My take on the local election ...

In Niagara County, the voters overwhelmingly chose to stick with the status quo when they went to polls yesterday.

Does this mean they're happy with the way things are? Were they more dissatisfied with the opponent than the incumbent? Did they not know the difference? Are the districts unfairly purportioned? Was there simply not a good choice at the polling booth? Or did the opposition lack adequate leadership?

Well ... probably all of the above.

Certainly some voters feel that the Republican dominated legislature has looked after their best interest. They like the GOP's stance on tax breaks for businesses. They like that the legislature is divesting itself of a public-run nursing home. And they feel their legislators answer their needs as a whole.

Voters often feel as they're making a choice of the lesser of two evils, so I'm sure that for some it was a "hold your nose and pull a lever" moment when they walked into that election booth. Some people have told me that they voted for the person that annoyed them the least (with advertising, teledialing and direct mailing). And some surely felt like the challengers had no plan.

Far too high a percentage of voters are uneducated about the issues. They don't know who the vice president is, much less who their legislator is. And as a result, they have no clue if he or she is doing a good job. What these people do is vote "out of civic duty," forgetting that the first part of that civic duty is to inform themselves on the issues and candidates. This class of voter walks into a booth, looks for familiar names and pulls those levers. This is one of the main reasons for high incumbent return in elections from dogcatcher to US senator. Frankly, these people are part of the problem. And moreover, "get out the vote" campaigns themselves are a part of the problem, too. I could go on with the topic ... and maybe I will another day, but for now, I've explained adequately.

Each legislative district in Niagara County seems to have a natural bent to it. It's easier for Republicans to win in Lockport ... and for Democrats to win in Niagara Falls. Not much we could - or should for that matter - do about that. It's just demographics ... or republigraphics as the case may be here in Niagara. The only "solution" to that would be abolishing the districts and having all legislators run "at large." That creates other problems that - again - I may get to in a later post. So with this point, it is what it is.

Some felt that they would have liked better candidates with cleaner backgrounds, more knowledge, etc. Two of the Democrats running for election has previously declared bankruptcy. This disqualified them immediately in the eyes of many voters. Another got a DWI recently. He was toast as soon as that came out. Outsiders - or non-incumbents as it were - are also simply not familiar enough with the way the county operates. Incumbents exploit that to make the challengers look ill-equipped to handle the job. Of course, the incumbents were clueless, too, before they got elected. They forget to remind us of that.

And lastly is the leadership issue. The chairman of the Niagara County Democratic Party knew he had an uphill battle going into this race. He knew he had some issues to work with and went to work on those issues. But from an outside perspective, it looked like he had blinders on. AES and Mount View were the only topics candidates seemed to regurgitate. Some mentioned the fact that we're the second highest taxed county in the whole country ... but most stuck with AES and Mount View. I have to assume that they were advised to "keep it simple." The incumbent Republicans, though, had their own share of problems (referring to the previous graph) and the Dems failed to take advantage of them. They had their own bankruptcies. Their own DWIs. And other misgivings. But the leadership decided not to exploit those opportunities. Maybe they were trying to "keep it clean." More likely, they just pooched it.

This all leads me to the fact that Niagara County NEEDS an opposition party. Currently we have five parties to choose from: Three controlled by the GOP and two by the Dems. And if the Dems aren't up to it, we need something else.

I'll pick this up tomorrow morning.

Thanks.