There Was An Election And A Republican Won

I've been on my ass for two days now, having had my wisdom teeth extracted Tuesday morning so no, I didn't go out and vote in the Supervisor's race yesterday. To be honest, I found the Linn County brouhaha a lot more interesting (though The Quiet Man makes a good point: the water park option only makes sense if it's an indoor one. Outdoor one is a waste of everybody's time) and for the other, I assumed that the People's Republic of Johnson County would do what it always does and vote in the Democrat, Terry Dahms.

Ooops. Yes, for the first time in five decades, Johnson County has elected a Republican to the Board of Supervisors and the great and the good of the Democratic Establishment are wringing their hands and wondering if the sky might actually be falling. I doubt it is, but it's certainly news that makes you blink a little bit.

Don't grab the ideological tea leaves and start looking for shifts that aren't there though: this was more about sending a message to the Democratic Party establishment than it was about voting for a Republican. For sure, I'd bet the rural areas of the county run more conservative but there are other things at work as well. I think between the JECC and the Jail, rural voters were probably irritated with the Board of Supervisors- that's cash money and a lot of it with benefits that were certainly questionable at the time.*

While Daums technically resides outside the city limits, we're talking Newport Road and Prairie Du Chien- that might be technically rural but it ain't really rural and everybody knows it. Folks out in the county wanted someone to speak for them and stand up for their interests and they beat the weather to get the candidate they wanted.

If there's a message for the Democratic Machine of Johnson County it's that they can't take any race for granted (I'm not saying they did with this one, but, well, yeah they did...) and they have to pay attention to the needs of rural voters as well as us city folk in the county.

*Random Footnote: This is work-related, kids, so pay attention because it won't last long. My experience working as a Dispatcher these past couple of years has taught me that consolidation of communications center is messy, expensive and time consuming. There's internal politics in play between agencies and getting people on the same page is hard. There are benefits- response times and operations are more streamlined now but there's the inevitable growing pains and the initial costs are expensive. In other words, its going to be awhile before you see tangible benefits and I think now we are.