Roy Martin Eliminated from Mayor's Race

That's what the headlines should have said, since that's the only thing we learned for sure from last night's primary election. As expected, however, we find in the papers the spin that the two remaining candidates and their respective camps want to put on the results. According to the Gazette, Bardsley "believes the result validates his candidacy and the sentiment among many of his supporters who say city government is out of touch with residents." Also in the Gazette, Higgins, meanwhile, expressed little surprise with he results. "I expected he would work hard to get his supporters out; they were motivated to get out," she said in the Gazette.

Really, you can put pretty much any spin you want on the numbers. Only 21 percent of registered voters turned out. Bardsley got more votes, but the important thing in this election was just to finish in the top 2, and with Martin as the third candidate, was there ever any doubt as to who the top two would be? And remember, the totals don't count squat towards the general election.

You could say that the results show Higgins should be worried. But you could also say that Bardsley should be worried because if voters are as dissatisfied as he says they are, more people should have turned out to vote.

In other words, yesterday's election doesn't mean anything; it only showed us what we already knew, that Roy Martin won't be the next mayor. But it does signal the beginning to an election season that I predict will be especially silly. Accusations will be thrown, language will be parsed, records will be dissected, and passions will run high. In the end, however, we'll have a mayor and the vast majority of Northampton residents won't notice much of a difference at all: our property taxes won't go down, potholes won't disappear, and the parking enforcement people won't stop issuing tickets. In other words, the quality of life things that most people associate with big-G Government won't change much. And that's both good and bad. It's good because it means that we really can't make a bad choice, no matter whom we vote for; and it's bad because the more noticeable quality of life issues tend to overshadow other important issues, like transparency and development. The fact is that most people won't pay close attention to this election and many people will be persuaded to vote for one candidate over the other because of misinformation or misunderstanding of an issue.

I guess I must have drunk the "Down on Humanity" roast coffee this morning.

I don't know who I'll vote for and I don't know who will win. But I do know that the next six weeks will be interesting.

Stay tuned.