The parties have a much reduced role in local elections, but they are usually involved at least in name. Or sometimes, like where Zsofia is, they stay in the background but contribute money or volunteer time to “their” candidate.
but why? the major issues that animate the parties at the federal and state levels don’t usually get much play at local municipal levels, do they? aren’t local politicians more concerned about roads and municipal infrastructure and so on?
does having local officials affiliated with a particular party help that party in any way in the federal or state elections (e.g. - organization of voting places and procedures for federal and state elections - are they run by the counties or municipalities?)
There are some local elections that are more politicized than others. School boards in particular draw in religious crazies who try getting elected to put “creation science” in the curriculum or ban sex education or birth control information. In the US these positions, particularly the banning of sex education, is associated with the Republican party. And you may or may not recall there was a Republican presidential primary debate where most of the candidates denied that believed in the theory of evolution, IIRC.
Some Canadian cities (usually the larger ones) have municipal political parties, and their city council functions in some quasi-parliamentary manner, with a “government” and an “opposition” side. But the difference is that these parties are not necessarily affiliated with the provincial or federal parties. In the US, the Democratic and Republican parties seem to hold a near-duopoly over most all levels of government.
ETA: even among the Canadian provinces that have “counties”, the importance of these entities can vary wildly. I understand that in New Brunswick, counties play no role in administration but now are solely geographical terms. Quebec has MRCs or municipalités régionales de comté which I guess can be translated as counties, which are administrative but not political divisions. (Comté is also an informal term for an electoral riding.)
Sometimes, as is speculated in this case, the party’s grooming a guy. So they run him for mayor and hope that puts some shine on him when they want to run him for governor or for Congress.
Yup, this is pretty common in large cities. NYC, Chicago, and Boston all have pretty large political machines and all have had mayors with bigger political aspirations.
Even in smaller cities, like Trenton, Newark, Hoboken, and Camden in New Jersey are all places where mayors may springboard into statewide elections.
Pork is, after all, a nice sweet meat.
Sicko.
So? are the swine-lovers going to go en masse for Jonathon Chance in the election? Or will the anti-swine vote be decisive against him? where’s the smart money on this one??
Good luck in the election, JC!
And why isn’t this thread in the 2010 Elections forum? Typical MSM, not addressing the real issue - the SDMB “powers that be” think that that the pig-kissing issue isn’t important enough? Nooo - that forum’s all about trivia like health care and taxes - classic Beltway thinking, out of of touch with the real issues and what real people think - porcine puckering is by far the most important issue facing the Republic, in my opinion.
So, didja win?