For Tuesday I Walk to the Village

Election day today here in San Antonio. I was asked to vote for only two things, which isn't bad: mayor, and city council. Mayor was easy, since we have an incumbent I'm reasonably happy with and a bunch of minor candidates who didn't put together real campaigns. My council district was a lot tougher, though, as I wasn't enthusiastic for either the incumbent or the only challenger on the ballot. So: party? Nope. Non-partisan race. News coverage? I suppose it's possible (but unlikely) that there was much on the local news, which I basically never watch. I do, however, take the local daily newspaper, and at least glance through it every day. A few weeks ago they did short stories on each of the council districts...not much useful information there. There was at least one more article, on a minor flap about a mailer that one of the candidates sent, accusing the other of wanting to raise taxes. As for electioneering, there were a couple mailers, and at least one robocall, and a whole bunch of content-free yard and street signs, and that's just about it. I did look at the web sites, and they didn't really add a whole lot. I wound up passing on the race; I suspect that in reality I'd be happier with the incumbent winning, but don't want to support him. Conclusion: as always, non-partisan races are a really foolish way to run elections.

This was our very first election day of this year, and of this two-year election cycle. After being asked to vote 115 times on five different days last year, it's only two time, one day, so far, and unless the mayor has a lot more trouble than anyone expects and fails to clear 50%, that'll be all for a while. As far as I know. Could be a school board election or bond issue coming that I don't know about.