In yesterday’s election the two state governorships up for grabs, Kentucky and Mississippi, went to Republicans. The strategies in both races, and from both parties, seemed to be a trial run for next year’s general election. In this article there’s some additional discount, but basically it boiled down to both sides making the campaign a referendum on President Bush. Taking the results from this election, and the results from the 2002 election, I think it’s looking very much like we’ll have another 4 years of Bush.
And of course when I say discount I mean discussion. This tends to cause me all kinds of problems when I present my discussion coupons to the cashiers at the supermarket.
Hmmm. In New York, our Republican Mayuh Bloomberg, who’d been backed by the Republican governor and ex-Mayuh Rudy, suffered a big defeat when his push for non-partisan elections went down to defeat by a 70-30 margin. It wasn’t really seen as a Republican thing per se around here, more of something for fringe and secondary parties, which the Repubs are here also in a way.
OTOH, the good people of Staten Island elected a Republican DA for the first time in a hundred years.
KY and MS are interesting. We’ll see what happens.
Florida is still split almost down the middle, I’d wager. Come spend your campaign cash here. Gore studying for the debates, and Bush visiting Booker during 9/11 were the last really famous historical tourists we had. I kid. You may remember the lawyers that came after the 2000 election.
I’m shocked that no Democrat could go right of Bush on the war and get through the primaries. Not really. Nor am I surprised that Arnie had to slip into the Govship by avoiding the primaries.
The parties keep their candidates from winning. The candidates keep their parties from winning. Repeat.
In other northeastern news, the Democrats basically took over Trenton in a sort of New Jersey reverse Gingrich revolution.
I’m just happy to be done with their freakin’ ads, which set new lows for juvenile stupidity (and since NYC is the principal media source for northern Jersey, I had to hear 'em even though I don’t live in Joisey).
Here are some party affiliation numbers in Florida as of August 2003, from this site :
Republican 3,599,340
Democratic 3,911,806
Minor 244,104
None 1,550,178
Total 9,305,428
I’m one of those with no party affiliation, and it’s obvious that those will be key voters. I guess the question then becomes what do those voters have in common, and how do the candidates appeal to them.
Dewey, I’m angry at the moment at George Geist, Clare Farragher, Louis Tedesco, Rose Heck, Stephen Alamurro, and Arlene Frisca, as I felt that they’d win (re)election, and, had they done so, I could have received $100 in steaks.
Dewey, I’m angry at the moment at George Geist, Clare Farragher, Louis Tedesco, Rose Heck, Stephen Alamurro, and Arlene Frisca, as I felt that they’d win (re)election, and, had they done so, I could have received $100 in steaks.
Dewey, I’m angry at the moment at George Geist, Clare Farragher, Louis Tedesco, Rose Heck, Stephen Alamurro, and Arlene Frisca, as I felt that they’d win (re)election, and, had they done so, I could have received $100 in steaks.
Somebody throw the Governor a steak! He’s passed out on the SUBMIT button!!
Anyway, an article in the TIMES today said Bloomberg was, naturally, sad that his proposal didn’t pass but was actually happy that the margin was as decisive as it was. “If I lost by one vote, I might have thought that if I’d made one more phone call…”
I’m pissed that Joe Coniglio won over Rose Heck for the sole reason that his Arnold Shwartzenegger soundalike radio ad was the single stupidist political ad I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard a lot of 'em.
Seriously. Even if I lived in New Jersey and was a rabid Democrat, I would have voted for Heck soley because Coniglio’s ad so insulted my intelligence. It was that bad.