tombiro.com

Now I don’t discuss politics here very often, even with all the fun and excitement I could have trashing my least favorite presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, but I’m going to drop a quick mention today because it has to be said. Unfortunately, my mom lost her special-election effort on Tuesday to Republican Paul Buccellato, whom she had tied with in election day results after all provisional ballots were counted.

While I’m definitely bummed that she didn’t win, after quite decidedly defeating her opposition a couple of years ago after more than 40 years of Republican mayoral wins in a town that, frankly, isn’t that “conservative” in my eyes, it’s pretty clear that at least *someone* wanted a change in structure, and it wasn’t that they just wanted Bea Duffy out of office. We all know about close races and ties and whatnot, and if the runoff is anything to speak of, the town hasn’t changed dramatically one way or the other since Election Day, with about 50 more votes going towards the new mayor. That said, part of the reason I’m even posting this today is in response to the second comment on the Asbury Park Press article I linked to above, where “nutmegffa” said “Thank God! Matawan is saved!” I find it fascinating that someone would throw that out there, almost as if there was some massive outpouring of support for the Republican candidate, so much so that it was the evil Democrats thrown out of office. It’s like anything else, election-wise. It’s always been my experience that if you have a massive voter turnout - at least in the areas I’ve lived - the Democrats tend to get a bigger chunk of the votes. The Republican base consistently votes, while the other party tends to be less consistent, sadly enough. Thankfully, “nutmegffa” didn’t say that this was a mandate, otherwise I would have started screaming my head off, but that’s a whole different discussion.

I’m all for whatever is going to improve a town, county, state, whatever, and if Paul Buccellato can do that for Matawan, then great. If there’s anything I know about my mom’s efforts and interest in politics in the town, it had a lot less to do about her getting herself elected, and a lot more about she, along with the council she’d been behind, changing the way business was getting done there. It just frustrates me so that - on both sides of the party system - that everyone’s so hung up on the “overthrowing” and whatnot that every little detail is completely blown out of proportion. THAT is the reason, beyond a lot of other things, that many people can’t stand the political process and would rather hide out. If people were more concerned about making things happen, or progress (PLEASE don’t confuse that with “progressive,” I beg you), it would be a lot saner of decision, Republican or Democrat, every time we went to the polls. While I might have a (D) next to my name when I go to the primary, when it comes to major elections I always vote on the candidate that I think can do the best job. Apparently, not everyone works that way, and it’s all about “my way or the highway.” If that doesn’t go away, our voting will continue to be dominated by frustration with candidates, hate-speak, and negative marketing efforts.

Congrats to Paul Buccellato on winning in Matawan, I most certainly hope you can keep Matawan going in a forward direction, rather than put it back to the stagnant place it had been for a large part of the 20+ years that I lived there.