Since I’m in the bloggy mood.

Arturo takes VP (no runoff), Action takes Family Housing and Hume, Swamp else.

Surprised? You betcha.

Turnout was 7,187 or thereabouts.

More surprised?

First, congrats. Then, a quick analysis:

Swamp kept their houses, picked up most of Unite’s, and had pretty much all multicultural support, and kept IRHA support (such as it is).
Nobody ever attacked Arturo on any grounds.

By waffling on the “serious” issues (as deemed by the Alligator, i.e. issues Senate can do nothing about but “advocate” i.e. ask nicely), and taking itself a little less seriously than it should have, Action didn’t make itself the clear choice.

Almost nobody talked about Greek / anti-Greek.

The opposition never really articulated what their problem was with Swamp.

Action had a very tough time getting quality candidates.

Action had a vacuum of leadership once we got into the last mile. The party president was nowhere to be found, and communications from the party to candidates / supporters were limited. Not laying any blame here, just saying a fact. This kind of leadership helps motivate volunteers, and it wasn’t there.

Action had very few shirts on the ground during campaign week. Most of Swamp’s were sitting around the table, but there were still many, many more.

So here’s my breakdown. Keys: Swamp/Arturo was untouchable (or at least, untouched); Swamp kept its base and added multicultural; Action couldn’t make a clear case for itself; Action couldn’t get volunteers out.

So congrats to the winners, good job to the losers, thanks to the voters.

This is the last partisan campaign I work on.

We’re going to be having announcements soon, so I’m shutting down for the night.

Eh, it was a good way to spend 20 minutes.

I’m going to bitch at the reporters for not reading it.

Night, all. Go read them if you want to know what actually happens.

All hail the conquering Tommy.

Not to jinx it or anything.

VP runoff: Chris and Arturo

Senate: Pants - 0; Action - Family Housing, Tolbert, Hume, 4 seats in District D; Swamp - everything else.

They turned the music off.

The Swamp people are doing their song outside. It’s pretty loud.

Eh, good for them.

Warda’s cake is good.

I don’t think anybody’s reading my liveblog, including the Alligator reporters, who are the only ones who I thought might look at it.

I’ve been told the turnout numbers for the election are 7,149.

That’s a sizeable increase over last Fall, which was 6,666. And a year ago, they used secure-site online voting. I thought they actually increased turnout.

From my experience, it’d seemed like there was more voter apathy than last year. Guess not.

Maybe it’s the VP race that upped turnout, or the 4 candidates, or the joke party. Dunno. Given the Alligator non-endorsement and (prior to that) general trashing of just about everybody, I thought that’d actually turn voters off, since there was no clear “good guy” put forward.

Guess nobody reads the Alligator.

About 30 people just sang “Happy Birthday” to Action candidate Warda Ali. (It’s her birthday.)

We sang to her earlier at dinner, but we have a cake for her now.

There is a large water spill near the counter. There’s a “Wet Floor” sign, but I’m pretty much counting on some drunk SG’er slipping on it.

Sen. Ryan Nelson.

‘Twas something in the beargroves. What the fuck does that mean? Delete that. OK.

He says he’ll resign if he’s elected again. Bitch.