About that mandate

An anonymous poster is taking issue with my stance on the county elections.

That's one of the things I like most about this blog thing. Yes, I have an opinion. We all do. It's kind of like something else we all have. Enough said about that.

On Wednesday morning, tas the sun rose after another Election Day, I wrote in this space that the Republicans had basically cleaned the Democrats' clocks, at least on the county level. They took all three County Council seats up for grabs, as well as two seats on the Court of Common Please bench.

And the results weren't especially close.

In fact, if my addled memory serves me correct, I specifically said "How Sweep it is" for Delco Republicans.

Not enough, at least for Mr. Anonymous.

He (or she, how sexist of me) chided me and the staff at the "Daily Landau" and urged us to "drop your arrogant and smug attitude towards the voters of Delaware County."

Apparently what really got under the poster's skin was my talking about the notion of whether it is a good thing that one party so totally controls the courthouse.

The poster informed me that was indeed what this election was about and urged me to run a headline declaring it a "mandate."

Not exactly. Unless you consider the voice of one-third of the voters a mandate. That doesn't mean the results would not have been exactly the same if 100 percent of the voters had made it to the polls. Maybe it would have been. Then, indeed, it would have been a mandate.

As it stands, I'll stand by what I wrote, that Republicans cruised to easy wins by comfy margins in all the county races.

But take a look at what happened in Ridley Park. There four Democrats were elected to borough council even while the borough was going solidly Republican in the county races.

Dems also made gains in Sharon Hill. And in Marple, they took control of the township board of commissioners for the firt time in 25 years. Did the people of Marple issue a mandate of their own? Maybe.

I'm guessing all of this is rooted in the high-profile campaign run by Landau, who decided to take up a scorched-earth policy in terms of confronting the Republicans. There's no doubt he got their attention, and got under their skin.

Many of his events were covered in this newspaper. I don't happen to think that makes us the "Daily Landau." Yes, we did endorse him for council. We also endorsed two Republicans.

Yesterday, my anonymous friend posted another response. Inquired when he was going to see his "Mandate."

Here it is. At the county level, Republicans got a mandate from the 30 percent of voters who cast ballots on Tuesday.

GOP rules; editor drools (at the thought of ever thinking anyone would believe he actually tries to be fair and balanced in coverage.)

Don't be shy. If you disagree, post a response. That's the whole idea behind this blog thing. I have something to say, but I know the readers do as well. Post a comment. Join the dialog. Get involved!

Now it 's on to the weekend.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Phil, not quite a war headline on the front page of the hard copy, but I'll take it. Thank you.