I've never missed an election since the day I turned 18. Not one. Uncontested school board race? I'm there, pulling those levers. Off-year race for town justice and town clerk, on a day I'm traveling? Send me that absentee ballot and I'll obligingly punch the little holes.
But for the first time in two decades of uninterrupted voting, I'm having a very hard time motivating myself to head out to the polling place tomorrow morning. Help change my mind, after the fold...
OK, here's the deal. I live in an upstate NY county (Monroe) that's just about evenly split - we Dems hold a very slight enrollment advantage over the Publicans, with an ever-increasing number of unenrolled and, this being New York state, a fair number of Conservatives, Working Families, Independence Party members and whatnot.
We have a GOP county executive who ran for office four years ago as a "uniter, not a divider," only to become one of the more polarizing figures ever to hold that office. (Gee, why does that storyline sound familiar?)
Her big issue - really, the only issue in the county - is the budget shortfall that comes from ever-increasing Medicaid costs coupled with a stagnant tax base. And her latest "solution" is a bit of fiscal legerdemain she's calling the "FAIR Plan," which looks nice in the slick TV ads, but which will essentially divert county money from the suburban school districts to "solve" the Medicaid funding crisis.
This "plan" was hatched in secret, previewed before an audience of only GOP town supervisors, revealed to the public three hours before a hastily-called (and possibly illegal) county Legislature meeting, then rammed through by the GOP majority in the Lej without ever even giving the Democratic minority (it's 17-12 - remember, this is a fairly evenly-divided county) a chance to comment on it.
Public input? That came later - well, sort of: said county executive has held a series of "public forums" in the form of poorly staged conference calls, which don't exactly encourage dissent.
So you'd think there would be a heck of a race going on right now, with the Democratic candidate making a strong case for change.
Yeah, about that...you see, our local Democratic committee couldn't get anyone to run on their ticket. Or so they claim; there's a fair amount of evidence suggesting they didn't go very deep in asking potential candidates. But the point remains: I want, very badly, to vote against Maggie Brooks tomorrow. There's a Working Families Party candidate I can vote for, and if I bother to go to the polls, I'll do just that. He won't win, though, without the kind of support that a Democratic cross-endorsement could have provided, and that means that no matter what I do tomorrow, I'll be treated to the sight of Maggie's smiling face on the news tomorrow night crowing about how the voters of Monroe County have showed their support for her strong leadership, etc. etc.
Without a candidate at the top of the ticket, the county Democrats have almost surely blown whatever chance they had to turn the Lej majority around. It didn't help that the county Publican chairman, a tinpot Karl Rove-wannabe who got himself booted as state Publican chairman after last fall's statewide electoral butt-kicking, has been up to his usual tricks - sending out flyers accusing Democratic candidates of supporting terrorists (playing off Spitzer's proposal to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants). And so what if the state Fair Campaign Practices Committee ruled that the flyers were illegal? They're out there, and it's the day before the elections already, and so what?
The local newspaper's no help. It tepidly endorsed Maggie, then tepidly endorsed most of the incumbents in most of the Lej races, except for two districts where there might be Dem pickups (and remember, we need three to make any difference.)
Did I mention that in one of them, our local Karl Rove-wannabe sent out flyers attacking the Democratic candidate, a school principal, for having some of the lowest test scores in the district at his school? And that the reason those test scores were low is because that's where most of the special needs students in the district are sent for the help they need? Shameless, I say - but what's my local party doing to counter it?
And there's nothing I can do about any of it anyway: my Lej district was carefully gerrymandered by the "permanent GOP majority" to be a sacrificial Democratic district, and my county legislator's seat isn't up for re-election this year, anyway.
Wait, there's more: how about the well-respected State Supreme Court judge, nominally a Republican, who was offered a Democratic cross-endorsement, but ordered (by Mr. Rove Wannabe) to turn it down?
Oh, and what about the district attorney who was described to me by a very trusted friend with deep ties to the courts as "our own Mike Nifong in the making"? I'd vote against him, sure, but he's actually a Democrat, and if I vote for his GOP opponent, then Mr. Rove Wannabe has another source of power in the county? (Why are races like these, and the judicial ones, partisan anyway?)
What about my town elections, you ask? Surely, there's some sign of democracy there, right?
Er, no. If you believe - and I do - in a vibrant two-party system, in which ideas are openly debated and every race is up for grabs, my town is the wrong place for that. We're very, very blue here, which means our town supervisor will be re-elected for a ninth term tomorrow, along with her all-D town board, town clerk, town justice, dogcatcher, etc. She's a very nice person, but you know, some debate and dissent wouldn't hurt here at home, either.
I'm sure my friends over at Rochester Turning will have much more to say as the election results come rolling in tomorrow.
Me, I'm sorely tempted to sit this one out and break my streak. Anyone want to talk me out of it?