The sentiment I gather from this post - that every candidate in a non-partisan race should have absolutely no party affiliation or ideology whatsoever - is completely outrageous. It happens all the time, in every county, and to presume otherwise is naive and ridiculous. Both parties have done it for years, and will continue to do it well beyond our own respective lifespans.

Trying to look at this impartially, as conservatives, should you try to protect your base in Livingston County? Absolutely. Go for it. That's politics. I'll shake hands with you and say, "Good game!" But should you implicitly chastise the people moving to Livingston for being moderate or liberal? Certainly not. Obviously, they too pay the people who make their living from public dollars. Presuming that Livingston County is only for Republican voters is, quite frankly, just as absurd as presuming that no conservatives should move to Detroit.

Finally, a Michigan district court judge in Livingston County has no authority over war, nor do they have the ability to overturn Roe v. Wade. Reading this in the negative, that's presuming you want a pro-war, pro-life district court judge in a Michigan district court.

Should anyone care what L. Brooks Patterson or Robert Ficano thinks about national security or abortion? In my opinion, not really. It has nothing to do with the day-to-day work associated with their elected office. What people should care about is how to revitalize an anemic econy, how to attract jobs to Michigan, how to best to provide public safety services to their residents.

The point is that district court judges have no authority, in that role, to determine whether the county enters into armed conflict with another, or whether a woman can or can't have an abortion... so who cares?

They oversee misdemeanor cases like drunk driving, small quantities possession of narcotics, and other relatively (emphasis on "relatively") miniscule crimes. Would you vote for a President of the United States based on what they thought about a local zoning ordinance dispute? I would hope not, just as I would hope you wouldn't vote for a school board or district judge candidate based on an issue over which they have absolutely no authority.

After all, in non-partisan races, it shouldn't matter what a person's party affiliation is, right?

Also, as a point of clarification, for you and others reading my comment, I referenced one county declaring war on another, and I hope my typo will actually be read as a typo rather than me trying to insist that counties be given the authority to declare war on one another. Of course, I meant country, not county. The idea of two counties going to war against each other is absurd and would probably put forth some sort of Constitutional precedent that I'm certainly not qualified, legally or intellectually, to set.