A few observations on the national and local elections.
1. While Obama beat McCain soundly in the electoral college, the popular vote was close. Obama got 51% to McCain’s 48% meaning we are still a very divided country and the election was not a landslide nor does it give Obama any kind of mandate.
2. While New York State went overwhelmingly for Obama, Montgomery and Fulton Counties voted for McCain.
3. A comparison of Sandy Treadwell’s defeat by Kirsten Gillibrand in New York State’s 20th Congressional District race and Jim Buhrmaster’s defeat by Paul Tonko in New York State’s 21st Congressional District race shows that Jim Burhmaster did a better job than Treadwell even though both ended up with the same percentage of votes. Buhrmaster got 36% in his race, Treadwell got 38% in his. The difference is that Treadwell was running in a heavily Republican district, while Buhrmaster was running in a heavily Democratic district. Furthermore, Treadwell spent about nine times the money that Buhrmaster did. If Buhrmaster had been in the 20th district instead of the 21st and had Treadwell’s money, the 20th district race would have been closer.
4. The media just doesn’t cover judge races enough, and it is difficult to vote for them because of lack of knowledge.
5. There are still too many judges and local officials who run unopposed. For example both of Amsterdam’s city court judges ran unopposed. While I believe one of the two judges is competent, I don’t believe the other is. Sheriff Amato also ran unopposed in Montgomery County. I no longer cast ballots for unopposed candidates, even if I support them. I don’t do it because I feel my vote doesn’t matter but as a protest against unopposed candidates. Opposition parties need to do a better job at giving us a choice.
6. I am glad it’s all over. It’s time to start blogging about something besides politics.
2 Comments
November 5, 2008 at 10:41 am
You have done a good job on politics the past few weeks and I thank you for it. Glad it is over……
November 10, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Interesting take.
As far as number four goes, covering a judge’s race is very difficult, which is probably why a lot of media outlets avoid doing so.
Judicial candidates obviously have to be impartial about everything, so you can’t ask them questions about issues like you can with other political candidates.
Frankly, it probably would be easier to make a judge an appointed position, like on the federal level, rather than an elected job.