We didn’t have to deal with hanging chads in this cycle, but we did have lengthy waits to get reports from numerous swing states where the results were very close. North Carolina is no longer purple. With a few notable exceptions, up and down the ballot the state has gone red. The strongly worded negative ads of the Republicans were effective in most cases. The results also confirm the failures of the NC Democratic Party strategies. Even though the state has become increasingly urban in recent years, the political mood has become increasingly regressive.

The Republicans are one vote short of a super majority in the House in the North Carolina General Assembly, but they probably can find at least one Democrat who will vote to over-ride a Governor’s veto. In effect, Cooper’s political power for the next two years has been weakened even more.

Wake County is still largely Democratic. I haven’t seen results from the other counties, some of which have various forms of governance. To my surprise, the bond issues in the county passed even though they will raise taxes.

My primary concern is the effect of money in determining the results of elections. I can’t recall the exact numbers, but the cost of the mid-terms ran into many billions of dollars. Most of that went for TV ads. Are political ads worse than product ads? If you’re talking about ads for medications, then I think they both are bad. We banned liquor ads. Why do we allow ads that cause consumers to question the recommendations of their doctors?

The scandal of the waste of money in political campaigns, particularly compared with other countries, can be correlated with the Citizens United case that allowed corporations to spend without limits or accountability. We’re coming to the point of having a government (both state and federal) of the millionaires, by the millionaires, and for millionaires.

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