Election

For the second time in two months, the Hancock Town Council and mayor will need to fill a vacancy, as a second councilman has filed to run against Mayor Daniel Murphy. There also are nine people who filed to run for two open seats on the town council in the Jan. 28 municipal election. Tim Smith, a councilman for six years, filed to run for mayor by the Nov. 30 deadline. A charter provision of the town is that a council member who files to run for any other town office must resign his or her seat.

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum joined Franklin County, Pa., Republicans in reflecting on the Nov. 6 presidential election during a dinner Tuesday. Republicans are “not comfortable in our own skin,” Santorum said. “We needed someone who would energize our base as much as (Barack Obama) energized their base,” he said. Santorum, who represented Pennsylvania in the Senate from 1995 to 2007, ran for president this year, but bowed out of the race in April. When asked about running in 2016, he said he is “certainly not making any decisions at this point in time.” “There's only one thing I'd run for again,” Santorum said of any other political aspirations.

Tanner C. Beal of Hagerstown was one of four Saint Vincent College students who were named officers of the Student Government Association Executive Board for 2013. Beal was named vice president. Beal, a 2010 graduate of Saint Maria Goretti High School in Hagerstown, is the son of Karen Divelbiss of Hagerstown and Christopher Beal of Kill Devil Hills, N.C. Beal is a junior criminology, law and society major with a minor in Spanish. He has served as vice president of the Student Government Association Executive Board, a member and captain of the varsity swimming team, a swimming representative member of the student athlete advisory council, activities programming board team leader, member of the orientation committee, member and vice president of the criminology club, member and treasurer of the Active Minds Club, member and secretary of the pre-law society, and a four-semester member of the dean's list and the Presidents' Athletic Conference honor roll.

Many local business and community leaders turned out Thursday night for a meet-and-greet with their newly elected City of Hagerstown and Washington County Board of Education officials. Brien Poffenberger, president of the Hagerstown-Washington County Chamber of Commerce, which hosted the event, estimated about 100 people attended the welcome reception at Potomac Walk in downtown Hagerstown, next to Bulls and Bears on South Potomac Street. After each election cycle, it's key for the local business community to reach out to its new officials to become acclimated on the issues that are most important moving forward, Poffenberger said.

Now that the election and Thanksgiving are past, perhaps it would be useful but not necessarily fun to reflect a bit on partisanship, the institution that has done much to put us where we are. The Founders, by and large, envisioned the United States as a kind of nonpartisan assembly of a country. Most of the “framers” hated the idea of party, associating it with the interminable conflicts of European public life, endless corruption and subversion of the public purpose. Franklin and Washington and many of their colleagues detested partisanship (although bowing to emerging realties Washington did become a marginal Federalist)

The four newly elected Washington County Board of Education members thanked their families and supporters Tuesday after being sworn-in to start their four-year terms. Approximately 65 people attended the swearing-in ceremony at the school board's administrative offices off Commonwealth Avenue. “I take the responsibility of this office and the public's trust very, very seriously,” said Melissa Williams, the only political newcomer elected to the board last month. “There are challenges ahead and I'm ready and eager to take my place at the table with the other six board members to begin the important work ahead of us,” Williams said.

Nine states, including Maryland, have joined the National Popular Vote movement to elect presidents by popular vote. Bills to adopt the issue in both houses of the West Virginia Legislature have languished there for more than four years. The movement was the subject of a debate Monday night between W.Va. Del. John Doyle, D-Jefferson, and Patrick Rosenstiel of Minnesota, senior consultant for the National Popular Vote campaign. Apparently the subject was not on the minds of many area voters.

Perhaps in no election since that of 1932 has there been so much anxiety over the possible outcome of an election. Then, as now, there were huge social issues at stake with parallels between a Roosevelt-Hoover contest and an Obama-Romney encounter. In both elections, there was a clear choice between a flawed candidate, a flawed party and a flawed program, and a progressive agenda with a vision of hope for better times. Several events just before and after the election will disclose why there was so much angst on the part of progressives and why they feared the success of Mitt Romney.

“I have to say that the Hagerstown voters certainly have short memories, if they don't remember when Penny Nigh was council lady before. We paid the price then, and with her now elected, we're going to pay the price now.” - Hagerstown “I just read George Michael's editorial on why Mitt Romney lost the election. He forgets the most important part: A majority of American voters do not like the Republican exclusion, rather than inclusion, of people with different ideas.”   - Waynesboro, Pa. “A big 'thumbs up' to former state senator Don Munson.

Farm Service Agency Administrator Juan M. Garcia reminds farmers that the County Committee elections began Nov. 5 with the mailing of ballots to eligible voters. The deadline to return the ballots to local FSA offices is Dec. 3. Newly elected committee members and their alternates will take office Jan. 1. “The role and input of our county committee members is more vital than ever,”  Garcia said. “New county committee members provide input and make important decisions on the local administration of disaster and conservation programs.