Not going to comment on the election of yesterday itself but rather on the way we elect people Those results have been picked over and there is little real meat on those bones in any event.

I've been one in favor of publicly financed elections. Money is the mother's milk of politicians. Time and again we see the unfortunate result of politicians stretching for the dollar- the past governor of Illinois is just one example of that problem. I'm sure he is not the first governor to offer a senate seat to the highest bidder.

It seems to me better to have short election periods with a few in depth debates than the never ending political season that exists. President Obama in theory ran for president over a 6 year period. Hillary Clinton was running for nearly a decade. And on our side of things (the voters) the election process wears us out instead of informs responsible voters. Imho.

Add in negative campaigning and any respect for those seeking political office goes out the window. Just my thought.

I am still amazed that people still want to run for office in this country. All that money spent and all that abuse. Ego and ambition must still count for something. Mayor Bloomberg in New York City spent over a 100 million of his own money. Can you imagine? And what does he get out of it?

Despite the fact that yesterday's elections news focused on a couple of governor races, it seems to me that states and local governments have become less and less important. Washington DC may be the financial capitol of the country. But more importantly it is more and more school district, your city and your state. Federal mandates have made local institutions less and less relevant.

And I think that destroying the influence and importance of our states and local institutions is a major mistake. The states offer laboratories to test new policies and new programs. We are losing that to grand policy objectives. The states and other institutions are being limited to roles as tax collectors.

Lastly, the latest elections would have made my greatuncle Bill proud. It is one of the recent elections that has legally permitted the dead to vote. One of the consequences of vote by mail is that a person can cast a ballot and have it count, even if that individual died between the time the vote was mailed and the ballots counted. Uncle Bill would have laughed at that and would have had thoughts about how many times a person could vote by mail. But that was uncle Bill. Old Democrats and old political machines think a little different.

Hope you got to vote and voted wisely. Nothing to vote on here but there are special elections coming up in January- tax measures that will probably get voted down.