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One of the area's newer political science professors, University of Memphis assistant professor Eric Groenendyk, helped us out with a story earlier this week giving a preview to the Nov. 2 midterm elections. His field of study aligns with some of the themes emerging from this election cycle -- political psychology and specifically the role emotion and especially anger plays in motivating voters.

Groenendyk, who received his PhD at the University of Michigan, says, "Anger seems to be a very consistent predictor of political participation."

Historically, presidents usually see their parties suffer huge casualties in midterm elections, for various reasons. One reason -- a new president often helps the party win close races in districts that are essentially coin tosses that then go the other way in two years time. Winning an election, Groenendyk points out, also means making lots of promises and creating expectations that you'll make changes for the better. And even if a president succeeds in making changes, that often is to the president's detriment -- the opposition now can take aim at a record (think of President Obama on healthcare reform, the stimulus, foreign policy).

"You get anger when you have someone to blame and the president is an easy person to blame," Groenendyk said.

And that is consistent, historically, no matter the party of the sitting president. One exception to the rule was George w. Bush in 2002, when the public was approving of his handling of 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tax cuts had raised individual incomes. Of course, Bush is blamed even by Republicans for the losses in 2006 and 2008. Which, again, is tied to anger. Although Obama's approval ratings are now in the low 40s, they are still higher than Bill Clinton's or Ronald Reagan's at the same point in their presidencies.

As Frank Newport, editor in chief for Gallup pointed out recently, "This is not all that unusual for the second year of the presidency."

Gallup polling, by the way, showed that 51 percent of "conservative" Republicans were "very enthusiastic" about voting in the midterm elections, compared to 29 percent for "liberal" Democrats and 24 percent for "moderate" Republicans.

We're back. Hiatus over. The big Aug. 5 ballot is behind us, but ahead lies the Nov. 2 general elections and a big transition in county government with several offices gaining newly-elected leaders.

As a warmup, here is a link to the CQ House map, which is color coded to show how competitive congressional districts are around the nation. Note that CQ rates 29 of the 433 House seats as "toss ups" and that of those 29, two of them are right in our own backyard -- Tennessee's 8th Congressional District (Democrat Roy Herron vs. Republican Stephen Fincher) and Mississippi's 1st Congressional Districts (Democrat Travis Childers vs. Republican Alan Nunnelee). Both are currently held by Democrats, but Republicans believe they can win them. Both are mostly rural with some urban and suburban areas. And both will be receiving lots of attention from media and political donors from across the country.

Also worth noting -- two of the 31 "leans Democratic" districts are across the river in Arkansas -- AR-1 and AR-2, both currently held by Democrats.

One thing reporters appreciate about U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen -- he tells you exactly what he thinks and assumes you have thick enough skin to take criticism. So it was that the congressman and I came to have a phone conversation Tuesday morning about the piece Sunday that pondered to what extent race may have played a role in Democrats losing every countywide election last week. I included some of that in today's story where Cohen worries over Democrats getting outhustled by Republicans countywide and a trend nationwide of weak turnout by black voters.

Cohen objected to the Sunday piece, because he says that in Shelby County anyway, white voters actually have a strong history of supporting candidates of the other race against a viable candidate of their own race. Off the top of his head, Cohen can rip off many examples beyond the usual A C Wharton 2002, 2006 and 2009 and Herenton 1995, 1999 and 2003. He cites Kenneth Whalum and Myron Lowery for City Council in 1991, points to judges like Otis Higgs, Russell Sugarmon and D'Army Bailey ("they all ate quiche and drank wine at the same bar as D'Army," Cohen said).

Cohen talked about what he called the "Cody problem," referring to attorney Mike Cody's unsuccessful run for mayor as a liberal white Democrat (Cody, by the way, actively supported Republican county mayoral candidate Mark Luttrell). Cohen says that in political circles, it was assumed a liberal white would not win if squeezed between a black Democrat and a white Republican or Democrat with conservative views on race. "The consensus was blacks would not vote for whites," Cohen said. Hence, he said, his overwhelming victory over former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton was a huge leap forward for Memphis because it showed clearly that voters here are not swayed by racial politics.

Rhodes College political science professor Marcus Pohlmann, who has written books on the subtle and not-so-subtle ways race has affected politics and public education in Memphis, told me on Friday that the "dirty little secret" was white voters don't always vote for black candidates. Reading over the article, I may have portrayed Pohlmann as more absolute than he intended. But his point lined up with what I had been hearing from candidates and strategists during the campaign asking why the burden of "moving past race" was only being placed on the shoulders of black voters. Joe Ford's mayoral campaign, especially, made overt appeals to white Democrats not to cross over and vote for Mark Luttrell. It didn't work, at least not well enough, though of course that does not mean those white Democrats who voted for a man who chaired Bob Corker's campaign in Shelby County are racist. Luttrell can list his nonpartisan bona fides at the drop of a hat, and also point out the support he received from black Democrats, too.

The Sunday piece did bring to the surface a discussion that was very much happening among Democrats. The piece has received its share of criticism, but I've also had lots of calls and emails from black voters and candidates thanking us for raising the issue. That discussion isn't happening among Republicans because they are comfortable with their explanation for the sweep -- they say they had better candidates (including the first elected black Republican in probate court clerk-elect Paul Boyd), a better plan and more motivated voters. Democrats, like Cohen, will go into 2012 believing the millions spent here on TV ads and get-out-the-vote operations by Republican gubernatorial and congressional candidates -- along with Shelby County school board elections -- had a lot more to do with the "slaughter" as Cohen put it. 

Just in case anyone out there hasn't had a chance to jump into our Comments fray or email me or just tell me straight to my face (as District Attorney Bill Gibbons did this morning) their opinion on my Sunday piece on race and voting, feel free to take advantage of this forum. Basically, we asked whether Thursday's election results really did prove voters have ushered the area into some kind of post-racial colorblind political utopia. Steve Cohen, after his victory in the 9th Congressional District battle over former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton, told us "no more elections decided by race" and it sure sounded nice.

Here's the story. One of the things I tried to do was confront the notion that the burden of colorblind voting was falling almost entirely on black voters, because of Herenton's decision to make race an issue in the battle with Cohen. That seemed unfair to me, especially given the history of black voters supporting white candidates, often over black candidates. It is also true that many Democrats and Republicans felt the countywide races would come down to whether white Democrats stayed loyal to Democratic candidates (all but one of whom was black) or crossed over to vote for Republican candidates (all but one of whom was white). This is not to say a voter was somehow "racist" for deciding to cross party lines and vote for what he/she felt was a better candidate for whatever reason, but the point was the focus should not just be on black voting solidarity.

As you might expect, the comments were heated. Several people pointed out to me, as if I didn't know, that white voters supported A C Wharton and, in earlier runs, Willie Herenton. Obviously, President Obama could not have won the largest popular-vote victory ever by a non-incumbent without white support. One more thing to add -- Mark Luttrell receiving support from black voters and Paul Boyd becoming the first black Republican elected in Shelby County can also be seen as evidence of progress.

Bottom line, Thursday's vote in the 9th Congressional race does seem to be another indication that race is diminishing as an issue in elections, but it's also fair to point out that the burden of moving past race should not fall only on the shoulders of black voters.

We've got several important public policy stories in today's newspaper, including my story talking to county mayor-elect Mark Luttrell about his transition from Shelby County sheriff's office at the Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar to his new office on Main Street at the Vasco Smith Administration Building. When I asked Luttrell about how he's going about getting a grasp of his top priorities, the very first thing he mentioned was a visit with Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, who of course occupied that office across the street for seven years.

Check out the story to see Luttrell's thoughts on transition task forces. Some items we did not include in the story that Luttrell also emphasized were The Regional Medical Center at Memphis and single-source school funding for Memphis City Schools.

"I don't think The Med is saved," Lutrell said, repeating his assertion on the campaign trail that his Democratic opponent, Joe Ford, was overstating the extent to which The Med's future had been secured. "I still think The Med has some real problems facing it. ... We still have some real problems with the revenue stream of The Med."

Lutrell said he believes one key is convincing state and federal legislators and administrators that Memphis and Shelby County can be relied upon to manage The Med with efficiency, fiscal discipline and innovation. He would not commit to pushing to build a new Med, although the Republican nominee for governor, Bill Haslam, has given strong indications that he would support of finding longterm cost savings by replacing the public hospital's patchwork of disintegrating infastructure with a more modern, more efficient facility replacement. Said Luttrell: "Before talking about a new Med, we need to talk about getting our business act together here and show we can efficiently use the funds we have. Let's make what we have work before we go out and start building something else."

On city schools funding, Luttrell said the county could well face an immediate funding crisis depending on how the state Supreme Court rules on the lawsuits seeking to determine where city taxpayers should be obligated to provide some portion of MCS funding. If a ruling comes down saying the county must absorb the city funding of approximately $57 million, that would create a challenge; however, if a ruling came down saying the county not only must absorb that $57 million but must then fund county schools at the same per-pupil rate, county taxpayers would be looking at huge tax increases.

Luttrell said he and Wharton breifly discussed school funding "as the big elephant in the room." Luttrell wants to immediately create contingency plans for funding. "We have to start planning for that eventuality right now," Luttrell said. "From the campaign I picked up the current administration has not put a great deal of thought into it."

Speaking of A C Wharton, can any area Democrats explain why Memphis's mayor was not active in helping his fellow Democrats during this county election? Why didn't we see him out campaigning at the very least for fellow Democrats Joe Ford and Randy Wade?

Obviously, Mayor Wharton is busy enough handling city business, and it's no secret he very strongly believes in city-county consolidation as the best way to prevent taxes from skyrocketing and services from eroding over the next decade. But Ford and Wade surely know that Wharton could have helped them. Imagine a commercial for Wade with Wharton, the former public defender, using his remarkable communications skills to make a closing argument in the sheriff's race. Think that might have been worth 7,000 votes? It is true that Joe Ford's abandonment of some of Wharton's top priorities, like functional and comprehensive consolidation and single-source school funding, made it difficult for Wharton to get behind his fellow Democrat.

Wharton said when he was elected he would not shy away from using his political capital to help elect people who would help push his agenda for the city and region -- or using it to help defeat those who might stand in its way. He obviously kept that considerable cache of political powder dry in this cycle, however. What Democrats need most from Wharton, it seems, is for him to get out and recruit fresh, talented candidates who could prevent Republicans from taking crossover Democratic votes.

Only a few people have asked about the lede in my story on Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell's county mayoral victory, pointing out that he becomes the fourth elected county mayor to have served a stint as sheriff. We knew Roy Nixon (1st county mayor, elected 1975) and Bill Morris (2nd county mayor) but a trusted friend's email sent us to the newspaper morgue (what we call our library of clip files) to confirm that Jim Rout (3rd county mayor) did indeed serve as interim sheriff for the first month of 1976, after Nixon became mayor.

So we have had five elected county mayors, all of them winning by at least 12 percentage points and at least 12,000 votes ... and four of those five had a stint as Shelby County Sheriff. When you consider that now-Memphis mayor A C Wharton, the one exception, was chief of the public defender's office for so many years, it creates an interesting picture of what voters want (or do not want) out of their county mayor. Law-and-order/legal expertise seems to be valued, though to be fair Rout -- who had also served as county coroner when there was such a thing -- was much more known as a county commissioner with business experience.

And one more thought -- if in November county commissioners Wyatt Bunker and/or Mike Ritz had voted against Joe Ford in the final round of voting to fill out Wharton's term, it's very likely Otis Higgs would have been the interim mayor. And Higgs, you may recall, served ably as interim county sheriff after the Jack Owens suicide.

The CA's prolific and thorough county government reporter, Daniel Connolly, passes along some election analysis from county commissioner Mike Ritz. Essentially, Ritz is saying the intense battle for District 5 of the Shelby County school board between incumbent David Pickler and software executive Ken Hoover is generating massive turnout participation that could aid Republicans countywide like Mark Luttrell in the county mayoral race and Bill Oldham in the sheriff's race.

From Daniel:

He said that five of the six precincts where there was the highest penetration of voter turnout were in areas where Hoover and Pickler were battling for the school board seat. "They've waged a very kind of vicious and kind of hand-to-hand combat out here," Ritz said.

He says most of the people who voted in the county school board race are likely Luttrell voters. "That one race could make Luttrell if it's a close race," he said. He also said it would also potentially affect Bill Oldham.

Whether the computer foulup by the Shelby County Election Commission makes a difference -- and how much -- will certainly be debated in the aftermath of today's elections. The election commission has explained that it loaded electronic polling books with the database of people who had voted early in the May county primaries rather than those who had voted early in this election. Therefore, some voters who had voted early in April but not in July were being told they had already voted in this election.

County administrator of elections Richard Holden said the problem was identified and most poll workers notified by 8 a.m., one hour after the polls opened. Both parties and the election commission were urging voters not to leave and to make sure they cast a ballot, even if only a provisional one.

Holden said the maximum number of people that could have been affected was about 5,300. However, we did hear reports that the glitch created some slowdowns at some locations. I also received a call from a gentleman who said it happened to two voters at his precinct, and said he was concerned that maybe someone had impersonated them in early voting.

Expect Democrats to holler long and loud, since this is only the second countywide election held since Republicans took over control of the election commission after the 2008 elections.

We need to clarify a few things from this morning's story looking at countywide races, and correct a mistake. Here is what I wrote in the Comments section.

1) Minerva Johnican, Democratic candidate for criminal court clerk, is 71. We had the wrong age listed originally, and I also added ages of other mentioned candidates. I apologize for the error and the oversight. Also, her supporters believe voters will recognize what they say were her accomplishments increasing collections when she was clerk, and believe she can bring needed innovations.

2) Bill Oldham's letter from the Office of Special Counsel for the Hatch Act reads that the office "believes" he was in violation of the federal civil-service guidelines concerning whether certain government employees overseeing programs receiving federal money can participate in partisan elections. Oldham, by the way, was free to continue running without resigning; the ultimate penalty, according to the Hatch Act website, would have been for the agency (in this case the sheriff's office) to pay a fine of two-months pay. But Oldham resigned as soon as he got the letter, rather than appeal the decision.

Lastly, can someone tell Mario that the Comments section is not the place for facts and figures? Where are the extreme opinions based on hearsay and rumor, Mario? Instead you give us relevant historical data? Sacrilege!