The Hangover after its all Over – Election Analysis
By Shawn on Nov 7, 2012 in Community
At the Federal level, we had a status quo result, The Presidency didn’t change. The Senate looks to be nearly the same, as does the Republican House. Counting continues in a number of states, but not enough to turn the control of either house. (Florida is still counting the 2008 ballots).
There was no mandate, the country remains split nearly evenly between Liberal and Conservative.
The Republicans learned from this race that you have to raise even more money, and start the negative campaign almost a year before the election. The Democrats began their attack ads on Romney back during the primaries. The divide and conquer process also works, workers vs non-workers, men vs women, takers vs givers. Hate is the name of the game.
With the campaigns spending over a Billion dollars in advertising over the last 8-9 months, it will now only get worse in the future.
In Massachusettts, the majority of voters decided that they preferred partisanship and gridlock to bipartisanship by electing an untried, unexperienced Harvard Professor, Liz Warren, over Scott Brown. By doing so, they have no right now to complain about Washington “not working together,” as they have contributed to the problem considerably. They own it.
Continuing the trend, they also voted for Joe Kennedy III, a young man with nothing to show for himself.. other than the name of a crumbling family dynasty. No experience with running a business or a community. What does he bring to the table?
Its just another sad statement.
Here in Dracut, we can hold our heads high in that we saw through most of this and voted well. Romney and Brown came in with strong wins here, as did the questions of “Right to Repair” and “Medicinal Marijuana.” I would have preferred “Death with Dignity” as well (although state-wide this is still very close.. only 40,000 vote difference with 93% of precints reported), but as Meatloaf says.. Two out of Three ain’t Bad.
In the Colleen Garry, Cathy Richardson race, Colleen Garry won with strong support.
I’m not surprised by this, Garry votes a strong Conservative agenda. Richardson really didn’t propose a strong reason to vote for her. And when this campaign went negative, everybody stopped listening, so any arguments later on were lost.
In the Barry Finegold/Paul Adams race, Finegold easily won it as I had expected. He is known throughout the town, respected by town and community leaders, and works for town and regional needs.
At the town meeting, we voted to support the spending of $850,000 on land for an elderly housing project. I don’t mind that. The land will belong to the town.. so we’re transferring one asset to another. No loss there. I just don’t see the federal funding available for a long time to actually build anything. (Remember, we’re at annual deficits of over a TRILLION dollars now with a fiscal cliff that will have over 7 TRILLION of impact over the next 10 years.. and thats just at the federal level).
With the Affordable housing part of the Community Preservation Act requirement now fulfilled, maybe its time for us to look at stopping or reducing our participation in this program. A 2% surtax being collected every year has succeeded in assassing $8 million dollars in an account with us having no plans for most of it. And it grows another $7-800,000 a year. With all the other taxes going up next year, maybe its time to reduce this optional one.
The Greater Lowell Tech renovation project was approved to go to a ballot vote as well. I think you can load up the Town Meeting to pass something like this, but getting the people to vote themselves a tax increase is going to be hard.
Then again, the proponents were smart enough to push for a ballot vote in December. If it had gone forward to January everyone would have already seen the beginning of the tax increases in their paychecks with the payroll tax decrease coming to an end (everyone who works is about to lose another 2% of their pay to the government). The property tax increases due to the high school project will start showing up in February as well I believe.
And if anyone thinks I’m going to ever vote to increase my taxes.. think again.
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Brian Flaherty | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
Agree that Richardson did not make a compelling case that Garry should be defeated. Garry was all over town this year and at every event you could think of. I tend to lean Republican (although I am unenrolled) and I voted for Garry. She’s accessible, sensible, and not an ideologue. I disagreed with her on casinos but she’s pretty solid and fair. Richardson tried to move up the ladder too early in her elected political career, like Sheehan in 2010. You need to build your political creds for a white before running for a higher office, build support, a coalition, successes, etc. and jump in when the incumbent is vulnerable.
Karen | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
In the end, the biggest issue facing this country is the inability of the people in both the House and Senate to come together for the good of the United States, as opposed to the good of their own political parties. I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat — shut up and get the work done that needs to get done to turn the economy around. It has increasingly become an “us vs. them” agenda with no one in higher office willing to compromise because it’s all about party affiliation. As anyone can see, that is getting us nowhere.
As Lincoln said: A house divided against itself cannot stand. We are at that point right now and it’s time for all of our elected officials to put partisan politics aside and work together for the common good of this country. The angry, nasty political discussions need to stop. The competitiveness and blame-game needs to stop. It does no one any good. It’s time to move forward and do the work that needs to be done.
We don’t need any kumbaya moments; we need a meeting of the minds and a putting aside of party selfishness.
Shawn | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
Karen, if the people of Mass believed in having the two sides work together, they would have voted that way.
No, they (though not us in the merrimack valley) voted against it calling for more partisanship.
Cathy Richardson | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
I want to say congratulations to Colleen and her supporters.I also want to take a minute to thank all of the voters who did support me and were hoping for some change at Beacon Hill. We managed a grassroots organization with alot of door to door and personal contacts and it was my pleasure to speak with so many residents of both Dracut and Tyngsboro. I am looking forward to continuing to serve Dracut on the Board of Selectmen.
Karen | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
Shawn, maybe people voted the way they did because they liked the policies of the person, not because they didn’t believe in folks working together.
Regardless, in the end, it is up to EVERYONE in Washington to bridge the gap and work together. We should demand nothing less.
Bob | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
Great assessment Shawn. This state really frustrates me and now I got overwhelming concern for our great country.
Locally, I hope Cathy Richardson runs again. It may take a couple of times to finally defeat Garry.
Shawn | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
As many have said, its time for the town to grab a project or two and follow it through (not the big parks/building projects, but a new policy, the charter, bylaw review, etc that actually leads somewhere).
And maybe an elderly housing type thing could be it too.. but it must not look like its being done for politics but for the town.
Shawn | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
Karen, its all about priorities.
If someone chose to vote based on other issues as their higher priority, then they gave up the issue of bipartisanship as a lower one.. because for one candidate that was their primary issue and the attribute they were best known for.
Karen | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
All I know is this strict separation of two parties has not worked for the good of the country so those in Washington need to change that mindset.
Politicians and folks too stubbornly entrenched in political parties are so hellbent on believing their way is the only “right” way that they can’t even open their minds to other possibilities. Maintaining that attitude will get us nowhere.
Compromise needs to come from both sides of the aisle and hopefully Scott Brown wasn’t the only one out of all of the people on the Hill who had the foresight to see that. If they continue this way it will ruin this country.
Dennis | Nov 7, 2012 | Reply
Good Meatloaf reference, Shawn.
Eric | Nov 8, 2012 | Reply
Dennis!
You took the words right out of my mouth!