Saturday, November 04, 2006
two decisions
Bob Menendez won my vote today. I wrote to him because I was very angry over his "yea" on the Military Commission Act (The "torture" bill). Then I even wrote to a certain third party candidate requesting his view, but inexcusably received no reply. Yesterday there was an envelope from Menendez in the mail, which I was about toss as a piece of campaign junk when I noticed it had an "official business" senate return address. Inside was a defense of his vote, 2 1/2 pages worth. While it isn't entirely convincing, I appreciate that some staffer alerted the senator to what was no doubt a large volume of complaining e mails from his constituents, & he, noting the closeness of the polls, authorized the writing & mailing of an intelligent reply. He didn't apologize or refer to any of his other positions on Iraq or national security. It was straight talk. Try to get that out of Tom Kean Jr, he of the "Look at my dad smiling at me" images & the TV ad featuring an extremely low fi recording of some sleazeball using Menendez's name to try to extort money, as if that proves anything. (Hi ya, I'm a scorpio & Springsteen says you should blow me!) . Junior wouldn't have any kind of political career without dropping a name everytime he introduces himself. Take that away & he couldn't get himself elected to the local school board.
My congressman is running unopposed. I live a very short distance from the 7th District line, unfortunately I can't cast a vote for Linda Stender.
Elizabeth 3rd Ward Dem candidate Joe Keenan also gets my vote. Keenan has not run strongly informative campaigns here. He barely defeated the reactionary incumbent in two close primaries. But unlike his opponent, he didn't rely on illegally cast votes from registered Republicans. The Union County Democratic machine pisses me off sometimes, but the anti-Mayor Bollwage faction here is a frightening alliance of right wingers, neither reformers nor Republicans, & Bollwage is not a bad mayor. Keenan, as it turns out, is the former Director of Elizabeth Public Library, 14 years in that post, & he & his wife decided to remain in Elizabeth after he retired. I'm delighted with the idea of having a librarian as my councilman. Now, if I can get him to hear me out on my idea of rotating duplicate titles of main library books through the branches.... I go downtown & see three copies of an older Spenser-for-hire detective novel gathering dust on the shelves when my Elmora library doesn't have it at all.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
My congressman is running unopposed. I live a very short distance from the 7th District line, unfortunately I can't cast a vote for Linda Stender.
Elizabeth 3rd Ward Dem candidate Joe Keenan also gets my vote. Keenan has not run strongly informative campaigns here. He barely defeated the reactionary incumbent in two close primaries. But unlike his opponent, he didn't rely on illegally cast votes from registered Republicans. The Union County Democratic machine pisses me off sometimes, but the anti-Mayor Bollwage faction here is a frightening alliance of right wingers, neither reformers nor Republicans, & Bollwage is not a bad mayor. Keenan, as it turns out, is the former Director of Elizabeth Public Library, 14 years in that post, & he & his wife decided to remain in Elizabeth after he retired. I'm delighted with the idea of having a librarian as my councilman. Now, if I can get him to hear me out on my idea of rotating duplicate titles of main library books through the branches.... I go downtown & see three copies of an older Spenser-for-hire detective novel gathering dust on the shelves when my Elmora library doesn't have it at all.
