I'm not sure 17.6 percent of the voters can deliver a mandate. This sliver of the Boise electorate resoundingly re-elected City Council incumbents Vern Bisterfeldt and Maryanne Jordan and gave TJ Thomson a comfortable win in an open council race.

I suppose you could say the 82.4 percent who stayed home offered a form of tacit approval to Mayor Dave Bieter and the council.

Pathetic turnout? No doubt. Mandate? I doubt it. A disaffected shrug? That's my guess.

Opponents tried to shake the candidates out of their slumber. They rallied behind the $60 million Downtown streetcar project - with Thomson opponent Dave Litster painting the proposal as symptomatic of a City Hall that spends too much and listens too little.

They tried to make this election a referendum on the streetcar, but voters didn't hop on board.

My theory is that the more conservative candidates really were hurt by the low turnout. They needed something that would motivate casual voters, and the streetcar issue didn't deliver.

As we have systematically seen in every Boise election since the May 2001 Foothills levy, the city has a motivated and mobilized core of moderate to left-leaning voters. These voters have supported Bisterfeldt and Jordan in the past - and with Thomson running as the establishment candidate, this vote lined up his way. Chalk this race up to good, sound campaigning.

Calling it a mandate, especially for the streetcar, is a reach. Especially considering a recent survey, commissioned by the Statesman and conducted by the Boise firm POPULUS.

In a survey of 670 Boiseans, weighted against demographic data, 36.7 percent of respondents supported the streetcar, with 50.3 percent opposed. The remaining 13 percent were unopposed. The survey has a 5 percent margin for error and a 90 percent confidence level - meaning similar survey results would be expected 90 percent of the time.

And it's worth noting that, while the POPULUS survey was running, Bisterfeldt, Jordan and Thomson were distancing themselves from the streetcar proposal. And none more than Thomson, who said during the campaign that he supported a public vote on the streetcar. File that quote away for January, when he takes office.

Tuesday's winners didn't promise to push a streetcar. It is difficult, then, to reframe the election results into a streetcar mandate.

Forgive the sports metaphor, which I'll attribute to post-election sleep deprivation. Sometimes, in football, the faster and stronger team just wins. Sometimes, in elections, the better-funded and better-mobilized campaign just wins. I think that's what we saw Tuesday.

LOSING WITH GRACE, AND WITHOUT IT

Sitting in on election night with Nate Shelman on KBOI 670, we spoke to several losing candidates.

These are never easy interviews - and because of that, they tell you a lot about the politico fielding the questions.

Canyon County Sheriff Chris Smith sounded downcast and in despair - with ample reason. County officials had scaled back a $72.5 million jail bond issue to $46 million, and still were short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass. He sounded genuinely concerned about public safety - and worried that, without adequate jail space, the county lacks the space to lock away the suspects arrested by his deputies.

Litster sounded reasoned and analytical. He pointed out, accurately, that Thomson had gotten into the council race months earlier. No whining, in my book. Just a factual observation.

Litster's de facto running mates, Lucas Baumbach and Dan Dunham, couldn't resist succumbing to some boilerplate griping about the Statesman's election coverage.

I'm sorry, but when candidates start grousing about media treatment after 11 o'clock on election night, I'm skeptical. I'm not calling this sour grapes. Shelman did, though, on air, and he has no dog in the fight.

Baumbach and Dunham could take some lessons from Nate Mitchell.

The Star mayor sought a $6 million bond issue to buy River Birch Golf Course and build a city swimming pool. His idea landed squarely in the sand trap. Instead of gaining the two-thirds support needed to pass, more than two-thirds of voters said no.

Mitchell went on air to break the news. No ducking. No ignoring the cell phone. No whitewashing. "I think, well, obviously, it was a bad idea."

No carping about the paper, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. When the Statesman came out against the bond issue, Mitchell fired off a blunt rebuttal: our editorial, the mayor opined, "was possibly the single most uninformed editorial I've read in this paper."

I really have no problem with the response. Mitchell submitted his rebuttal the morning the editorial ran. We published his response two days later. He made his argument. His passion for the issue was evident. I'll take that over after-the-fact grousing.

On Tuesday night, Mitchell said he was glad 35 percent of voters spoke out (I'm sorry that 35 percent turnout is cause for celebration anywhere, but that's beside the point). Mitchell pretty much declared the golf course deal dead, but said he would keep seeking new ways to pursue recreational facilities for his city. He's looking ahead, which bodes well for his chances of finding a plan that will work with Star taxpayers' budgets. Very professional.

Mitchell lost big Tuesday night, but showed himself to be a class act.

Kevin Richert: 377-6437