Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Reflections On The 2012 Spring Elections

Here are some of my initial thoughts on Tuesday's election results.

First and foremost, congratulations to my friend, Jenni Dye, for winning a seat on the Dane County Board.  Her opponent was a real neanderthal that deserved to get ousted.  Definitely a move up for Fitchburg.

Also, congratulations to Mayor Tom Barrett, although it was as much as a gimme as one could expect in any contested race.  With a 70-30 victory for Barrett, that must be making Scott Walker exceptionally nervous.  As his people and his ratings keep falling, his opponents are becoming stronger.  It's almost stressful enough to make him forget about Walkergate.

I'm just sorry that my endorsement of Jay Bullock didn't win the day for him.

Republicans like comparing their presidential miasma to the upcoming Democratic gubernatorial primary.  In a sense, they are correct.  Both races has their respective parties on who to support and which candidate would be best to beat the incumbent, which they loathe.

But in another sense, they couldn't be any more wrong.  While the Republicans are forced to accept Romney as the unofficial presumptive nominee, none are too happy with the selections they had to choose from.  In contrast, the Democrats are running four strong candidates, and only differ on which one will be best.  Another distinction is that after the gubernatorial primary, you will see the different sides come together to fiercely support the winner of the primary, while the Republicans stay bitterly divided amongst themselves.

I was also pleased to see that County Supervisors Marina Dimitrijevic and Peggy Romo West and City Alderman Tony Zielinski* won their races.  Their opponents had taken the very low road and did nothing but negative smear tactics during the whole race.  It was good to see that positive campaigning and true civic commitment can still win the day.

Of course, there is always an exception to the rule.  In this case, that unfortunate exception is Deanna Alexander who beat Tracey Corder with her negative campaign and by telling outright lies.  Alexander better realize quickly that won't fly when she is supervisor and we will be watching her.  And we will be screencapping her stuff like crazy, since she likes to delete it and then lie about it.

The biggest disappointment was Eyon Biddle's unsuccessful attempt to unseat the do-nothing Willie Hines.  My hat off is to Biddle who gave up a sure win at being reelected to the county board to put everything on the line for something he passionately believes in.  I still expect great things for this young man.

The biggest joke was the multiple referendums held in the conservative suburbs of Milwaukee County to downsize and weaken the County Board.  They only had the referendums in a snit fit because the Board didn't restore all the cuts that County Executive Abele had to put into place, due to the shortcomings of Scott Walker.

I don't think any of the supporters of this nonsense has taken the time to really think it through.  Not only would it save any money, but it will throw the balance of representation way off, with minorities having not enough voice and the county being controlled by the conservative suburbs.  Diminishing the board would only fill it with the corrupt Joe Sanfelippos, Paul Cesarzes and Joe Rices, who were too busy with their side businesses to pay attention to do their elected jobs.  These bozos not only allowed Walker free rein, but actually made things worse.

Even though I'm still vehemently opposed to the fiscal emergency manager position euphemistically called county comptroller, I am glad to see Scott Manski won strongly.  His opponent was downright frightening.

And speaking of comptrollers, what the hell was going through the minds of the 18,457 people that voted for Johnny Thomas even though he had to stop his campaign due to getting arrested and charged with accepting a bribe.

It was good to see that Carolina Stark soundly defeated her opponent and Walker appointee, Nelson Philips.  Besides being a Walker appointee, Phillips participated in some of the most vile McCarthy style behaviors.

But the most significant and the most underreported story is the referendum in West Allis for a constitutional change in order to say only people can be people and that corporations are not people.   This referendum passed by a 70-30 vote.  That is a sounding rejection of the principles that Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and the other Republicans base their whole ALEC-designed plans on.

And now, for the next 60some days, the real fun happens.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I assisted Zielinski in his campaign.


5 comments:

  1. I see more than half of the school referendums were succesfull. Maybe the public feels bad for the teachers loss. What do you think? I also noticed Barret didn't seem to satisfied with his cakewalk of a re-election to mayor. Why does it seem we never seem to change mayors in Milwaukee unless there's a scandal or someone retires? Seems like there's always people in Milwaukee unhappy with government, or are they the unsilent minority?

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  2. I have to disagree with you concerning Ms. Ortiz. She did not run a negative campaign.

    Ms. West does seem to spend an inordinate amount of time Facebooking during work hours and meetings. She was also seen campaigning while in county vehicles and apparently has no ability or desire to educate herself about a topic before speaking out about it.

    As a member of the public I prefer someone representing my interests - and those of my neighborhood, and my city - that investigates prior to speaking and/or acting. Ms. West will have a lot of work to do to prove she deserved re-election.

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  3. Ms. Alexander had her victory party at the Butler Inn again. It would be mighty nice of her to start showing support for her county let alone her district! If she wants to "Rebrand" Milwaukee County she needs to start supporting it's businesses.

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  4. Biddle was an epic FAIL.

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