I totally agree with your assessment of the VA gubernatorial election, Claire. McAuluffe was an unappealing, flawed candidate who offered very little to Democrats in VA other than not being a Republican. I also detest that the media has decided that this election’s story is that Biden’s Presidency is already a failure when Biden hasn’t even served a year yet. They might as well be reading tea leaves. Argh!
There are four victories in NYC especially worth celebrating -- Shahana Hanif for City Council in District 39, Brad Lander for Comptroller, Jumaane Williams for Public Advocate and Antonio Reynoso for Brooklyn Borough President. There's going to be a huge turnover in the City Council because so many were term-limited out. I think the Republicans may have flipped a few seats, but in other districts we are now going to have lots of real progressives, rather than do-nothing people.
I was thinking some similar things this morning, but another thing about local politics has also been on my mind.
About 15 years ago, when I was voting for the most local of local offices, I really was kind of indifferent to a candidate's party identification if they weren't acting like a Republican in the work they did. Not at the state or national level--I've never voted for a Republican Presidential candidate or a GOP Senator anywhere I've lived. I can think of past House reps, now long vanished, who might have passed muster, or GOP mayors etc. that I might have been ok with in places I've lived. But the guy who repped our neighborhood in Media PA, in the middle of Delaware County? He did a good job with constituent services, he was responsive to emails, and the one time I complained that he'd said something too partisan in a way that wasn't germane to his county work, he agreed and said that he regretted it and wouldn't do it again. A promise he kept.
Today, I can't imagine that I could ever vote for anybody willing to appear as a Republican candidate, even for those highly local offices where traditionally party affiliations don't get listed on posters or aren't a big part of the usually (very limited) campaigns that people make. I used to research judges and county commissioners and school board members and zoning board members and care really only what their record was in relationship to the specific duties of that office; the only stances that mattered to me where locally tangible ones. Now I barely bother unless I'm choosing between Democrats in a primary because anybody who is a registered Republican is telling me that they're ok with what the party has become and that means I can't trust them with anything at all: not probate, not dog catcher, nothing. (Doesn't mean the Democrat becomes automatically trustworthy; it just means that the alternative automatically isn't.)
I totally agree with your assessment of the VA gubernatorial election, Claire. McAuluffe was an unappealing, flawed candidate who offered very little to Democrats in VA other than not being a Republican. I also detest that the media has decided that this election’s story is that Biden’s Presidency is already a failure when Biden hasn’t even served a year yet. They might as well be reading tea leaves. Argh!
Ann B: Another "well done" Claire.
There are four victories in NYC especially worth celebrating -- Shahana Hanif for City Council in District 39, Brad Lander for Comptroller, Jumaane Williams for Public Advocate and Antonio Reynoso for Brooklyn Borough President. There's going to be a huge turnover in the City Council because so many were term-limited out. I think the Republicans may have flipped a few seats, but in other districts we are now going to have lots of real progressives, rather than do-nothing people.
I was thinking some similar things this morning, but another thing about local politics has also been on my mind.
About 15 years ago, when I was voting for the most local of local offices, I really was kind of indifferent to a candidate's party identification if they weren't acting like a Republican in the work they did. Not at the state or national level--I've never voted for a Republican Presidential candidate or a GOP Senator anywhere I've lived. I can think of past House reps, now long vanished, who might have passed muster, or GOP mayors etc. that I might have been ok with in places I've lived. But the guy who repped our neighborhood in Media PA, in the middle of Delaware County? He did a good job with constituent services, he was responsive to emails, and the one time I complained that he'd said something too partisan in a way that wasn't germane to his county work, he agreed and said that he regretted it and wouldn't do it again. A promise he kept.
Today, I can't imagine that I could ever vote for anybody willing to appear as a Republican candidate, even for those highly local offices where traditionally party affiliations don't get listed on posters or aren't a big part of the usually (very limited) campaigns that people make. I used to research judges and county commissioners and school board members and zoning board members and care really only what their record was in relationship to the specific duties of that office; the only stances that mattered to me where locally tangible ones. Now I barely bother unless I'm choosing between Democrats in a primary because anybody who is a registered Republican is telling me that they're ok with what the party has become and that means I can't trust them with anything at all: not probate, not dog catcher, nothing. (Doesn't mean the Democrat becomes automatically trustworthy; it just means that the alternative automatically isn't.)