On the other hand, we’re still saddled with Frank Straub.
Could be worse; could be raining.
On the gripping hand, nice to see the Star look stupid for endorsing Melina.
3 Replies to “No witch for you”
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A "surly curmudgeon[], suspicious and lacking in altruism." (Robert A. Heinlein)
The wonders of living outside Marion County. We don’t have the witch or Frank Straub. On the other hand, we do have rain.
Unfortunately, as I predicted, the council flipped back to the Democrats. They took all four at-large seats, for one thing.
And I see Ed Coleman (R turned L) took a pounding. That was a foregone conclusion. Sorry, Ed. Love ya, brother, but you killed yourself when you changed parties.
The truly upsetting thing about our municipal elections is that it would only take about 10-15,000 Republicans to get off their lazy arses to win control. Bobbi points out the fact that only turnout was only 20.42 percent (although that’s now been revised to 29.92 percent, I see). The county clerk’s election results indicate that 10K more votes for the Republican at-large candidates would have tipped the scales.
Nobody should be sitting on their laurels after this election. If Ballard claims a mandate, sorry, but I’ll have to laugh — 51% of 30% means only about 15% of the registered voters in the county bothered to arse themselves to make a choice in his favor.
But that’s about par for the course for our off-year municipal elections.
I’d also make the point that, without the at-large seats, the Pubs would still be hanging onto a 1-seat lead in council.
Gaming the at-large seats seems to be how the Dems plan to control the council going forward. So why don’t we just get rid of the at-large seats?
Or, hell, give the at-large seats to the candidates who get the fewest votes. That would be quite Heinleinesque, in my opinion.
Mary Beth Schneider at the Star makes the observation that the council vote indicates that the county is turning to the left. I call bullshit. When you have only 30% turnout it’s hard to make any claim of political direction. It looks to me like Ballard won by getting enough Democrats to vote for him, just like he did the first time. But those same Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the Republican council candidate in their districts. It had nothing to do with putting a “check” on Ballard — it was just ingrained political habit.
Bottom line, Ballard was not the high tide that lifted all boats this time. And I’m not sure that he was last time; he certainly benefited in 2007 from Peterson’s problems. Four years on, it’s all well and good to point out that your opponent was a deputy mayor under the former administration, but electorates are fickle; you’ve had four years, Mr. Ballard, why haven’t you done all the things you said you’d do? (And done a few things that some people think are idiotic, cough FRANK cough STRAUB cough.)