Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Election lessons

marjorie says...

Lessons from the city elections, 2005:

  • A million bucks can do a lot for winning elections, especially when your opponents struggle to raise even half of that.
  • The public can be a little schizophrenic. On the one hand they elect a mayor who raised an unprecedented amount of money, far outpacing any of his rivals. On the other hand, they solidly backed the campaign finance bill that seeks to level the playing field.
  • Half the voters really do care about the wellbeing of poor people. Unfortunately, the other half are stingy.
  • The Chamber of Commerce pronouncements show that business truly has no soul. On the one hand they throw out tons of disinformation to defeat the bill, on the other they say they hope federal government will raise the minimum wage because it’s the right thing to do. So…yeah, business has no soul. I’ve always known that--it’s called capitalism. Hello. But I like that we have such a blatant example. So, please, will no one ever say to me again that their company is “so altruistic”, their boss gives the benefits he does because he “cares so much”, yada yada yada. No it isn’t and no he doesn’t…those are business decisions.

So, anything else folks?