Election 2009: No Big Surprises in Brooklyn
You’ve probably seen them by now, but just in case (and just in case you feel like discussing), we’ve post the results of all the Brooklyn City Council races yesterday on the jump. In some of the races most relevant to Brownstoner-land, Tish James, Brad Lander, Al Vann, Charles Barron, Sara Gonzalez, Vincent Gentile and…
You’ve probably seen them by now, but just in case (and just in case you feel like discussing), we’ve post the results of all the Brooklyn City Council races yesterday on the jump. In some of the races most relevant to Brownstoner-land, Tish James, Brad Lander, Al Vann, Charles Barron, Sara Gonzalez, Vincent Gentile and Mathieu Eugene all emerged victorious.
2009 NYC General Election Returns [NY1]
Photo by Susan NYC
District 33: Steven Levin (91%)
District 34: Diane Reyna (60%)
District 35: Letitia James (92%)
District 36: Al Vann (64%)
District 37: Erik Dilan (86%)
District 38: Sara Gonzalez (82%)
District 39: Brad Lander (70%)
District 40: Mathieu Eugene (94%)
District 41: Darlene Mealy (96%)
District 42: Charles Barron (93%)
District 43: Vincent Gentile (60%)
District 44: Simcha Felder (uncontested)
District 45: Jumaane Williams (77%)
District 46: Lewis Fidler (79%)
District 47: Domenic Recchia (88%)
District 48: Michael Nelson (90%)
I think it’s funny how the Bloomberg school reform efforts are supposed to be a magical magic wand that has IMMEDIATE effect and brings NYC’s completely MISERABLE failing school system to the best in the country *over night*!!
Are you joking?
The NYC Department of Education includes over 1 million students, 1450 schools, over 80,000 teachers and has an annual budget of $17 BILLION not including debt service.
It took a long time for the schools to decline to the pathetic state that their in… many years of neglect and lousy administration. The 8 years of effort by Bloomberg has to be seen in this context… and guess what, he’s performing ADMIRABLY.
Do you think Bloomberg will overturn the will of the people, as shown in their voting yesterday, and refuse to be mayor?
You know what he’s like.
> 321 had a smaller entering class this year than expected
So they wont be double stacking the trailers yet?
“teaching to the test”.
As opposed to what – this is the silliest of all of Thompson’s and anti-Bloomberg’s argument….
HOW ELSE CAN YOU DETERMINE IF THE KIDS ARE MAKING ANY EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IF YOU DONT TEST THEM??????
Think the tests are dumbed down – fine
Think the tests are biased or inaccurate – fine
Think the tests are testing the wrong things…fine
BUT if you don’t test then you have ZERO accountability (which of course is exactly what lousy administrators and lousy teachers want)
and FYI – Miss Muffett – 321 had a smaller entering class this year than expected.
….how pathetic. Folks didn’t vote cause they felt like the person they wanted to win would lose?!? how effin pathetic. What kind of losers are you people?!? This is America and you are New Yorkers?!?!
Fuckin losers. I hope you don’t teach that to your kids.
> Thompson is nothing more than a machine politician who would
> have been in the hip pocket of the civil-service unions and
> others who feed at the public trough
Which is obviously so much worse than Bloomie, who only allows the rich to slurp from his trough.
As a public school parent, I’m not at all impressed with Bloomberg’s education record. Schools are still ridiculously overcrowded, and the schools seem mainly interested in getting as many children as possible to meet the bare minimum required for promotion. Kids who are doing well enough not to worry about failing, or too poorly to have any hope, seem to be written off at many schools.
As far as Bloomberg getting the message – fat chance. His self-serving term limits change shows exactly how little he thinks of voters who disagree with him.
But considering how uninspiring Thompson was, the 10- or 16- to 1 campaign spending advantage, and his use of millions of dollars or city discretionary funding and his own philanthropic giving to buy support, his margin of victory is unimpressive.
But he won the election, and has a City Council, most of whom owe their jobs to his willingness to overturn term limits.
Miss Muffet, I am definitely with you on this one. Like you, I nearly forfeited my franchise yesterday because I was figuring it to be worthless. However, in a last minute fit of conscience, I managed to channel the spirit of those who struggled hard and long for my right to vote (some even dying for it) and trudged on over to the polls in order to pull that lever for Thompson (and NOT to pull it for Mathieu Eugene). Unfortunately, though, the great majority of folk who live in my district — and countless others like it throughout the 5 boroughs– took the view that voting was pointless. In their view, the election was decided the day that our billionaire mayor chose to reverse himself on term limits and to run for a third term in office. The irony, of course, is that Bloomberg was able to buy an election (again) primarily because of the failure of disenfranchised people to engage the system and to act on election day. It does not take rocket science to understand this phenonmenon. All it takes is an understanding that people who are down economically are often those who are the least likely to act politically. Emperor Bloomberg well understands this dynamic — even if it took $100M of his money to prove it.
And, yes, another significant contributing reason for this mayoral election result is that Bill Thompson did little to ignite the imagination and voting passions of those who are neither disenfranchised nor wildly in favor of another 4 years of Bloomberg. Sigh.
“Quite frankly, the main reason I could never vote for Thompson is that I was scared to death that he would reverse the education reform.”
Brokedeveloper;
Right on the money. Thompson is nothing more than a machine politician who would have been in the hip pocket of the civil-service unions and others who feed at the public trough, had he been elected.