Steve Rocco didn’t file a candidate statement or mount a campaign for the school board. He’s unknown to teachers and the district and only barely known to his neighbors.
Nonetheless, the mystery candidate easily beat an opponent who is active and relatively well known in the Orange Unified School District.
…The [teachers’] union endorsed Rocco’s opponent, Phil Martinez, a park ranger who has three children in the district, is a PTA president and is active with the Boy Scouts.
Some good reading, post-election:
Fraction volunteers for MoveOn (who, I note with some amusement and not a little bitterness, did not appear to have their shit together);
xtop votes (and delivers with the Ray Charles — you the man, x);
Andrew Sullivan finds a popular Republican opinion (update: here’s a better one);
Amy Sullivan (probably no relation?) points out the flaw in arguing that there’s a “fundamentalist Christian movement” on (I kind of disagree, but her argument makes sense);
Jeremy gets his geek on;
The Corner is still somewhat alien to me (is this what Atrios and Kos sound like to right-leaning folks? Is this what I sound like?)
and a long, dispirited wrap-up on the election from the cast and crew at boingboing (I find Dan Gillmor’s comments particularly interesting — a moderate center that increasingly is ignored or trivialized by the two parties becoming a new party?)
More to come, probably.
Well, that didn’t go quite the way I expected it.
Not sure whether to post more about this or not — haven’t quite made up my mind about the whole thing, I guess. Definitely trying not to be sour grapes about it, but as of this afternoon, I’m more than a little concerned about the strong shift to the right this country seems to be taking. Dad and I don’t always agree, but the one thing he told me a long time ago that I definitely join him in is the notion that a divided government is not necessarily a bad government, and that gridlock can often be your friend. Having one party dominating every branch of government isn’t exactly something I’d like to see, from either side…
Thank God it’s all over but the shouting, though. The shouting? That goes on forever.
2. That’s the number of hours (yes, I said HOURS) that I waited in line at the effing polls this morning. Still in my workout clothes, belly aching for food, dog still waiting patiently for me in the front yard because I thought it would take me 45 minutes, tops. No such luck.
All bitching aside, I’m extremely proud to see such incredible turnout at the polls this morning; I hope as Mer suggests that this is turnout not limited to inside the Beltway. I’m encouraged to see that more and more people are making an effort to do their civic duty (and enduring INCREDIBLE waits!!). A colleague who votes in a bad part of DC also did the two-hour line dance. She said there was ONE voting booth for the site that typically gets about 300 voters. By the time she made it up there, more than 3,000 ballots had been cast. That’s pretty damn impressive.
Anyway. Y’all go vote. But take a newspaper wit’ cha.
I will say only that these images are taken from a DVD, produced and sold by Ralph Nader’s campaign, of Nader debating dolls of George Bush and John Kerry.
…
Really, is there anything else to add?
[via Wonkette]
Sarah sent me this link to a JPL research scientist’s analysis of the now-infamous “bulge” in the President’s jacket during this year’s first presidential debate. Convincing (there’s no way in hell that line’s just a “wrinkle in the shirt”) — but I’m still skeptical, because who goes to the trouble of wearing a wire in a debate and then answers questions like Dustin Hoffman in RAIN MAN?
