Post Mortem: Election April 2007

Well....... it looks like an endorsement by Citizen Miller is the kiss of death !

Of the 12 positions being filled by election -- only 2 of my candidates ended up in the winner's circle.

(but maybe that's good news -- because hopefully some of them, with extra time on their hands, will start political blogs that will make me better
informed in the next election cycle)

Regarding the Mayor of Forest Park:

I'd say it's amazing that the challenger did as well as she did (if 100 votes had swung the other way -- she'd have won)
given that:

*she was outspent at least 5:1
*she's not a good public speaker -- nor, from what I've seen -- a very congenial, glad-handing sort of person
*the incumbent has been perfectly situated to campaign face-to-face for his last 8 years in office (and there only are 2,800 voters here)
*the economic prospects and appearance of the village have remarkably improved over those past 8 years

So the obvious choice really was to vote for the incumbent -- except that --- the closer you look at what he's done -- the less appealing he becomes.

Even if it's perfectly legal - the pay-to-play American approach to politics is debilitating --- whether it's on a local or national level.

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Regarding the Commissioners of Forest Park:

The entire slate of candidates endorsed by the local newspaper turned out to be the winners -- so I guess most voters relied on them when selecting among mostly unfamiliar candidates.

I'm glad that Marty Tellalian won a seat -- he seems to have been the one candidate who was both already engaged in public life and critically thoughtful.

But I am down hearted that all of the other winners followed the incumbent mayor's lead in not endorsing the campaign pledge proposed by our local citizen's group, "Citizens United for Forest Park"

It's just not a good sign -- that yet another generation of politicians is marching lock-step toward a career of self-service.

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Regarding Proviso District 209 High Schools:

What a puzzle !

The "Proviso First" slate wins 2 of 3 seats -- but the third seat goes to the one candidate whom their campaign attacked the most vociferously ----
and all this despite the fact that "Proviso First" supported the incumbent administration of a school which has just scored at the very bottom of Chicago suburban school districts.


It seems that the total failure of job performance is completely irrelevant to political success.

Were so many voters just plain fooled by a campaign that pretended to be critical of incumbency ?

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Regarding the other races (Triton and Proviso trustees) --- the winning candidates presented nothing about themselves -- via either flier or website -- so how did they win ?

The politics of American education can be a very mysterious thing.