The morning after...

Red Sox lost. Again. This is not looking good, folks.

Also, Niki Tsongas won the afore mentioned election yesterday. It wasn't exactly a landslide. Tsongas received 51%, while her main rival Jim Ogonowski captured 46%. We're a small state, and the 5th Congressional District is only a portion there of - 29 towns, mostly along the area between northern portion of the I-495 corridor & the northern portion of the Rt 128 corridor (portions of Essex County, Middlesex County & Worcester County).

Tsongas received 54,363 votes, while Ogonowski received 47,770. A difference of 6,593 votes. I wonder how many people are registered to vote in the district? In 2000, there were 635,223 residents in the 5th district (on the census, anyway) - it might be about the same now, as there has been considerable concern about Massachusetts hemorrhaging residents due to the high cost of living (perhaps its less, but I don't think its much more than that). Including all the votes that the less mainstream candidates received yesterday, only 105,992 voted. That means about 17% of the population of the 5th District actually voted.

So the other 83% cannot complain about congress until they vote in the next election. Don't like what gets passed in Congress? Tough. You should have voted.

I voted, so I can complain all I want.

That also means that the difference between the winner & the looser of the election was a margin of 1% of the residents of the 5th District. 1%. If an additional 1% had voted (all you people who meant to, but didn't...), it could have actually affected the outcome. And that one vote in congress might actually effect us later on (like tomorrow?) Tsongas is hoping to be able to sworn in in time for the veto-override vote of the S-CHIP bill tomorrow.

I will bring up this handy little fact. Niki Tsongas, although she rubs me the wrong way, actually made good use of her website. She had an issues section where she discussed intelligently the issues and where she stands. Ogonowski's website did not. He had "News" which was the closest thing - he also had "Contribute", "Get Active", "Multimedia" and the usual "Supporter Login" and "Contact Us". There was no "this is where I stand on the issues" that was quick & easy to find. Oh sure, he'll take your money, but you'll have no idea what he's likely to do if he's elected. Most voters don't have the time to dig around to figure out what you stand for. I guess maybe running as a republican, he thought that was enough, and that most republicans would vote for him because he's a republican? That's funny, since right on the front page of his website he has a video with a text overlay saying "NOT a partisan politician".

I'll admit it - I didn't vote in the primary, although I meant to. I forgot about it - I flew in on a red eye that morning, which usually messes me up pretty good. And in my struggle to stay awake and get back into the eastern time zone, I completely forgot. But I learned my lesson - the guy who I had wanted to vote for lost.