Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Election Day

One of the things that has struck me this election season is how few lawn signs have been up in Rensselaer. There seem to be fewer now than there were for the primary a few months ago. This lack of signs is local--in several trips out of county, I saw many more signs in other towns.

One factor is probably that we have few competitive and interesting races. The Senate and House races seem noncompetitive. Ellsworth seems not to have foreseen what having Obama on his side would mean when he decided to run, but figured it out soon after because he has been running as a former sheriff rather than a sitting congressman. In the primary the Republicans had a slew of candidates running for the House and selected probably the weakest of them because he had a bit of name recognition from 2008. It is hard to see that Leyva has even run a campaign. It is always a bit sad when people do not know when to step aside and make way for others.

On the county level, the sheriff's race seems to the big one judging from the signs. There are also signs for a couple of county council races that are being contested--many of the local positions are uncontested. The Democrats have won the sign race--they have noticeably more signs than the Republicans. I know very little about the local parties, but the sign wars suggest to me that the local Democrats may be better led than the local Republicans.

I have seen a lot of polls and predictions about the races nationally, but the only poll that counts is the one takes place today.

1 comment:

  1. Have you considered that it might also mean that some signs are being removed? If a candidate has a lot more signs, particularly in portions of the district, then I suspect tampering. I know that a lot of Republican signs have mysteriously disappeared. Signs have been removed from yards in town. This reeks of dirty politics. Last election the opponent of the man losing signs ran in another race. The successful candidate in that election also lost signs, even had some burned. I know that kids move signs, the wind damages then, but Jasper County seems to have politicians (Or wanna be's) that play dirty. Let's vote them out of office!!!

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