The Xpress poll

Rather than taking the traditional newspaper approach and letting an internal editorial board decide which candidate to endorse, we thought it would be more interesting — not to mention more democratic — to poll the whole Mountain Xpress staff about their favorites. These are not endorsements, but rather, a simple act of news reporting: Here’s who the folks at Xpress like.

We asked everyone in all departments (even the reporters — who, for once, found themselves encouraged to air their biases). We did not use computerized voting machines.

With a near-100-percent voter turnout (not bad, in this day and age), our staff overwhelmingly picked City Council candidates Terry Whitmire, Brownie Newman and Brian Peterson.

Several of our outspoken renegades vowed that they would write in June Lamb, who failed to pass muster in the Oct. 5 primary. Someone else expressed the wish that Larry Blair had made it past the first cut, and one staffer pitched for Betty Garofano, another casualty of the primary.

Jim Ellis garnered a few nods, as did O.T. Tomes. And Charles Worley gained at least one supporter in the wake of “anti-Worley” statements by Council member (and possible future mayoral candidate) Chuck Cloninger, who may want Worley out of the political picture.

Naturally, Ukiah Morrison got mentioned in the poll: “I think I would not vote for anybody who would run around Asheville nekkid,” one staffer declared.