Well, our civic duty performed and the votes counted, another election cycle in Monroe County is at a close.  Storm clouds that loomed overhead on both Right and Left – dire predictions of calamity, threats of terrorism – have spent their fury, and it was. . .  remarkably uninteresting to voters:

Resounding wins for Green, Brooks || Democrat & Chronicle: Local News

What was evident from the polls is that many people simply chose not to vote in the county executive’s race. More than 25,000 more people voted in the district attorney’s election than pulled the lever in the race between Brooks and Christopher. And many people simply chose not to vote at all. Tuesday’s election was apparently the lowest voter turnout since 1964, the last year for which the Board of Elections had records.

In the end, we learn a great American truism: Republicans win in depressed elections.  In this case, the big defense against the F.A.I.R. plan’s fallout was to go negative, piss off voters, and retain the Legislature’s Republican majority through disenfranchisement.  How Republican.

Having said all this, the elections were by no means a loss for the Democrats.  Picking up two seats in the Legislature was not an easy task, even if Dave Malta tried hard to make it so.  It’s not a majority, but given the level of panic and the amount of spending on the Republican side, there’s a good chance some Republican Legislators are ready to start thinking about compromise.  I don’t imagine many of them would like to go through that next cycle.

And – you might want to take a seat – Maggie Brooks won. 

But that’s not the story at all.  The story is that a late-entry WFP candidate with virtually no advertisement at all took 26 percent of the vote away from a candidate with a million dollar war chest.  As the above-linked article suggests, some people were so disgusted by Maggie, but unable to vote for anyone other than the Two Parties, that they chose not to vote at all.  As STLO7 points out in his piece from Dem HQ:

rochesterturning.com: turning the tide upstate

Note: the WFP has only 1k voters in Monroe County– Christopher got 25k votes. Imagine what we’d have if a Dem candidate ran.

And what of Steve Minarik?  Did his plan work?  Well, only to the extent that the Republicans kept a majority.  But he still lost two seats out of a three-seat advantage for the party, and going forward, that’s not a victory by any means.  Indeed, it was never a good plan in the first place: all they did was trade a M.C. fiscal deficit (a problem, but axiomatic in American politics) for two-thirds of a loss and an electorate that now thinks of Republicans as heartless, thieving douchebags.  And he burned through an estimated $800,000 in a bid to make the loss “not so bad.”  I’ll be damned if I know anything about Republican Party politics in this county, but I’ll betcha there’s a few people wondering how they can get rid of this clown.

So, while I’ll probably not be the first person to email the MCDC a congratulatory e-Card, there’s plenty to feel vindicated by as Progressives.  And hey!  We might have even inspired a local folk musician to take up a political career in Henrietta!

If I get a chance (a big if, this holiday season), I’ve got more I’d like to talk about with the elections.  Congratulations to Carla Palumbo for winning her new City Council seat, as well.