Early warning signs

[captainsblog]

Our state primaries were held yesterday, and despite the rampant anti-incumbency sentiment in our part of the state, most of the status quos (or should that be statuses quo?) all held. Of the local races involving incumbents, one in this county and another in Niagara, the challengers lost. In the Niagara one, for State Assembly, the challenger specifically called out his incumbent opponent for being a hack beholden to the downstate political machine, and vowed to stand up to it if elected (thereby guaranteeing himself no re-election support, no Lulu money and an office overlooking the State Capitol garbage incinerator if not actually in the incinerator). He lost, but got 43% of the vote, such as it was.  In the other, for State Senate, the leader of the local anti-incumbency movement put his own money and reputation where his mouth is in challenging the most entrenched Republican from our delegation. He was defeated more soundly, but here's why the sound of it sucks so much.

In the latter race, Dale Volker's "mandate" consisted of fewer than 5,700 Republicans voting for him in his primary. His district has more than 83,000 registered elephants in it. So the reform crusade was defeated, for now, because almost 90 percent of the eligible voters didn't bother to voice their choice.

That is unacceptable, people.

If you don't want this pattern to repeat in two months- where everybody complains about the incumbents but nobody does anything about it- if you're not already registered to vote in November, get your ass to this site, enter the info, and do it. Then, on November 7th, spend the ten freaking minutes it'll take to find your polling place and change the way things are. Because if you let 5,700 Republicans get their way in one district in backwater Buffalo, think of the damage millions of them can do.

Comments

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

Because if you let 5,700 Republicans get their way in one district in backwater Buffalo, think of the damage millions of them can do.

A-frickin'-men.

And also? GAH!

Mal is bad

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

...in the Latin. Also in Latin, the plural of 'status' is 'status', much like the plural of 'virus' is 'virus'.

Descriptivist lexical sources will, however, give 'statuses' and 'viruses' as being in common English usage.

Re: Mal is bad

[targaff.livejournal.com]

If we did use status in the plural, though, am I not right it would have to become "status quibus" to maintain agreement?

Re: Mal is bad

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

I don't believe so, because that would indicate numerous status (or, indeed, a single status) arising from multiple things.

Similarly, the proper plural form of 'curriculum vitae' (ignoring for the moment that this is genitive rather than ablative) is 'curricula vitae' rather than 'curricula vitarum', because each still applies to a single life rather than multiple ones.

Re: Mal is bad

[targaff.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's a good example - vita has no reason to agree with curriculum because "curriculum" and "vita" are two separate nouns (path[1] of life[2]), so there's no need to agree (though it could happen for schizophrenics, I guess); whereas with status quo, the quo is a relative pronoun to status rather than an entirely separate concept, so if we were to use status as a plural the pronoun would have to accord. It's almost directly equivalent to saying "The statuses that were" rather than "The statuses that was".

It would still be a very silly thing to say, but I do think they have to agree. The only example I can find is here, however, and that strikes me as a very odd sentence anyway, so as you might expect, it's not something that would crop up very often.

Re: Mal is bad

[active-apathy.livejournal.com]

Right. Yes. That sounds much better. Grammar after midnight: not recommended. :)

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

Of the local races involving incumbents, one in this county and another in Niagara, the challengers lost.

Not true. Marc Coppola lost, and he was an incumbent. Granted, he's only had his seat since this spring's special election when Byron took over as mayor, but he did lose. And it bridged Niagara and Erie counties.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I didn't think of him as an incumbent, since he got the job in a dead-of-winter special election which was even more sparsely voted in than even these primaries. And at least his primary got a respectable turnout- more than 20,000 votes cast in an SD with 130,000 registered Dems.

You should at least be pleased that Al didn't siphon off enough votes to make a difference. And as much as you dislike having one more Grassroots hack in Albany, it also means having one fewer of them on Common Council. (Will they fill that seat in a general election knowing that Thompson is assured to leave it in November? Of course not. They'll appoint some other hack the next day. That's the sort of no-common-sense shit that drives me up a wall.)

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, that would require him stepping down, and he won't lose his paycheck for THAT. He'll just neglect his job for the next two months.

And don't think that they won't just appoint another Grassroots person. It'd be great if they didn't, but if Thompson leaves and they don't appoint another black to replace them, there will be WWIII internally in the party. Grassroots, unfortunately, has too much power not to get another one of their ranks appointed.