We Have Some Election Results

First, as promised, Bridgeport F%$#ing Connecticut, where the people trying to prevent a corporate takeover of public schools won:

The city Board of Education slipped out of the hands of Mayor Bill Finch and Schools Superintendent Paul Vallas on Tuesday despite the surprise win of a Republican school board candidate.

The majority of the nine-member school board tipped in favor of the Connecticut Working Families Party.

The winners include Democrats Howard Gardner, Dave Hennessey and Andre Baker, joined by incumbent Working Families member Sauda Baraka and Republican Joe Larcheveque.

………

The race pitted the Democratic party machine against the combined efforts of the Working Families Party, sympathetic Democrats and strong support from the city teacher’s union. To many, more was at stake than control of one the most troubled school districts in the state. Some had pegged it as the epicenter of a nationwide struggle over the control of public schools, a fight against efforts to cede control to corporate interest groups that seek to privatize educations.

Vallas was brought into the district in late 2011 after the local elected board was replaced by the state, a move later overturned by the state Supreme Court.

During the primary, the Democrats who won made it clear they are not fond of Vallas, and the Working Families Party has actively worked to remove him. In a statement issued early in the day Tuesday, Working Families Party Chair Lindsay Farrell made it clear replacing Vallas would be tops on their agenda.

Menwhile, in Virginia, it looks like the marginally less repugnant candidate, Terry McAuliffe, beat Ken Cooccinelli, who ran his campaign against oral sex (only exaggerating slightly):

Terry McAuliffe, a businessman and former head of the Democratic National Committee, captured the Virginia governor’s seat Tuesday, defeating Republican Ken Cuccinelli II, the state attorney general whose conservative crusades made him an icon of the tea party movement.

With 98 percent of the precincts reporting, McAuliffe led Cuccinelli by more than 30,000 votes, or less than 2 percent.

“I’m very disappointed,” Cuccinelli told supporters assembled in a hotel ballroom in Richmond, adding that he was also “immensely proud of the campaign we ran.”

Despite his defeat, Cuccinelli called the election a referendum on President Obama’s Affordable Health Act, saying that the campaign was close even though McAuliffe had a massive fundraising advantage.

“Despite being outspent by an unprecedented $15 million,” he said,”this race came down to the wire because of Obamacare. That message will go out across America tonight.”

McAuliffe was expected to speak at 11 p.m.

Ralph Northam, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, defeated Republican E.W. Jackson, the Chesapeake minister whose history of inflammatory remarks about gays and abortion became a flash-point of the campaign.

Mark Obenshain, the Republican candidate for attorney general, led Mark Herring by less than 1 percent, with 98 percent of the precincts counted.

Don’t fret, Republicans, the new Attorney General, Mark Obenshain is likely just has insane as Cuccinelli.

In New York and New Jersey, the Amazingly Tall Mayor, and Jabba the Governor both won as expected.

Leave a Reply