And if you think the Dems are relegated to second-class status, think again. This is a temporary setback. Not likely to be repeated. The numbers just aren’t there. If we Democrats nominate goofballs again, ala King Ro and Monroe, we’re in for trou ble. I sense the party faithful will not let that happen.

Whether Ballard is an accidetnal mayor or not, I think the term is kinda funny. I didn’t vote for him, but I acknowledge his win and wish him all the luck in the world. Change is good for all of us sometimes, and I’m happy because he owes nobody anything. We haven’t had a mayor like that ever.

And, for what it’s worth: check Webster on “imminent”, Varan.

Yeah, Ballard’s election was somewhat of an accident. It doesn’t make it less true or less admirable. He pulled it off.

He did so, in my humble opinion, for one main reason: Democrats failed to provide the straight-ticket voters they did last time around. By about an 11,000-vote margin.

Why that happened, is open to much discussion. But those of us in the trenches have been telling the party big-wigs for over two years that the Council leadership’s nonsense was a drag on the party. No one listened. This crap didn’t start with Monroe. Rozelle’s leadership was just ghastly.

It started and ended with a philosophy that race must determine leadership roles. Which was, and is, stupid. Qualifications and ability to lead–that should determine leadership. It’s a basic lesson too often overlooked in my party. In 2007, it was overlooked with glaringly-obvious results.

Taxes…well, that was icing on the cake for Republicans this year. But make no mistake–in my precinct, which Bart carried 65-35 in 2003, he lost by a couple votes this time. And my Democratic councilperson won by about 54-46.

Lots of scratchin. I think the voters were telling Bart what we precinct comomitteepeople were telling his hand-picked county chair a long time ago.

A tough lesson to learn. IF we learned it. I have my doubts.

I don’t understand. While Gov. Mitch was selling the toll roads, securing funding for the Colts Stadium, visiting Asia for work, trying to sell a proposed bypass around I-465, and or studying I-69 to Evansville, and dealing with corruption regarding Heather Bolejack at ICJI, and privatizing/contracting prisons to other states, a prison riot at those prisons, and foolishly attempting to raise cigarette taxes to cover health insurance, and refusing to live at the Governors Mansion, and sitting idolly by as the budget was passed and refusing to utilize his position on “prayer in the statehouse”, or the hundreds of state employees he has fired over his tenure, etc, etc, etc, etc… You get the picture. A certain governor from the state of Indiana FAILED to address property tax issue. An issue that has been brewing since the late 1990’s. Gee funny how you selectively report the issues that project your career while the real issues get conveintly swept under the carpet for the common man. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?

to Bob,

Maybe our concept of “citizen” candidate differs. I really mean politicians who are not in politics for life, their personal aggrandizement, or inability to get a job in the private sector.

Ballard IS an accidental mayor - he was the protest vote. And over the next year I think there will be a lot of buyer’s remorse. Look at how he’s handled the transition - he’s already hinting he may not have his top appointments in place by Jan. 1.

BTW, I agree that there needs to be self-evaluation among D’s. There also needs to be self-evaluation among R’s! I don’t necessarily think “citizen candidates” are the best - but the Marion County politics of family/machine annointment needs to go. We must have higher expectations…

It may be a good thing to you, but it is a terrible thing for republican government (not Republican party) in Marion County. Without a viable second party, who is going to keep the weasels out of the henhouse?

Since the large majority of voters refuse to acknowledge the Libertarian party, then the Democratic party still has a vital role to fill, either as the “loyal opposition” or as the “party in power”.

The problem is that the leadership positions have been hijacked by the Bartophiles or Carsonites, neither gropup seemingly having the peoples’ best interests at heart.

It became apparent in the last election that enough voters finally decided to abstain from propagating the personal political agendas of the two aforementioned political cliques, and this has caused the Marion County Democratic party to lose whatever leverage they had gained after decades of Republican party rule.

We will see what, if anything, will change in the upcoming year. Activist Democrats have long aligned themselves with one political clique or the other and it remains to be seen whether there will be any serious attempts at self-examination will occur, or not. So far, nothing.

It is my opinion, as a Democrat outsider, that the chances are better that the easy way out will be selected. That being, blaming Republicans or whatever other convenient scapegoat appears along the horizon. People just generally don’t take personal responsibility for their own mistakes, and by golly politicians are no exception to that rule.

Look at Wilson, the new Accidental Mayor website, or St. Allio’s Way, if you don’t believe me. For three apparently smart people, I anticipate four years of snide sniping, self-congratulatory back slapping at every Mayor Ballard miscue, and a serious lack of debriefing themselves over how they could ever have lost anything. It just goes to show you that “smart” doesn’t always equate to “wise”, and I look forward to tweaking their noses whenever their commentary gets to reminescient of porcine effluents.

Maybe if political parties spent more time recruiting viable citizen candidates instead of allowing whatever spews out from under the lackey bridge to run, politics might be something closer to what it was intended to be. Frankly, I am not encouraged.