B.O.B= Bottom of the ballot.
I am a bit of a political junkie who does his best to stay well informed. I do not think it would too arrogant to say that I consider myself better informed than many people who vote. I say this because even I can miss those races at the bottom of the ballot.
I say can that frequenty, I am only marginally informed on the county commission, city council or soil and water commissioner races. This has cost me dearly because let us face it this is the first level of government that a person is going to deal with most during the day. I start by walking on a city sidewalk and will drive on a city street on to a state highway. Needless to say this is the level I and others should pay close attention what is happening at this level.
It has come to my attention that history is repeating itself or at least it is starting to rhyme. In 1994,the Christian Coalition under Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed had a "Stealth Candidate" strategy. Basically, this was having members of the Christian coalition run as moderate conservatives when in actuality they were radical right theocrats.
The races that they ran for were mostly offices such as school board, city council, county commission and the like. These are smaller races tend to get less attention, require a smaller number of votes to win and therefore can be missed until it is too late. All of a sudden your local school board is voting through all sorts of bizarre, spooky and downright fascist policies.
Michelle Bachmann was one of the products of the this strategy. She ran as a sleath candidate for the Stillwater MN, school board, then the State Senate then the US House. Now she is everyones problem.
Did this not happen in New Jersey with Chris Chirstie? If memory serves me right he ran as a moderate big city DA. I remember that he was compared to Tom Dewey by some wags. It would seem to me that he is more extreme than what he rans as. (I only saw this from afar those from NJ can give a more detailed and correct account than I.)
You may say okay, a bit of trivial history but, what does that have to do with today? One of the points that was not covered by the media was that the Tea Party folks did the exact same thing in 2010. They are putting candidates with strong organizations into the field in these races. Just because the tea party does not have the numbers to elect a President, Senator or Governor does not mean that they are just a nuisance, they probably screwing up your community in many ways that are having profound effect on your life.
In fact, I suspect that there are many stories from people about how this has happened. Are not state legis. and city councils and school boards being tied up with absolute insanity as we speak?
Who had ever heard of the Texas state school book commission until a few years ago?
Hopefully now that the pain is being felt people will pay attention and take action.
Yes, I know these races are not as sexy or interesting as the races nearer the top of the ballot. Having said that let's face it these are the levels of government that effect you most directly in your day to day life. These are the folks that will detrimine the fate of your community or neighborhood.
Do you really want a tea partier running the school board?
Do you really want to have to choose between street repair and police protection?
Do you really want to help your kids with their essay on death panels?
I will also tell you this. These meatballs got on the the school board in my hometown. This was back in the early to mid 90's. Even though they did not have a majority and only served a short time; they did a huge amount damage. That school district went from being rated consistently in the top 50 nationwide back in the 80's and even a year or two in the top 3, to not even on the radar screen. Almost two decades later that school board is still trying to clean up the mess and has not recovered.
Let me say that again, these people took a school district from the top 10 nationwide to the sub-basement in 2 to 3 years and that district is still feeling the effect and has not recovered almost 18 years out. So you now understand why I am obsessed with trying to ring the warning bell?
So what is my point? Pay attention to these races, ask questions and be informed maybe even get involved or run. Hell, I find these campaigns to be the most fun and productive.