I was not surprised to see a message when I got in to work this morning. I was surprised that it was from Boston mayoral candidate Maura Hennigan.

I was also not surprised that she was calling to ask for my vote. Though, as someone who doesn't live in Boston, I wasn't able to help her very much.

As it turns out, she could have used my vote, and whole lot more. The Menino dynasty continues unimpeded, with four more years of marginally comprehensible mayorality on the offing.

In other news, the guy I know who was running for mayor of Brockton did not win, but he did manage to get 44 percent of the vote. Closer to home, our mayor got re-elected pretty handily. That surprised me a little, given how worked up people were over the state of city finances when we moved to town.

Our ward elected a new city councilor, in kind of an interesting race that some pitted as one divided by the major street that runs through the middle of the ward. The winner lives on the side of the street closer to the ocean, while the loser does not. Neither do we, but I voted for the woman who won, mostly because she was the only candidate to make concrete statements about issues. Everyone else either wanted further study (such as on the high school, which two studies have already determined needs to be replaced) or changes without suggesting a new plan (such as everyone who wanted to get rid of the trash fee, but had no way of replacing the lost revenue).

I was a little surprised to see stories about this being a national test, given that the biggest races were for NJ and VA governorships already held by the Dems. I suppose that they kept them means something, especially given W's jaunt into Virginia to stump for the GOP candidate. Though given the money and dirt involved in the NJ race, the meaning is appropriately muddy.

Can't really speak to the Governator getting shot down on all of his proposals. Perhaps the lone Californian linked at left will say something.