Election reactions
Thursday Nov 09, 2006
I have a mixed reaction to the mid-term elections on Tuesday. Overall I'm happier about an election than I've been since about 1996.
On the local level, we had an four propositions for school bonds. A year ago one big bond proposition failed, with detractors claiming the amount of money was too big and that there hadn't been enough community input. I had voted for it, because I didn't see anything we didn't need in that bond issue and land and materials for new and updated schools is only going to get more expensive. The new bonds added up to a similar amount, but they all passed at about a 60-40 margin. Perhaps it just took more education and time to think about it.
At the state legislature level, I saw our existing Republican legislators reelected, so I wasn't all that happy about it, generally being a Democrat. I will say that my representative, Mike Krusee, has played a big role in transportation issues the past several years, so he's very visible. I just happen to disagree with building tollways instead of freeways. I did notice that Krusee got just over 50% of the vote, and his main rival, Democrat Karen Felthauser, got 44%, so I'm obviously not alone in my dissatisfaction with Krusee.
For the statewide races, I was again disappointed, but not surprised. Rick Perry was reelected with a mere 39% of the vote. Sigh. I do wonder what would have happened had this not been a 5 way race. Obviously a lot of folks didn't want Perry to be reelected, but it's difficult to tell what would have happened had the two independent candidates not run. How many would have stayed home, how many would have voted for Perry, how many for Democrat Chris Bell. Also, the fact that there's no runoff if no candidate gets 50% of the vote seems wrong to me. Either a runoff election between the top two candidates or an instant runoff election would be better, I think.
The rest of the statewide races also went Republican again, no surprise.
For U.S. Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchison was reelected. Not my favorite, but at least she responds when I write her letters, unlike Senator Cornyn.
And my local U.S. Representative, John Carter, a Republican go along if there ever was one, was reelected pretty handily too. I thought Mary Beth Harrell would be a much better representative, and she actually has a stake in this war business, being in a military family with a son in Iraq.
I am much happier about the results in the U.S. Congress, despite my own district not going along with it. Congress has not "checked and balanced" the executive branch the past six years, and I expect that to change now. I'm neutral on impeachment, as I think we need to actually investigate some things first, and see where it goes. I also think impeaching Bush by himself is no good, you also need to go after Cheney, as the idea of President Cheney makes me shudder!
We'll see how things go the next couple of years. I think the election has swung the congress back to the middle, really, and I hope the president also moves to the middle, but I'm skeptical at this point.
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Posted by sal costello on November 12, 2006 at 04:22 PM CST #