With 99% of the New York precincts reporting, Republican George Pataki has cruised to a third term as New York Governor. Even more heart-wrenching to many progressives, the NY Greens may have fallen short of the 50,00 votes needed to receive an automatic line on the ballot for the next four years. Lack of mainstream media coverage, competition from the center-left Working Families Party, and poor voter turnout may have been contributing factors.
The Libertarian Party reported about nine cases of missing or broken levers for Libertarian and Green Party candidates and some upstate ballot errors which omitted candidates from these parties.
Nationwide, the Democrats were largely routed, and the election post-mortem has begun. "It is time for the Democrats to wake up to the reality that they do not win elections by pretending to be Republicans and 'centrists.' The Republicans will beat them at this game every time," writes one IMC commentator. "It is time to look upon the Democrats as a failed party that has allowed itself to be squeezed into the center by the debate-narrowing media."
Meanwhile, debates about the point of voting continue on IMC-Global and on this website.
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