Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Did The Fat Lady Sing Yet?

Ok, election day is over for another year - or two or four, depending on what race one is talking about I suppose. Actually, for U.S. Senator, that's a six year term isn't it?

Well, any way, as far as my voting experience went, it appears our local incumbent, who shall be unnamed here since I really don't even want to see or hear his name right now, appears to have won re-election. I was really hoping the local voters would get their collective heads out of the lower region of their body and vote him out but apparently, his clout is just way too much to overcome at this point in time. Boo Hiss!

And, the guy who is our representative to Congress won re-election too. I don't dislike him totally, just would rather see someone else in that position.

The governor's race here - yeah, Rendell got re-elected. No big surprise there in my book as he is another powerhouse when it comes to gathering the votes. FOr sure! I'm not crazy about him simply because of how he handled the whole pay raise debacle a year ago (voted to ok the raise, the dumbass) but I suppose he's no worse than any other in that office. Lynn Swann didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell against Rendell. However, one thing which I will be curious to watch is how Rendell proceeds over the next four years to bring about the "reform" he now says is needed in the state. I don't think he ever heard of the word "reform" much less that it would or could be an issue until after the PACleansweep.com group came on the scene back in late July of 2005.

I was however very pleased to see Rick Santorum got booted out as our U.S. Senator. I'm not overly fond of Casey and his stance on Abortion issues but in just about every other area, I would support Casey over Santorum any day of the week. Santorum has to be a big old sleaseball politician in my book. Wonder if he will now change his residency to Virginia - legally that is - since that is really where he has been living all along, not down in the Pittsburgh area which is where he is listed as being a resident of the state!

This afternoon though, a friend of mine who lives in the same precinct as does our incumbent rep e-mailed me telling me she had voted, etc. and talked about a couple other minor things in her note. However, one thing I found quite interesting pertained to her voting experience today. According to her, the wife of our incumbent was "working in the polling area" and was actually assisting a voter while the individual was casting her vote! Isn't that illegal? I thought politicians and their family, etc., were off limits at polling places (inside anyway) in terms of working the elections. If they aren't they sure as hell should be banned from working around the voters, at least so I would think. I would sure as hell feel a bit intimidated if I went to vote, had a question and found myself in the company of the spouse of any candidate there! Kind of lays the question of fair and open elections open to question there in my opinion.

So what was your take on the elections today? Did your candidate of choice win or go down in a ball of flame? And, do you think our system is in need of a little bit of an "overhall" with respect to what candidates have to do to get on the ballot, financial support for candidates, and many other issues floating about today?

Come on, tell me your thoughts!

No comments: