Editor-In-Chief
McALLEN, Texas - As American voters march to the polls tomorrow, they will be casting votes for some well-qualified candidates and a handful of very strange wannabes. The nation's politics have never been so frayed as they are at present, but there is really nothing wrong with that. It's the system we've known for all these years.
In Delaware, Tea Party senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell offers her debt-ridden history and flirtation with witchcraft as two principal qualifications. In Nevada, the brain-challeneged Republican Sharron Angle, also a Teabagger, arrives with idea that span use of weapons to remedy the country's problems to denying abortion even in the case of rape. They're not alone, however. In races set to be decided in Alaska and Florida and Ohio and Texas and New York, similarly-odd Americans are posting themselves for victory.
The country's problems are many, as it happens. So for these hardly-qualifed candidates (the Tea Party candidate for governor of New York, Carl Paladino, is accused of being a porno addict with stereotypical Italian sensibilities), tomorrow's vote is the day of reckoning.
We have sort of monitored many of these national contests and can only come up with one example of what we consider a positive proposal: The state of Washington's ballot initiative to, yeah, adopt a state income tax that would affect only the rich.
Who's backing that one?
And, for residents of the far northwest, it is something of a goldmine they'll tap into if the measure passes. Seattle counts a large number of millionaires. To his credit, the elder Gates, shown in photo above, is contributing his own money to push for the legislation, which would bring yet additional tax burdens on his ultra-millionaire son, Bill Gates, Jr. of Microsoft fame.
Aside from that, we have seen nothing as interesting in meaningful proposals offered by the candidates in this cycle, the so-called mid-term congressional elections.
Among the more interesting contests are the governorship of Texas ( a victory by Democrat Bill White over incumbent Republican Rick Perry would turn the state upside down in more ways than just redistricting of congressional districts), in New York and in California, a state where the Republican (Meg Whitman) has spent $160 million of her own money.
Pundits on the wall-to-wall cable news programs predict the Republican Party will win a majority in the House of Representatives, a development being seen as both a plus and minus for President Barack Obama, a Democrat. A Republican takeover would see Democrat and Californian Nancy Pelosi hand over the gavel to Republican John Boehner of Ohio. That would create a new working dynamic for the White House.
For the most part, this year's contest will not bring great change to the country. Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate Rand Paul and others of such minds will arrive as junior senators, and history tells us that, at best, all junior members of Congress ever accomplish is raising the volume of Washington, D.C.'s regular noise.
Still, it is the American electoral system at work. Some years, we see smart, prepared citizens posturing themselves as public servants. And other years, we see what we are seeing today...
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2 comments:
I already voted, I hear that elections are usually won during absent t balloting. I know, in Cameron county election building there was quiet a bit of activity.
May the best candidate win.
So have I heard about that, everyone wants to win during the absent t balloting. I know,that candidates are pushing hard.
But who knows, elections in the Valley are weird and strange boxes end up being turned late.
During the last election, they tried to steal Robert Leftwich's election results. It didn't work, but the bastards almost got away with it.
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