Unfortunately, the two Supreme Court justices who did not deserve retention were retained. However, with 99% of state precincts reporting, the favored judge of Superior Court won, Vic Stabile.
Locally, our elections were a mixed bag. On the one hand, the lesser of two evils won the county-wide offices. However, a MAIG mayor managed to retain his seat by a stinking 8 votes.
This is why gun owners need to at least look at what’s happening right in their backyards. I’m not saying you need to track every little borough happening or know every little piddly fight going on between township and county or whatnot. As I told folks yesterday, simply look up the page to see if your mayor is in MAIG. If s/he is, vote for the opponent. It’s a simple strategy. In Pennsylvania, mayors aren’t legally allowed to make gun policies, so you don’t need a “pure” candidate, just send a message by voting people out if they back Bloomberg.
Out of curiousity, who was the MAIG mayor who barely held on to his seat by 8 votes?
Penndel Borough
That is sobering when you think that if only one of us in these parts had worked up some nice campaign flyers, got only a hundred of them printed, and walked the streets sticking them in doors, we might have turned that election. But the silence about the issue was simply deafening.
One would wonder where our hairy-chested concerned gun owners who spend so much time on rallies got to, after they were done providing a campaign forum for our anti-gun sheriff, who won handily.
I will say that I don’t know how much could have been done by gun owners to some degree. I did email the opponent to a MAIG mayor here and never got a response. I didn’t tell him anything about my positions, nor did I ask him to take any stands on gun issues. I simply said that I wanted to assist if he ever needed help dropping literature or with get out the vote efforts. I never heard back from him. :( To be fair to him, it may have been an email address he doesn’t use anymore. It may well have been a situation that unless one of us knew someone who just happened to know the opponent, there was simply little opportunity.
Point being, a locally-focused group that’s serious about keeping a local watch on these things would be fantastic. Unfortunately, when there’s been even a little success on that front, they suddenly want to go statewide and stop watching their own backs at home. I don’t know how to address that problem.
“I don’t know how to address that problem…”
If you ever encounter a book on how to control the egos of political activists, let me know and I will buy a copy.
I also have observed that modestly successful activists will be wooed and usually compromised or misdirected by existing powers-that-be. E.g., when I founded a county group to campaign on a statewide referendum issue, I was immediately lured and mostly absorbed into a statewide group, which was a Republican Party front; while nominally “grassroots” all of our meetings were in the offices of powerful Republican state senators in the capitol and I knew that funding and material aid came from the Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association. Then when the referendum campaign was successful, I was invited to be a founding “Advisory Board” member of the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, another front organization, to help me spin my wheels and consume any of my time, money or energy that I might thoughtlessly direct to uncontrolled initiatives.
Sorry for the Old Story, but I usually feel compelled to show that my opinions come from at least one or two real-life examples, and not just from my imagination.
Did you notice how Concerned Gun Owners of Bucks County had a handful of real-life politicians sniffing around them at their rallies? Wonder why?
I was at least glad to see Stabile get in there.
Sucks to see Zitelli get walloped for Allegheny County Sheriff, his objectives were awesomely pro-2A. I think experience and name familiarity played a big part there.
As for my small borough, our outgoing Republican mayor has been a councilman/mayor for like 30 years or something, and the guy running to replace him won as a Republican/Democrat running unopposed (we had like 1000 people vote for mayor). So I’ll have to keep a close eye on him to see what he does from here on out.
“Zitelli. . . I think experience and name familiarity played a big part there.”
No, I think being a Constitution Party candidate and having to answer for all their baggage played the biggest part — though here on the far side of the state, I don’t know what was being said in Allegheny County. I think he did outstandingly well, considering.
I’ll admit I didn’t know all of the details regarding the baggage you refer to, as I’m a pretty new resident to the area. I think running as a Constitution Party candidate didn’t do him any favors, as the incumbent was a Democrat I’m not sure why things were set up the way they were. I was able to read his positions and found them refreshing considering the “urban-ness” of the county.
On the local level, my borough is very small and I don’t think gun rights even come close to being a topic of discussion. Now if I lived closer to Pittsburgh and crime was more prevalent they might be singing a different tune, as I know some bordering boroughs actually have MAIG mayors.
“. . .details regarding the baggage you refer to. . .”
I don’t really want to start any fights with anyone about the Constitution Party, so I will just say it espouses some bizarre legal doctrines that it styles as “constitutional,” but which in fact have virtually no foundation in the constitution. It originated as Howard Phillips “Taxpayer Party,” and is largely a Christian Reconstructionist front. It is almost entirely theological. A quote by one of their notables that I recall was that “The constitution cannot be permitted to have any meaning that violates God’s Law.” I’m sure you see the drift there, and why it may not be in the mainstream.
Now I understand what your original comment meant…answering for the baggage of the Constitution Party’s platform (not the candidate himself’s baggage). I am aware of the basic tenants of the party, but thanks for the explanation/analysis.
How about that upset in Northampton County? That was nice to see, and the fact that a MAIG sheriff candidate in Delco was trounced, and Stabile took down that mobster, MacVay.