Not much outrage out there

The most telling thing about the results at the polls today is that voters didn't blink about returning incumbents to office.
Every single incumbent - four city councilors and most of the Board of Education - was reelected. And Art Ward, a 14-year councilor, was tapped as mayor.
So for all the anger, all the protests, all the frustration, there is, in the end, not much to show for it.
Only one person in the entire race, Republican Councilor-elect Ken Cockayne, could possibly be said to have won because of any feeling out there that change was needed. He barely squeaked by Democratic newcomer Bruce Lydem, who perhaps represented the status quo more than Cockayne did.
In the school board race, it's tough to ignore that the two people who got the most votes were Tom O'Brien and Barbara Doyle, the two most visible champions of the plan to switch to a K-8 system and to build two new 900-student schools.
O'Brien and Doyle got more votes than anyone on the ballot other than Ward. They raked in more votes than Republican mayoral hopeful Ken Johnson, both city treasurer candidates and 11 other school board contenders.
Whether you agree with their position on the schools or not, that's an impressive showing.
To whatever degree the election was about change, it sure looks like the voters preferred the status quo.
In fact, the results show that so strongly that it's kind of surprising that Johnson pulled in 48 percent of the mayoral tally.
Perhaps that means, as well, that voters weren't as tired of Mayor William Stortz's administration as candidates on both sides argued. After all, he's been at the center of the storm, and if the winds didn't blow anyone away, that says something.

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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com