What Do You Think The Elections Signify

[Chris_Wendt]

...to the nation, to our state, county, and school district?

...to your taxes in the near future?

Health Care Reform...less chance of it passing? Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

Change in leadership of the County Legislature...back to the way things used to be under the "Nassau Republicans" who were driven from office by voters several years ago? ...or a new beginning with a new team?

Will Ed Mangano unseat Tom Suozzi? Suozzi's BIG IDEAS never did amount to much more than just big ideas. But, what are Ed Mangano's ideas? Do we even know? Would he be better than Tom Gullotta, who almost drove the County to fiscal insolvency?

The new Comptroller...will he really be the "Taxpayers' Watchdog", and ride herd over waste and excesses, or, just another politician with a short memory for campaign promises?

The old District Attorney...must have done something right to have been returned by the voters for another term.

Backlash against Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia...does this signal a change in the majority leadership in Congress next year?

Backlash against a conservative extremist and against a moderate Republican in upstate NY...could spell trouble for the majority of moderate people who like to consider themselves Republicans, especially if they sense neo-con reactionary hit squads coming into their neighborhoods from around the country to enforce a far-right wing agenda, thus driving voters and votes to the Democrats?

Voters fed-up with incumbents, with the flagging economy, with the uncertainty of high unemployment, with higher and higher taxes, with new taxes, and new taxing schemes on top of higher and higher old taxes...may spell real trouble for any school district budget that is not honed razor thin next May.

How do YOU feel?

Chris Wendt

[lilly]

I read this thread a few days ago and did not want to respond bc of the comparison it conjured up for me (e.g., Bush/Gore, Great Neck/FL, chads, absentee ballots and recounts).

Looks like we will know definitively next week on county exec.

I think the county exec election is less of a commentary on party lines but more a local comment. A quote by a senior citizen in Newsday struck me. She said she has been in her Garden City home for 43 years and she simply can't afford to be there anymore with the taxes. My sense is that more and more voters are less about Dem vs. Repub and more about the candidates (despite the ridiculous birthies and such you hear about in national politics) even though bi-partisanship doesn't seem to happen in Albany. Our NY politicians are a mess and embarrassment.

I don't know enough about Mangano to comment but from what I've read about him, he does not strike me as a new thanksalottaGulotta at all. Different personality & temperament. And I appreciate that he seems to be more quiet and substantive vs. the grandstanding ambitious PR hound we have in Suozzi. If Mangano wins that may translate to effectiveness and that is what we need. ITA that Suozzi's big ideas never came to fruition, perpetually too little too late if at all. We're prob looking at same/increasing taxes with decreased services no matter who is county exec. The key may be managing debt, more of fiscal plans with short/long term implications vs. immediate one year budgets.

Not sure about the Comptroller but DA Rice was a no-brainer shoe-in with little known about the opponent.

Sometimes when the pendulum swings one way, physics says it has to sway the other way before you wind up balanced in the middle. At this point in time, I don't see a huge swing back to Repubs though next year. Some, yes. But not a huge backlash and perhaps not a majority in Congress. However, time will tell.

In case you missed it, Suozzi had a huge opinion piece on county consolidation for school districts in last Sunday's Newsday and there have been more articles on it since. Another too little too late and where was that brilliant idea in the Suozzi Commission report as opposed to election clean-up time? Mangano stated his first step would be to consolidate legal services for Nassau school districts and take it from there. Of course, Suozzi's idea is biting off more than he can feasibly chew and the superintendents quoted in the articles were all against it.

Gotta love Nassau County....