The 2009 municipal elections in this area didn't have the star power that Barack Obama generated just one year ago, and the results confirmed what many local political observers already knew: The short-lived Obama Mystique didn't rub off on local candidates. In fact, Democrats didn't win a single contested race in Quakertown, Milford, Haycock, Richland, Trumbauersville, Richlandtown, or Springfield!
Think about it. Not a single race, on either the state, county, or municipal level. For a party with high hopes after Obama's historic triumph, this is a crushing step backward. What's worse, in almost every case the results were completely lopsided, with Republican victory margins well into the 60 percent landslide range.
Let it be said first and foremost - there is just no good reason why human beings who have chosen the designation "Republican" should have any innately better capabilities than those who self-describe as "Democrats". There is no genetic connection between political affiliation and ability to govern.
So why couldn't a single Dem pull off a win? And, in addition, why were there no Democrats even on the ballot to challenge the Republicans in an amazing 34 offices in the six QCSD municipalities? By contrast, there wasn't a single race where there was a Dem, but no R. Republican Supervisors were unopposed in Milford and Haycock. Ditto for the Mayor of Trumbauersville, and all four council members in Richlandtown.
The possible reasons quickly come to mind. Obama's popularity has been in a nosedive for months, as Americans are increasingly disenchanted with the lack of promised change. Health care is stalled, the economy isn't improving despite the mind-boggling amount spent on the mis-named stimulus giveaways, and the planned Middle East pullout isn't even on the radar. The national Democratic Party has managed to turn gold into crap in less than a year.
And that dis-satisfaction is trickling down to every Main Street in America. In Quakertown, where Dems actually fight amongst themselves, and campaigns are low key, the three Republican candidates for Council won easily, ousting a good man in Dave Zaiser, who gave his town everything he had for four years.
In the past three decades, no Democrat has been elected Supervisor in Richland. Rarely has their candidate even come close - when the donkeys can even find a candidate. The latest sacrificial lamb was Darrell Tribue, a former federal bureaucrat who hadn't even spent a single day as a volunteer in the township. Not surprisingly, he lost by 64 - 36 percent to Tim Arnold, the Chairman of the Planning Commission and Executive Director of the Water Authority. Arnold's margin of victory was the largest in memory.
Although Tribue filed his papers to be a candidate back in March (after the legal deadline, but Arnold didn't ask that he be stricken from the ballot), he ran almost no campaign until the final two weeks. He could only raise about $1100, mostly from four neighbors. That is surely not the way to overcome Arnold's 10 years of service. Truth be told, Tribue had no chance in this election. You need look no further than his campaign "staff" - local hearing aid salesman Patrick Murphy (Tribue's neighbor), who lost the 2007 Supervisor election in a landslide, and Brian Kline, a three-time loser for Supervisor, who had to withdraw from the 2007 race after making derogatory comments about Christian school students.
With those advisors, it is no surprise that what little campaign Tribue did run was entirely negative. But it didn't work for him, just like it didn't work for Murphy, or Kline, or prior Dems like Vic Stevens. The results, year after year, are the same. And as long as Murphy and Kline - who see themselves as savvy political strategists - are in charge of their party in Richland, there is little hope for Obama-esqe Change. The real change that Dems need can only come from party headquarters in Doylestown, but those folks now have their hands full after the county-wide election disaster.
Oh, by the way, Murphy himself was easily bounced from his beloved Judge of Elections post by political newcomer Scott Guidos. And this guy tried to get the nomination for State Senator??? Murphy's wife Jackie fared no better, losing to another first-timer, attorney Nate Fox, in an unusual contest for Auditor where both candidates were write-ins.
Despite the Dem debacle in Richland, there are good people there whose only bar to local office is that they have chosen to call themselves Democrats in a township where donkeys are all ruled by two or three angry losers. In fact, some of those qualified Dems actually worked on the Arnold campaign! If there is ever to be a true two-party system in Richland, Dems need new local leadership with a new positive attitude.
The future of school taxes in this area still looks grim, but we can't blame the electors in Richland and Haycock. They did the right thing, just saying no to Pat McCandless, whose wife is a teachers aide in QCSD, and returning incumbent reformers Paul Stepanoff and Zane Stauffer to the board.
But in Milford, incumbent Manuel Alfonso, running as a write-in because special-interest-backed Bob Smith won the primary (also as a write-in), lost. Smith has been a loud proponent of additional school spending, especially on programs like night football, and new band uniforms, that are niceties which benefit only a few, and which we can no longer afford. He joins super-spender Kathy Mosley as the directors who will be pushing for higher taxes. With the district's own projections of a $12 million deficit over the next two years, it sets up an interesting battle....
There are four board members who have fought for prioritizing expenditures, and keeping spending and taxes lower - Stepanoff, Stauffer, Dean Wackerman, and George Dager. Mosley and Nancy Tirjan can usually be counted on to vote for higher spending. Smith actually campaigned for it! Linda Martin is completely beholden to Superintendent Dr Lisa Andrejko, whose salary will go up when teachers' salaries go up. No question what Andrejko wants, and how Martin will vote.
That leaves former President Kelly Van Valkenburg as the swing vote. She was unopposed in this election - a sad consequence of the current regional voting system that helps keep challengers out, and incumbents in. Her reign will forever be remembered for enormous tax increases, poor PSSA's and SAT's, the Integrated Math program that has crippled hundreds of our graduates in college, hidden results of surveys critical of the district, and the hiring of Andrejko.
Not exactly a director who the community can count on to reverse the calamitous course we are on, educationally and financially. But her vote will likely make the difference between survival, or state takeover.