The Election

As I have mentioned before, the primary purpose of this blog is to comment on stuff going on in Roland. But I have an interest in politics, so I am going to take one last opportunity to comment on the election.

If you read a previous post or two on the election, you can figure what my political preference is. But this is from a straight neutral observer perspective.

I cannot figure out Iowans. And in particular, their love affair with incumbents. With the exception of the flip of the Secretary of State from D to R, and incumbent Culver losing the Governor race (however to Branstad who bascially ran as an incumbent), all the incumbents were re-elected.

What has Iowa's Secreatary of Ag done for anybody? He's an R, and he mopped the floor with his opponent. What has the Attorney General done for anybody? He is a D an mopped the floor with his opponent.

Then in Congressional District 1 thru 3, Iowans elected Congressmen who range from a flaming liberal to a moderate Dem, but in each district voted for conservative Grassley by a huge margin. I don't get why anyone would cast their ballot in such a way, but apparently lots of people did.

The only advantage of all of this is split control of government means gridlock. And despite many pundits all up in arms about it, I love it. Gridlock gums up the works of an overbearing government, and that is a good thing. (ok, getting away from my neutral observer comments on that)

Another note about the election, that I am not quite sure what to make of Iowa voters and their dislike of female candidates. As you've probably heard, I think Iowa is only one of two states to never have had a female represent some or all of the state in DC. That held this time again.

Conlin the D got trounced in US Senate. Miller-Meeks the R lost again in CD 2 when a large tide of Republican flips were taking over the country. The really odd results to me is Brenna Findley getting crushed by Tom Miller in the Attorney General race.

That race you can compare to the state Treasurer race. Both the AG and the Treasurer are both held by long time incumbent Democrats. Finley, running for AG, raised way more cash than Jamison running for Treas. She had a better campaign organization, more yard signs, more ads than Jamison against his opponent. But still Jamison came closer to his opponent than Findley. Was Findley being a woman the simple reason why? And can you hang that on Republican voters?

I looked at the numbers for Sioux County, probably the most R county in the state. Here are the Republican percentages. Grassley 91%, Steve King 87%, Branstad 88%, Schultz 87%, Vaudt 89%, Jamison 86%, Northey 91 %, Finley 81%. I cannot figure out why her percentages would drop so much, other than the woman thing.

It's not like she is an unlikeable person. (people might not like her policies, but again she doesn't seem unlikeable) It's not like Tom Miller is loved in Sioux County (probably couldn't even find it on a map). When I heard her on the radio, she did sound like she was about 20 years old, which may not have helped. Anyway, just found that result strange.

Lastly about the judge vote. Gonna get a little out of my neutrality here, with some opinion thrown in with my casual political observer status. I voted no on all the judges, as I always do. I do it out of a stir up the political establishment, especially in regards to a bunch of lawyers. Unfortunately, I get lumped in with goobers like Vander Plaats.

A judge like Ternus in particular needed to be dumped for her weasling out of the giant underage beer bust at her estate. "I didn't know it was going on, blah blah blah." Words like lying sack of crap come to mind.

But I think the reason the judges got dumped can be laid at the feet of the Democratic leadership of this state. Some amount of the no votes came from folks like me, who vote no on judges out of the principle of the thing, out of a dislike of the whole legal establishment.

But I think the reason this time around the judges got dumped because it was the Democratic politicians, Gronstal in particular, who didn't want to have to stand up and go on record for or against gay marriage, and not even allow a vote to have it put on the ballot.

That topic is of major interest to a sizeable amount of people, and since the voters couldn't hold any politician's feet to the fire, the judges got thrown in the fire. I don't think those judges would have got punished, if there had been a ballot issue on gay marriage at this election.

So there was only one place for that segment of voters to take their wrath, and bing it was on the judges.

Wow, that's a lot. Don't expect that much commentary on the Roland Municipal elections next year. I'll probably vote against the incumbents there too.