"Our aim, to swat liars and leeches, hypocrites & humbugs, demagogs & dastards"
-- The Yellow Jacket
Moravian Falls, N.C., 1919
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Running in place
So there were a grand total of three contested legislative primary races in Yellowstone County in June. And there were three races with no candidates at all. Yet when the opportunity comes to fill John Bohlinger's Senate seat by appointment, 20 people apply. How come?
5 comments:
Anonymous
said...
It's the same with judicial appointments. To mount a campaign a lawyer has to basically renounce his law practice and clients, slog through a campaign for months on end, demean himself by begging for money from other lawyers (who could end up arguing a case before him)---who wants to do all that when you can be magically knighted by appoinment.
It is inteesting - that they won't put their name on a ballot, or sign their name on a check, but they'll stand up to be appointed.
I'm not too critical about people who ran but did not get elected. They put in the time/effort/money to run.
Bruce Simon applied, and out of 7,000 votes he lost by only 50. Plus, the Democrats specifically targeted him, and dropped $8,000 in negative mailings into SD26 the last week of the election. It's pretty hard to compete with that.
Weldon Birdwell had the same thing happen to him. I communicated with his opponent, Robyn Driscoll, and she wasn't even aware of the negative pieces, that blamed Weldon for energy de-regulation, when he wasn't even in the legislature!
Eric, Interesting comment about Birdwell. I wasn't aware of any negative campaign against him, and I live in that district. Must have been a very limited mailing.
I got a beautiful glossy in the mail - just the Saturday before the election, blaming Weldon for energy de-regulation. I emailed Robyn Driscoll, and told her it was pretty low to do that, and I found out she had no knowledge of it.
In SD26, there were four different mailings, the week before the election, at about $2,000 each, criticizing Bruce for going along with energy de-regulation.
5 comments:
It's the same with judicial appointments. To mount a campaign a lawyer has to basically renounce his law practice and clients, slog through a campaign for months on end, demean himself by begging for money from other lawyers (who could end up arguing a case before him)---who wants to do all that when you can be magically knighted by appoinment.
Some of the people who threw their names in had lost other legislative races. If you can't get elected, maybe you can get appointed.
It is inteesting - that they won't put their name on a ballot, or sign their name on a check, but they'll stand up to be appointed.
I'm not too critical about people who ran but did not get elected. They put in the time/effort/money to run.
Bruce Simon applied, and out of 7,000 votes he lost by only 50. Plus, the Democrats specifically targeted him, and dropped $8,000 in negative mailings into SD26 the last week of the election. It's pretty hard to compete with that.
Weldon Birdwell had the same thing happen to him. I communicated with his opponent, Robyn Driscoll, and she wasn't even aware of the negative pieces, that blamed Weldon for energy de-regulation, when he wasn't even in the legislature!
Eric, Interesting comment about Birdwell. I wasn't aware of any negative campaign against him, and I live in that district. Must have been a very limited mailing.
I got a beautiful glossy in the mail - just the Saturday before the election, blaming Weldon for energy de-regulation. I emailed Robyn Driscoll, and told her it was pretty low to do that, and I found out she had no knowledge of it.
In SD26, there were four different mailings, the week before the election, at about $2,000 each, criticizing Bruce for going along with energy de-regulation.
Money talks.
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