Predicted Outcome

 Ohio had two congressional districts with special elections this week. The results were predictable, and predicted, even by me. Gerrymandering won and representative democracy lost.

In my district, a Republican candidate with no government experience and no apparent qualifications won easily against a serving Democrat from the state legislature. The seat was vacated by our previous representative so he could become president of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. He had held office in the state legislature before running for Congress, which he lost in his first campaign, but won a rematch in 2010, when Democrats were so disillusioned by the failure of the Obama Administration to solve all the world's problems in a few weeks, they didn't bother to vote. That gave Republicans complete control of the state legislature and also Congress on a national level. So Republican gerrymandered our district, which used to be somewhat competitive to a guaranteed win for Republicans.

So it seems I will have a useless and incompetent representative, at least until after next year's election. My guess is that gerrymandering will win again and I will still be in a Republican district. That saddens me because I believe, at least somewhat, in the democratic republican form of government.

I can't say how bad a representative I have now. I doubt he will be a worse embarrassment to Ohio than Jim Jordan, but he might. I think he was an energy company lobbyist, so he will probably oppose action on global warming, along with the rest of his party, despite decades of data and actual changes causing a great deal of harm in the world, which will continue to get worse as the warming continues, even if we take action. The best we can do is limit the severity of the damage. It is too late to prevent a lot of warming and damage because we haven't already taken the action the science suggested we should.

In the other election, a democrat who was in local government ran against a radio personality who has run for office before and always lost. The Republican didn't respond to media inquiries about her position on issues. She seems sadly typical of current Republican candidates; uninformed and uninterested in making the world better.

In Virginia, the Republican candidate for governor won based on a campaign of fear mongering and lies, stirring up racial resentment. I guess he and his party have nothing else to offer. It is a sad state of affairs.