The Wake County real estate industry got handed its head in Tuesday’s elections. The executioners were Mayor Charles Meeker, his political strategist Perry Woods and their allies.

The real estate folks may be brilliant business people. But they’re dumb politicians.

If they got organized – and used their money wisely – they would have had a better chance. (Although the anti-growth tsunami may have been unstoppable.)

Probably at its first meeting, the new Raleigh City Council will whack developers with higher impact fees. And for the next two years, the industry will be a political piñata. That’s what happens when you have an unfavorable rating of 50 percent

Mary-Ann Baldwin did win her at-large race with the development community’s support. But she wasn’t targeted by the hard-hitting mailings that did in Tommy Craven and Jessie Taliaferro. Taking developers’ money only hurt those two.

Developers need to learn a few lessons from what their opponents did this year:

• Target the races you can win.

• Run disciplined campaigns guided by good research and polls.

• Use the polls to dictate the agenda – namely, higher impact fees and the proposed $75 million taxpayer subsidy for a North Hills parking deck.

• Sell impact fees as an alternative to higher taxes.

• Make “developers” and “special interests” synonymous – and dirty – words.

• The day before the election, have the Mayor warn that Raleigh’s growth might mean you can’t water your lawn or your flowers.

The developers – and businesses generally – don’t understand how politics has changed. Just giving candidates money isn’t enough. You should use your money to influence public opinion, not just influence candidates. The ultimate source of political power is not money. It’s votes.

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