got 29 votes. Should he start now and spend the next four years pounding the pavement, our sources tell us he may move beyond the 100-vote mark."
I think you have it backwards- the more campaiging he does, fewer people vote for him as they're exposed to his ideas. Look for him to poll in the negative numbers in 2010.
Well, Rees should consider that Cheh has a *lot* of ex-students (i.e., lawyers) who *really* like her. If he decides to go all psycho on her in the next couple of years, she'll have a lot of help in smacking his ass down in a significant way.
Considering the amount of posts on DCist about Rees I am starting to think that Rees and Martin are in fact the same person or at least connected in some way.
Big surprise. That poor little mental case. He's incapable of stopping is erratic and compulsive behavior.
Let's all take a pledge: TOTALLY IGNORE the barrage of insane, offensive, delusional posts he'll unleash in the next four years. He loves the attention. And he's emboldened by it. Let's all agree, here and now, that he's a mentally-ill and dangerous man and pledge to give him NONE of the attention he seeks. If you thought a year of his ranting and threats were bad, imagine if you dare what FOUR years will be like. To hell with him.
Rees now holds the DC-area record for the worst vote tally ever for a candidate who was on the ballot. So he's a winner! It took Jonathan Rees about two weeks of "campaigning" for each of the 29 votes he received.
Jeff, unfortunately Nestor Djonkam and Artee Milligan did worse as a percentage than Rees did, since they were running in a citywide race rather than a single ward.
I'm surprised Rees isn't running in the 2008 at-large council race instead of waiting for 2010.
You're right: I should have said that Rees appears to hold the record for worst vote tally for any war city council candidate. What's especially telling is how few votes Rees got compared to how long he's been running, which I estimate to be 14 months. A 14-month campaign and 29 votes. That's humiliating (or it should be.)
He's incapable of feeling humiliation, or any other normal human response. Example: He's now claiming that his whole campaign was really just a way of pointing out the hypocrisy of the whole system and that he never REALLY wanted to win. (See DCPages for more information.)
IGNORE REES. He's a nutjob and a dangerous one who thrives on your attention. Now that he's not a candidate for any race, there's no reason to bother disproving his ridiculous claims or making public his lies. He should now be dismissed and ignored like any other of the thousands of delusional trolls who plague every site on the internet.
The reference above should have been City Desk, not DC pages. See the comments thread under "Can't Keep A Bad Candidate Down."
Though I now regret mentioning any site that allows him to post.
Rees vs. Bolden, who would you vote for? I think I'd take Rees, at least he'd provide nutjob comic relief. Bolden is just an a**hole hated by everyone.
Why are people advocating we ignore Rees? I love the plucky little bugger. He's freaking hilarious! That is the benefit of living in the city, people: free street theater.
I'll make a deal with Rees. I'll support him for whatever office he runs for if Rees invites me and my friends to his lovely place in Puerto Rico that he brags about.
Oh crap. Now Rees is spamming email lists with messages and a "poster" asking people to write him in for Ward 3 City Council on Nov. 7th.
Can't this guy take the hint?
I just thought that I'd let people know that there's a new blog about Jonathan Rees. It's terrific:
http://jonathanrees.blogspot.com/