‘Positive prevailed’: Strange looks back on election

After decisively winning the mayoral election, Mayor Todd Strange was calm as he sat behind his desk at City Hall. With the end of what became a heated campaign, Strange had a right to be calm. He also admitted he was calm the day of the election as well.

Strange said he does a devotional every morning he can. On the morning of the election, Strange was sitting at his breakfast table with his devotional book thinking about the impending election and hoping the votes would be cast in his favor.

As he was thinking and looking at the trees in his backyard, Strange said he noticed a hole framed by the branches. As he looked at it, a beam of light shone through the hole and landed squarely on his face, Strange said.

“I knew then that God was going to protect us, and that we were going to win,” Strange said. “I was just calm and peaceful for the rest of the day, and at 8:30 Tuesday night, I just had peace.”

Strange’s peace was only strengthened by his decisive victory over Artur Davis.

“On election night, we thought we would start strong, then we would dip, and then we would come back strong,” Strange said. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Strange said he felt confident, but admitted to getting nervous after his lead dropped to 47 percent midway through the vote count. Still he had faith in his campaign’s goal of running on the good things about Montgomery, not on attacking opponents. In the end, it paid off.

“I was very proud of the fact that we stayed very positive with the campaign,” Strange said.

Strange had faced indecision about even running for mayor as late as December. He admitted that it’s always nice to go out on top, on his own terms, but after looking at what was accomplished in a difficult economic climate, Strange couldn’t help but think what he could do with four more years during a rebounding economy.

“You never want to build a bridge too far,” Strange said. “(But) if we can move in the direction that we’ve talked about, if we can be that great city, then I will be satisfied, and we’ll leave it to whomever follows.”

One person who has already announced his intent to follow Strange as mayor is Davis, the runner-up in this year’s election. Davis, who after the election announced his plan to run in 2019, often seemed to run more of an anti-Strange campaign than a pro-Davis campaign, focusing largely on what he saw as numerous problems under Strange’s leadership.

Strange said his family was affected by the “negative campaign.”

“I’m not fine with it, but I can handle it,” Strange said. “But some of my grandkids had an issue with it, and frankly, my wife had an issue with it, because we’ve never been subjected to that.”

After all the attacks, Strange said Montgomery was the real winner, because “positive prevailed.”

“Montgomery won, because it was a positive campaign, and I think positive campaigns should win every time,” Strange said.

Strange and Davis will most likely never play a round of golf together, but Strange said he doesn’t hate Davis.

“You can’t hate,” Strange said. “But it did feel good (to win).”