“All Politics is Local”
We’ve all heard that old saying from “Tip” O’Neill about a million times – but that’s the best explanation I have for the way most of the races turned out here in western Massachusetts this week.
This is a time of political uncertainty if not outright anger on the national scene. You’ve got the Tea Partiers on the right and Occupy Wall Street on the left. We saw the national credit rating dropped by Standard & Poor this summer after Congress spent weeks arguing about the debt ceiling. Everybody seems to agree that Washington is “broken”.
With those sentiments abroad in the land, you’d expect anybody currently holding public office at any level to be in big trouble at the polls. Not so. At least, not here.
Turn out generally wasn’t very good in most communities, but the people in western Mass. who did vote apparently weren’t influenced by what’s happening at the national level.
Look at the election results locally and you’ll see that in the majority of contested races incumbents won re-election to school committees, city councils and especially for mayor. There were seven incumbent mayors on ballots around the region seeking another term – and six of them won re-election – one without any opposition at all. It seems most voters just decided they didn’t want to take a chance in these tough times so they stayed with people already on the job rather than trying out someone different.
The exception was in Holyoke where 22 year old Alex Morse took down 67 year old first term incumbent Elaine Pluta. The Republican termed it a contest of energy versus experience. That’s probably a good explanation for the result. I think a majority in Holyoke are just hoping that a new face may help sell their city to some businesses looking for a place to put down roots and develop jobs and boost the economy.
Again, a very “local” decision.
