19th June 2016, 5:03 PM
On the note of local elections, the local party primary elections were last Tuesday. I voted, as there were several competitive races this time, most notably for my local State Senate seat. This is a very Democratic seat so the general election will be a wipeout for the Dems, but the primary was a hard-fought race with three candidates, two of them sitting State House members from within the district. There was some controversies too, as one candidate went negative, to some criticism. I was pretty surprised by the results, I thought it'd be close but it wasn't.
Good article covering the results: http://www.pressherald.com/2016/06/14/ch...mary-race/
For me, the big negative for Chipman was that he wasn't a Democrat until last year and I'm sure I disagree with him on some issues (and he supported Bernie too), while the big negatives for Russell were that she's a huge Bernie fan who was behind that anti-superdelegates measure at the Maine Democratic Convention that I opposed, and also has made legalizing marijuana her main focal issue, something that I also, of course, oppose. And on top of that, she's also the one who went negative, attacking Chipman with some not-entirely-true claims about his support for health care reform (the article above has more). So, though I have some issues with both candidates, I ended up voting for Chipman; his focus on issues like housing, drug addiction, and such, normal issues, is better than hers on more polemical issues. He got more endorsements from major party figures too, despite only just joining the party, which says something about how Russell had isolated herself. Due to this being a very strongly pro-Bernie district I thought her strong support for him would mean more than it did in the end, though, and Chipman won 2-to-1.
Of course nationally this doesn't matter much, but yes, local politics are also important.
Good article covering the results: http://www.pressherald.com/2016/06/14/ch...mary-race/
For me, the big negative for Chipman was that he wasn't a Democrat until last year and I'm sure I disagree with him on some issues (and he supported Bernie too), while the big negatives for Russell were that she's a huge Bernie fan who was behind that anti-superdelegates measure at the Maine Democratic Convention that I opposed, and also has made legalizing marijuana her main focal issue, something that I also, of course, oppose. And on top of that, she's also the one who went negative, attacking Chipman with some not-entirely-true claims about his support for health care reform (the article above has more). So, though I have some issues with both candidates, I ended up voting for Chipman; his focus on issues like housing, drug addiction, and such, normal issues, is better than hers on more polemical issues. He got more endorsements from major party figures too, despite only just joining the party, which says something about how Russell had isolated herself. Due to this being a very strongly pro-Bernie district I thought her strong support for him would mean more than it did in the end, though, and Chipman won 2-to-1.
Of course nationally this doesn't matter much, but yes, local politics are also important.
Quote:Um, what I mean is that, faced with only these two candidates, I'm going with Hillary. Yes, she'll do some good things. Yes, her track record is questionable. Yes, a recent statement after last weekend's shooting about "finding these people better online" by "working with our tech companies" smacks of a NSA power grab we all really need to keep an eye on.The thing we really need to do to stop this kind of shooting is ban public ownership of assault rifles.