Local elections

Politics has always been one of the active forums on this site, but it's almost always about national elections or state elections that garner a lot of interest; and this seems to reflect the USA mode. Personally, I think we're 'in reverse' in that way. It's the localized governments-- town, municipal, county, COG-- that make more decisions on our taxes and land use, schools, roads, libraries, and so on, and therefore they may 'touch' us more in how we live our lives. One big reason has to be the feds seizing more control throughout the 20th century, and the same party mostly responsible for that is grabbing for more now.

How partisan are your local elections? How much voter interest do they draw? We had a big bond proposal election today. I hardly ever support bond elections, and often vote No without consideration of them at all (knowing 95% ore more are going to pass anyway). But I did look more into this one-- before I voted No.

My county is one that was all Democratic till I began to learn about politics in the late 60's; it was still heavily Democratic through most of the 70s; but since the 80's it has been all Republican. Be it interesting or not, that is my own history, being from a Democratic family, only in the mid 70's did I consider favoring Republicans, and since that story I've told before about Sen. Loyd Bentsen, I've been in the GOP camp-- I think I once voted for a Congressman who was a Democrat, but he later switched to a Republican and recently left Congress as the oldest member.

But local politics is still more pertinent. A friend of mine, who lives on my street, ran for City Council a couple of times. He didn't ask my advice, so I didn't tell him he has no chance if he doesn't put out ads and signs. All he did was consent to a few interviews, and voice his idea that "everybody should run for office at least once." I wish somebody could win that way, but the winner got something like 200+ votes, another candidate got over 100, and my buddy got 31.

ed. I checked and that $220 million bond proposal passed with 65%.