Guest Post by Paul Jones

nomerger.org - Foushee and Hemminger
Sierra Club - Brown and Hemminger
Independent - Brown and Carey
CH News - Carey and Hemminger
Breakfast Club - Carey and Foushee

I have I'm sure missed several -- Teachers Associations, Soccer Alliances, and others that didn't get my attention. Several for the Town Council race seem to be missing this time out or I missed them. Housing, Police, CAN, Neighbors Near Campus, Tax watchers. Many of these had not much of a stake in the County race, but others did. Did they matter? Did any of the endorsements matter?

Paul Jones is the director of ibiblio. He is married to Chapel Hill Town Council Member Sally Greene.

because this crow tastes terrible! So much for my career as a political pundit . . . So what DOES it all mean?

I think someone on the Late Breaking News may have hit on something by calling this a referendum on Margaret Brown.

Clearly this is neither a rebuke for NoMerger.org nor an endorsement of school merger.

I said it twice yesterday, the voters are not stupid. I suspect that they saw two good candidates and voted for them. In fact, I spoke to quite a few people who said that they were voting for Moses and Valerie. I just figured they were significantly in the minority.

That said, there were a number of comments on this site from people who said that Margaret rubbed them the wrong way. I still think NoMerger.org did Margaret a disservice by painting her with same brush they used on Moses.

Here are the theories I heard bandied about tonight (I am not saying that I buy these ideas):

1) Margaret was punished for trying to have it both ways on merger (or that she was punished for failing to take a stand).

Today is the day. Orange County Democrat and Unaffiliated voters will decide who our next two County Commissioners are. While there is a general election in November, it is perfunctory in Orange County.

While no one can know just how this race will end, I think I can see that there are realistically only three main possibilities. Here's what they are and what they will mean:

Alternative 1: Valerie Foushee and Pam Hemminger win
I think it is pretty clear what this scenario will mean. Orange County voters are a lot better at understanding elections than we necessarily give them credit for. It may well be that NoMerger.org correctly understands that there is a deep visceral reaction against school merger out there. If Val and Pam win then there is just about no way to look at it other than that the County's voters don't want merger. While Moses and Margaret have their detractors for other reasons, merger will be the only reason that anyone will remember for their undoing.