chicken$&!+ punditry

According to Stephen Ambrose, the term "chicken$&!+" was composed not to refer to cowardly officers, but to martinets who were overly concerned about matters which didn't amount to chicken$&!+. Not that I'm trying to denigrate anyone, but I shall now seek to politically prognosticate on small town politics.

According to the Daily Progress, Dave Norris (D) won 39% of the vote (3,945 votes), Julian Taliaferro (D) won 37% (3,742), and Rob Schilling (R) only 24% (2,460). Two thoughts come to mind. Firstly, whatever the merits of Rob Schilling's tenure in office and candidacy, it should be noted that he was running as a Republican in a predominantly liberal city at the nadir (hopefully?) of the Republican administration's popularity. I have a feeling that Schilling came to represent an easy target for a city full of p!$$ed off liberals who are sick of the Republican kleptocracy in the federal government.

Secondly, all of us who were worried that Dave Norris might be shut out of City Council must have come out to vote and proved ourselves wrong. I remember in 2002, when Schilling was first elected to City Council, many Democrats object to so-called "single-shot" voting, wherein Republicans only cast one vote for Rob Schilling even though there were two open seats. However, it seems that many of Dave's supporters used the single-shot strategy to ensure a progressive representative in City Hall. In fact, the large number of single-shot voters for Dave, whose actual number can only be guessed, can be inferred from Schilling and Taliaferro's results. Presumably, a large number of Schilling's votes were "single-shot." However, after all the organizations that endorsed Taliaferro-Schilling, one would assume that the majority of those who voted for Schilling and another Democrat would have voted for Taliaferro—which I imagine would be anywhere from 500 to 1000 votes. The number of split-ticket voters could presumably be subtracted from Taliaferro's total, leaving mostly straight-ticket Democrats—which I would again assume to be around 2000 to 2500 votes. Subtracting these straight-ticket Democrats from Dave's total, which was greater than that of Julian's, would mean that around 1500 to 2000 people voted "single-shot" for Dave.

Of course, all of this serves to prove that, sometimes, democracy does really work. It seems possible that an honest, thoughtful, caring, hard-working person can be elected to a position of authority. Of course, the open question remains, will the stultifying pettiness of politics blunt the political ideals of my friend, Dave? Tune in next time. Same damn human condition, same damn blog.

post scriptum
I never liked Bill when he was president. But, comparing him to the current occupant of the White House leaves one positively wistful for the good ol’ days when politicians just had sex with interns, quietly ignored progressive causes, and tried to avoid starting World War III. And then he goes on and does something like this. Maybe politicians can be trusted after all.

Soda Distributors to End Most School Sales