What a pleasant little town. Nice neighborhoods, friendly people, a place where you can walk and smile and feel comfortable. Every time I feel like things might be getting better, I'm smacked in the face with election results.
First, let me say, it's the balance itself that is the most disturbing issue. We live in an area where most liberals and Democrats are scared to speak out. The peer pressure is so intense that many just stay in the closet about their beliefs. I don't see this as healthy at all. It reminds too much of the one party system from dictatorships and communist countries.
This area may have never been truly liberal, but there was a time when the dis-balance was the other way. It was the Democratic Party that had the one-party rule. Granted, they were the farthest thing from what I would recognize as a Democrat, but nevertheless that party was completely in charge. If you look at Pierce County election statistics from the 90s , it looked for a brief few years that there just might be a two party system emerging. But that was because the switch to Republican had begun and had not fully reached fruition yet.
The leading contested race on the Republican side in Pierce County had 4,649 votes. The only contested race on the Democratic side had 243 votes. That means less than 5% of the people in Pierce County voted on the Democratic side. In the State Senate, the Republican who won here was the one promoted the most as being by far the most conservative in the race, a young son of a wealthy business family. Well, money talks, I guess. On the Democratic side, just in case you thought I was overwhelmed by them, gave 92 of 243 (38%) of their congressional candidate votes to a guy who promoted himself as being a tea-party conservative Democrat, and who had a prior arrest as part of a prostitution sting.
The Republicans voted on a series of questions in such a way that can only be interpreted as moves to further undermine and destroy public education. Everybody, even on the Democratic side, wants tax breaks for different groups, not realizing the money either has to come from somewhere or the state continues to slash services and the state falls further into the abyss.
A number of closet Democrats did vote in the Republican primary because that was where the local races were, and to oppose some of the more ridiculous of the Republican ballot questions. I don't know what to say. One party rule blows.
The only measure that I can think of to stem the tide is to turn more local county races non-partisan, and hold their elections in the fall instead of during the primary. Does a Sheriff really have to have a political party? I don't really see it. Right now, with so many races decided, the only reason for a Pierce County Republican to come back and vote is to attach the albatross of the Mittbot to the country and re-vote on some ballot initiatives.
It wouldn't hurt if the local paper treated each candidate from either party with equal respect, instead of just dismissing alternate points of view as just not having a chance. The Blackshear Times does make efforts in this regard, but it is difficult when the flood of advertising coming in is all about how one candidate is the TRUE conservative in the race.
Sigh. Welcome, comrade, to the glories of one party rule. Салют!!!
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