Know your candidates!

As I mentioned yesterday, it can be tricky to get information on candidates. Particularly conservatives candidates, who tend to keep their actual agendas low-key so they don't scare away too many sane voters.

Allow me to provide some resources for the curious voter.

First, you should probably know who the hell is on your ballot. You can easily get that information at Imagine Election.

Just type in your address and it'll tell you who's on the ballot where you live, complete with links to a bit of information about all the candidates. Handy!

Along similar lines, there's also this thing, which is pretty fancy looking but I found annoying.

Still, maybe you want more information. Or information about specific issues. Being a science-y guy myself, I was curious about the various candidates' attitudes towards science.

In this case, you'd want to check out Scientists & Engineers for America's site, where they have a bunch of information about the science policies of everyone seeking federal office.

Actually, not everyone. Most of the Republicans running for Congress have no information available. But don't worry, I sent Nathan Bech an email suggesting he respond to their questions so I'm sure his answers will be up soon!

Along a similar line, if you're curious about which presidential candidate renowned scientists support, the AVoteForScience youtube channel has some endorsements. They just started out, but here's the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry endorsing Obama. My bet is you'll see a lot of that.

But there's more to find out!

It's handy to get information from the right-wingers too. They're far more likely to have information on the Republican candidates (these candidates may want to keep their conservative views quiet to the public at large, but they still need to motivate their base).

The hugely unpleasant Massachusetts Family Institute (who I also mentioned yesterday) have a whole bunch of voter guides. Nothing that's Fitchburg-specific, but here's one for Leominster.

The group "Catholic Citizenship" also has a page up for the Leominster race here. Leominster's candidates both really suck!

You could also use the perpetually ridiculous American Patriarchy Family Association's voter guide thing for that rightwing "values" information. Though its design is pretty annoying.

Back on the liberal side of things, if you're all about abortion rights, you can find NARAL's Pro-Choice voter's guide here.

The strictly nonpartisan League of Women Voters also has a bunch of information available online. You don't even have to be female to use it!

No doubt there are a million more voter's guides out there. Some useful, most totally useless. But at least here you have a start. Ignorance will be no excuse if you vote for some asshole!


PS Today is the last day to register to vote before the November elections. Do it!
PPS No liveblogging tonight's debate. I'm going to watch it with people and will do my complaining/weeping out loud.

Dear Voters: Way to Go!

Okay, I'm late to the party reporting this (I was at a concert last night, which amazingly is more fun than writing about politics), but Lisa Wong continued her ass-kicking spree by running away with the mayoral primary yesterday.

Here's the breakdown:
Out of 5,472 votes (roughly a quarter of registered voters):

• Lisa Wong: 3,425 votes (63%)
• Tom Donnelly: 1,228 votes (22%)
• Ted DeSalvatore: 781 votes (14%)
• Ron Dionne: 36 votes (0.7%)

Yikes! Landslide!

This result was a surprise to many people, and I'll admit I was one of them. While I did expect Wong and Donnelly to both get through the primary, I thought they'd be much closer than they turned out. I even thought Donnelly would probably be the winner, though certainly not by a huge margin. Lisa's landslide indeed caught me by surprise.

Why? Because I totally underestimated the intelligence of the voters. Sorry about that, voters!

Also, I obviously underestimated Lisa Wong herself. Sorry about that, Lisa Wong!

So why did Wong win by such a huge margin? Well, in retrospect it's not that hard to see. She's run a very effective campaign that focused on the right things, timed things beautifully, and presented the best ideas and vision for the city. If I didn't underestimate the intelligence of the voters (sorry again!), that alone should have told me that she'd run away with it.

Another thing that can't be discounted and I've heard mentioned multiple times is Wong's intelligence, which sadly is a rare commodity in politics. For example, here's a quote from the Fitchburg Pride:

"I was thinking that over the years, most of our mayors have not been very bright and sort of incompetent," said Chuck Bagg this morning. "I voted for Lisa Wong because she seems so much brighter than anyone who has been around in a while."

Then there are the wider factors. Wong represents focused and intelligent change. Donnelly represents the status quo. DeSalvatore, of course, represented unfocused and unintelligent change. People want change, and they want change for the better.

That's really bad news for Donnelly, but he has a plan!

Donnelly said last night he heard the message for voters, and is ready to respond over the six weeks before the general election.

"I am for change. I know people want change," Donnelly said. "I look forward to the challenge we have in the next few weeks."

Yes, he'll switch his focus from "I've been here forever" to "I'm for change too!" I don't expect that to go very well, since he's been all about the status quo for so long. I'm sure this isn't a good time to be Tom Donnelly, but at least he understands why he lost didn't win.

Anyway, Wong's victory is a great sign for the future of Fitchburg. Congratulations to her, and way to go voters!