Not a School Board Member, Still a Citizen

Another first for the Madville Times -- I lost my first public election! 498 other people were kind enough to mark the oval next to my name yesterday, and you folks have my thanks. But alas, a couple hundred more favored Jay and Tammy Jo. It appears my suspicion about the bias of the Madville Times school board poll was correct, especially when we compare its skewed results with the surprisingly accurate prediction of the city commission results.

So how did this first major South Dakota blogger campaign go down in flames? Readers, your punditry is welcome! My own post-mortem? Well, before coming up with rocket-science excuses, let's start with the obvious factor: more people think I'm not the best guy for the job. Even if I'd have knocked on every door in town, it's possible folks might still have come to the same conclusion. (Nonetheless, expect more door-knocking next time!)

Voter turnout may have been a factor in the final outcome. Down at the bottom of this morning's special report from MDL's Chuck Clement, we learn that my fellow rural voters turned out in lower numbers -- just 12.93% -- than the city voters -- 23%. Had the rural vote turned out in the same numbers as city voters, we'd have seen about 160 more farmers and other rural dwellers at the polls. It's unlikely every one of them would have checked my name, but it is conceivable that rural votes would have leaned less toward the in-town candidates.

Let's also note what appears not to have been a factor: issues. That's as much our fault as the media's: as noted previously, there just wasn't much daylight between us on gym expansion, school policy, or anything else. If there was any disagreement, it was on trimesters and preschool, and voters still picked Zingmark, whose answers were vaguely opposite those of her fellow board-member-elect Niedert.

Whatever our reasons (and I welcome your posting of those reasons here!), we have spoken. And we've gotten to do some democracy! Yahoo!

But let's not forget: democracy doesn't end on election day. Democracy happens every day, as we keep talking about the issues, keep jawboning our elected officials, and keep reminding them -- and ourselves! -- that the government is us. In democracy, a citizen's work is never done.