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captainsblogFor the 34th time in 35 years, I cast my vote on Election Day. The only one I missed was a year I wasn't allowed to vote: Ithaca's Board of Elections rejected me after I moved back on campus for my third year. But that just drew me even for voting after hitting my 18th birthday.
My First Time, like this year's contest, fell the day before my birthday. Because of that first-Tuesday-after-the-first-Monday business, Election Day can never fall on the 9th, but it was close enough for pollworker work the first time, so I got to vote in 1977 at the age of 17. Quite legally- for many purposes, you "attain" your age the day before your birthday. Back then, I voted absentee in the town and county races in the Republican-machine area I grew up in, pissing every one of my votes away.
This time was better.
* Of greatest import, I contributed to the defeat of this county's incumbent Republican King- an arrogant, mean-spirited individual who promised to "run Erie County like a business" without specifying that the business in question was Enron. Four years of BS accounting, cultish "Six Sigma" practices and outright asshattery got him run out of town on a rail.
* The downsized County Legislature remained Democratic, but it will now be genuinely so. For the past four years, it was run by a DINO- a mean, opportunistic toady with the initials BMW, who conspired with the King to sell out her majority, and her district, for the sake of personal gain and royal approval of her pet projects and patronage. Well, the Beemer was totalled last night: she failed to get her party's nomination, ran as an independent, and got her ass kicked by a political novice. My own Lej district will now also be represented by a Democrat for the first time in our 17 years here, as an incumbent redistricted into our neighborhood beat a former town councilwoman and noted tax cheat by a decisive margin.
* The other local races of personal import- replacement race for State Assembly and County Clerk- remain too close to call.
* And nationally, the forces of intelligence and decency were out, defeating wingnuttery in Ohio and Mississippi and holding out hope for an even better night this time next year.
Savor the flavor of democracy. Despite the cruelly named Citizens United decision, money can't buy elections if people think with their brains and get to the polls with their feet.
My First Time, like this year's contest, fell the day before my birthday. Because of that first-Tuesday-after-the-first-Monday business, Election Day can never fall on the 9th, but it was close enough for pollworker work the first time, so I got to vote in 1977 at the age of 17. Quite legally- for many purposes, you "attain" your age the day before your birthday. Back then, I voted absentee in the town and county races in the Republican-machine area I grew up in, pissing every one of my votes away.
This time was better.
* Of greatest import, I contributed to the defeat of this county's incumbent Republican King- an arrogant, mean-spirited individual who promised to "run Erie County like a business" without specifying that the business in question was Enron. Four years of BS accounting, cultish "Six Sigma" practices and outright asshattery got him run out of town on a rail.
* The downsized County Legislature remained Democratic, but it will now be genuinely so. For the past four years, it was run by a DINO- a mean, opportunistic toady with the initials BMW, who conspired with the King to sell out her majority, and her district, for the sake of personal gain and royal approval of her pet projects and patronage. Well, the Beemer was totalled last night: she failed to get her party's nomination, ran as an independent, and got her ass kicked by a political novice. My own Lej district will now also be represented by a Democrat for the first time in our 17 years here, as an incumbent redistricted into our neighborhood beat a former town councilwoman and noted tax cheat by a decisive margin.
* The other local races of personal import- replacement race for State Assembly and County Clerk- remain too close to call.
* And nationally, the forces of intelligence and decency were out, defeating wingnuttery in Ohio and Mississippi and holding out hope for an even better night this time next year.
Savor the flavor of democracy. Despite the cruelly named Citizens United decision, money can't buy elections if people think with their brains and get to the polls with their feet.