Election day after

I am not going to talk much about the national election results simply because I don't have much to add that others aren't already saying. Suffice it to say, Democrat control of the House (and possibly the Senate) may bode well for those who want to halt the increasing and very dangerous centralization of power in the hands of one man: the president.

Granted, the Democrats did little to oppose the president's claims to imperial power when they were in the opposition: a majority of Democrats voted for the Iraq aggression and only one of 50 voted against the Patriot Act. Or at least they didn't stand up to these imperial claims when it was politically incorrect to do so.

But at the very least, the few good ones, like Sens. Patrick Leahy and Russ Feingold, will have more influence.

The last six years reminds us that gridlock is not the worst thing in the world. The Democrats don't have much of an agenda to advance but I suppose better nothing get done than finishing the president's radical agenda.

Locally, the Democrat won the race to Congress. She became the first Democrat to win election to the House in this very conservative area since 1976. There are almost twice as many registered Republicans in this district than Democrats. And the incumbent wasn't really that unpopular when the race started so the win still shocks me. I don't think the Democrat is that great and both candidates ran sleazy campaigns. But at least it proves that this area is capable of voting out a Republican incumbent.

The Democrat NY state comptroller was hit with a huge ethics scandal a few weeks before the election. He used a state driver for his wife and never reimbursed the state until his opponent revealed the scandal. He said he 'forgot' but I believe he was guilty of the same ethical 'lapse' when he was NYC comptroller. The state ethics commission receommended he be removed from office or prosecuted, not their usual slap on the wrist thing. His lead in the polls went from 50 points to within the margin of error. It was the first time in my memory when the comptroller's race was the most prominent statewide office.

But the AFL-CIO came to his rescue with attack ads on he ended up winning by 18 points, which was still the closest statewide race but much larger than most expected a few days ago. And the incumbent/winner may still be impeached by the GOP state senate. Some Dems argued he should be re-elected so he could resign and the new (Democrat) governor would pick his replacement. Even if he were impeached, his replacement would be chosen by a combined vote of the legislature, which has more Democrats.

The election was notable also because it was the first time I've ever voted for a Republican for anything above county level. I wanted to vote for the Green but I didn't know anything about her except that she wanted to use the state pension fund to divest from companies that do business with Sudan. A noble goal but not enough by itself to base my vote on. But she got more votes than any other statewide Green candidate.

The Republican was attacked by the AFL-CIO for wanting to change the fixed benefit state pension fund into 401(k)'s. Personally, I don't see this as the end of the world since I have a 401(k) myself; New York has too many state workers anyways. But NYSUT (teachers) and CSEA (other public workers) have so much power even the state senate Republicans are afraid to stand up to them.