The contest between Randy Altschuler, a wealthy St. James businessman, and Representative Tim Bishop went from just plain bad in 2010 to downright disgusting this year. From the Democratic side, accusations were made — then and in recent weeks — that Mr. Altschuler’s career as an outsourcing executive was bad for America. The Republicans countered — backed by millions in unregulated super-PAC money — that a routine constituent service effort by Mr. Bishop’s office was an inappropriate quid pro quo.

    Mr. Altschuler kicked in $2 million of his own money in the 2010 campaign; this year he hasn’t had to, thanks to $2.5 million in spending on his behalf by outside groups. One particularly unsettling ad, which was paid for by a group co-founded by Karl Rove, even shows Mr. Bishop in what were unmistakably gun sights. Prohibited by federal law from asking that the ad be pulled, Mr. Altschuler kept silent, but he didn’t take the opportunity to denounce the message either.

    Pretty much everything wrong with unregulated campaign spending can be found in this particular race. We would have preferred Mr. Altschuler, who seems like a nice enough guy, to adopt a better tone. This has not always been the case. For example, he has mischaracterized his opponent’s position on immigration reform and repeated mostly inaccurate statements against the Affordable Care Act.

    There was little to recommend Mr. Altschuler when he ran for the office two years ago. Since that time, he has not done more as a candidate than try to ride the Tea Party wave of anger into office, while moderating some of his more extreme positions.

    Mr. Bishop has been a steady advocate for the district in Washington and a frequent presence on the East End. Among specific efforts, he pushed for dredging Lake Montauk, battled to save jobs at the Plum Island disease laboratory, and tried to keep the 106th Rescue Wing at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. Mr. Bishop is from here and he cares about what we care about. He should be returned to office.

   Pity the poor New York voter confronted with Tuesday’s ballot and a top of the ticket that really was not in play here. New York has been a reliably “blue” state, going for the Democratic presidential candidate most of the time since the Great Depression, and in an unbroken streak since 1988.

    This means that those who voted for the Republican or one of the minor-party presidential choices were to an arguable degree disenfranchised. Doing away with the Electoral College, in which all of a state’s votes are apportioned in a winner-take-all format, could correct this inequality. Consider that only nine so-called swing states actually decided the 2012 presidential election — not one of them our own New York.

    One line of thinking about abolishing the Electoral College goes like this: It would end the potential injustice inherent in a candidate’s winning the popular vote but losing the election. It would give the country’s more populous urban areas more clout and would probably increase voter turnout by energizing voters in the largest states. And it would for the first time embody the democratic ideal of one person, one vote, in the most important single contest in the land.

    For New Yorkers, doing away with the archaic system with its roots in a post-Colonial era in which only landed white men could vote, would be a step forward. It would also give the candidates incentives to do more than swing through seeking donations, as both the Obama and Romney campaigns did this summer, while not bothering to slow down long enough to hear what the people of this great state — particularly those in counties that had gone “red” in recent elections — had to say.

    California’s Legislature has passed a law that would award its Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote — provided enough other states followed suit. New York should throw its muscle — and its 16.7-million residents of voting age — behind this movement.

   Representative Tim Bishop’s victory over Randy Altschuler Tuesday despite the astounding amount of super PAC money — $3.4 million — that fell upon the First Congressional District, gives testimony to the voters’ ability to think for themselves. Everywhere you turned in the last few weeks, you saw or heard the attack ads paid for by a seemingly bottomless pool of dollars — radio, television, the Internet.

    These days, with advertisments able to reach into places where Web visitors live, you were likely to see  false and trumped-up allegations of corruption against Mr. Bishop by the National Republican Congressional Committee. Then other baseless claims would pop up while you were watching a how-to video on YouTube, for example. Mr. Bishop was even targeted by gun-sight imagery. Voters weren’t buying it.

    The millions didn’t suffice to oust Mr. Bishop, but they did demean a race between two viable, if very different, candidates. Mr. Altschuler has impressed us as a nice guy and a political moderate, who may have been, if elected, as hands-on as the effective Mr. Bishop. If given the opportunity, even he might have vetoed the most vicious assaults made on his behalf. In the weird world of unregulated spending, there is only one rule: the candidate has no control.

    Attack ads also debased the contest for the White House. A group supporting the president claimed that Mitt Romney, in effect, was responsible for killing a woman who had cancer because her husband lost his health insurance when Mr. Romney’s investment firm closed the man’s plant. On the other side of the coin, an ad on behalf of Mr. Romney howled that Mr. Obama was a racist, prejudiced against whites.

    It would be nice to read Mr. Bishop’s win as a local rejection of unregulated campaign spending. That, of course, is a difficult call to make. What is certain is that the democratic process would be improved if the influence of money was reduced.

    The line of the night, however, came from Representative Bishop, who, savoring his win, declared, “My opponent had the guys with the biggest checks, but I had the guys with the biggest hearts.” 

   What difference a hundred miles makes. Hurricane Sandy made its landfall on the New Jersey shore, wiping away whole beachside communities. Damage was massive in the New York Bight, on Staten Island, in Manhattan, the Rockaways, Long Beach, and Fire Island, lessening to the east and north, farther from the storm’s highest winds.

    Our sympathies first are for those who lost family or friends. Locally, we mourn Edith Wright, a Montauk woman whose body was found at Georgica Beach.

    As bad as the damage was along the East End’s waterfronts, and as difficult the loss of power was for many residents and businesses, it could have been far, far worse had Sandy taken only a slightly more northerly path. Everyone, from homeowners to public officials, must keep this fully in mind.

    There will be a time for rebuilding, reconsidering policy, and evaluating official preparations, but for now, it is all about getting through the next few days, neighbor helping neighbor, and just doing what it takes to get life back to normal.

   A well-intentioned but irredeemably flawed law recently signed by Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone would require nearly all residents to earn a certificate by taking a safety course and passing an exam in order to operate a power boat. Those who head out on the water without a certificate would be fined $250 for a first offense.

    The requirement is, as East Hampton’s head harbormaster recently put it, long overdue. But how the tens of thousands of recreational boaters in the county would be accommodated and how the law’s built-in conflict with state regulatory authority could be resolved remains to be seen. The prospects are not reassuring.

    There is a need, to be sure. For example, a badly overloaded boat led to the deaths of three children in Huntington in July. In 2009, three died and four were seriously injured when a boat ran aground at high speed near Jones Beach. For the past several years small-boat fishermen have thrown caution to the wind (and waves) while angling around Montauk Point, with several near collisions and capsized boats the result. East End marine patrols respond not infrequently to reports of boats aground or on the jetties. Time and again, too many recreational boaters show over-reliance on horsepower, high-tech electronics, and an “it-can’t-happen-to-me” attitude, as Coast Guard records attest. Simply put, common sense is not always common at sea.

    Some critics of the measure say the county has overstepped by trying to get around state law, which requires certificates only for those under 18 who run power boats and everyone who uses a personal watercraft, like the Jet Ski brand. The Suffolk law also tries to extend the county’s authority over state and town trustee waters, a power-grab that could well be challenged in court.

    Under state law, young people who operate motorboats must obtain certificates by attending a $60 eight-hour course and passing an exam. It, too, requires certificates of all who operate personal watercraft. Compare this to the five-hour class required for a license to drive a car. Multiply this by the thousands of boaters who will need a certificate by a year from now — when the law is to go into effect — and you’ve got an ocean-size logistical challenge.

    The immediate difficulty would be for organizations like the United States Power Squadron, Coast Guard Auxiliary, and New York Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation to come up with enough programs that are reasonably accessible even out at the far end of the twin forks fast enough to serve the county’s estimated 75,000 to 100,000 recreational boaters. The law does not provide for establishing classes or dealing with those many residents who passed a safety course as children but long ago lost their certificates.

    The county is to be commended for trying to take a first step toward safer boating, but the difficulty in implementing the law and resolving its inherent conflict with the state is formidable. Unfortunately, the Legislature provided neither guidance nor funding to help make this possible. The best that can be hoped is for Albany to reconsider the issue and to put into place a statewide boater-education program accessible to all.

   Sunday is Veteran’s Day, traditionally a time when organizations that aid those who have served in the United States armed forces are beneficiaries of increased charitable giving. This year, as the region’s attention is centered on communities reeling from Hurricane Sandy’s flood waters and prolonged power outages, there is a fear that veterans groups might see a dip in what they receive.

    For the East End, the Wounded Warrior Project is prominent, notably because of its close partnership with Soldier Ride, which was founded here in 2004 by Chris Carney and which shows support and raises money for returning veterans with a cross-country bike trek. Now annual rides are held around the country.

    There are myriad organizations that help look out for and provide care, job training, and other support for America’s veterans. As we dig into our pockets to help those left shaken by the passing storm, we must also remember those veterans who served and for whom, in many cases, the injuries will last a lifetime.

   Rarely does a federal policy have as direct a potentially positive impact on the South Fork as does one put in place earlier this year by President Obama to allow some children of undocumented migrants a way to avoid deportation and work here legally. Called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, it allows immigrants 30 and younger who have lived in the United States for five or more years to apply for a Social Security number and a two-year, renewable work permit.

    So far, the number of people signing up has been less than expected; at least 1.2 million people could benefit, according to low estimates. Part of the less-than-expected enthusiasm has to do with the presidential election. Mitt Romney has said that he would “supersede” the program with one of his own. Other speculation is that some younger immigrants fear that sharing their personal information with authorities could lead to trouble for family members also here illegally. The government has gone to some lengths to dissuade that notion, insisting that personal details will remain private.

    Critics have said that the executive order to create the Deferred Action program was a political stunt to shore up the president’s support among Latino voters. This may be true to a degree, but the program is still something that some South Fork residents should seriously consider taking advantage of. Law-abiding business owners could gain as well from the program, which would broaden the pool of available workers while reducing the headaches and legal risks of using illegal labor. Tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Bridgehampton National Bank in Bridgehampton, Congressman Tim Bishop is to host an informational meeting for those interested in applying.

    In the end, deferred action is an inadequate substitute for a comprehensive and sensible national immigration reform, something President George W. Bush backed but for which he was vilified from the right. It is, however, a reasonable initial step.

   Mitt Romney seems like a nice-enough guy, which is why the secretly recorded statement in which he insulted and belittled nearly half of American voters while speaking to a group of big-dollar donors in Florida in May is shocking. At the same time, his full-throated embrace of the worst of class and ethnicity-baiting ideas — and wrong ones, to boot — could be seen as a predictable outcome of an election cycle that favors attacks rather than matters of substance.

    Mother Jones reported that the comments were made at a May 17 $50,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Boca Raton, Fla., hosted by Marc Leder, a wealthy financier. To recap them briefly, Mr. Romney said 47 percent of United States voters “pay no income tax,” are “dependent upon government,” and believe themselves “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it.” These Americans, Mr. Romney said, were going to vote for the Obama-Biden ticket “no matter what” and, presumably, not worth his attention. He went on to say that had his father “been born of, uh, Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot at winning this.” (The comments were heard in the recording of the event provided to the magazine.)

    The path seems direct between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives’ declaring war on the Barack Obama presidency, through the bitter primary months, to Mr. Romney’s expressing the view that almost half of Americans do not deserve his attention while some other portion vote mindlessly along ethnic lines.

        The conservative columnist David Brooks ably refuted Mr. Romney’s statement this week, writing in The New York Times that the “people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high-school degrees.” So much for, as he wrote, Mr. Romney’s imaginary division of the nation into “makers” and “moochers.”

This is not the only intemperate statement made by Mr. Romney in recent weeks. His rapid and, to many, distasteful, response to the killing of a U.S. ambassador in Libya underscores the say-anything nature of contemporary politics. In the vacuum that stands in for reasonable discourse, what Mr. Romney utters is, sadly, par for the course.

    If recent weeks indicate anything, this is not a high point for politics in this country.

   It is a story we dreaded. An East Hampton High School student apparently committed suicide late last week, and some of those who knew him have drawn a direct connection from what is being described as a deliberate, tragic act to his being bullied because he was gay or perceived by others as gay.

    Few details have emerged at this point about the life of David Hernandez Barros, who was 16, but we have been told fellow students at East Hampton High School bullied him. In a powerful letter to the editor of this newspaper this week, a former student at the high school said that he himself had considered committing suicide because of the self-hatred engendered by the hateful insults directed at him by his peers. David’s struggle, he wrote, was “similar to the ones many of us face growing up in this community.” If this is the status quo, it is unacceptable.

    Learning of David’s death on Saturday, Richard Burns, the superintendent of the East Hampton School District, issued a  statement calling the death tragic and saying he was truly saddened. His office and Adam Fine, the high school principal, offered counseling for students and faculty. Representatives of the Family Service League’s Joe’s Project, a suicide-prevention initiative, have been invited to speak with students. Meetings were said to be ongoing about how to respond further.

    Nationally, bullying of gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender students is considered epidemic. Shocking statistics were cited in the media following the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, who leaped into the Hudson River last year after a video was posted online showing him kissing another young man. Other recent deaths in similar circumstances have been of a 13-year-old boy in Texas, another in Minnesota, and a 15-year-old in Indiana. A majority (and far more in some surveys) of G.L.B.T. youth are said to have been the targets of bullying for who they are.

     Whether or not a detailed explanation of David’s apparent decision to end his life emerges, a shared sense is that anti-gay harassment right here in East Hampton was a cause, if not the cause. School and community leaders must address this perception — focusing on the alleged attackers, not just their victims.

    Our deepest sympathy goes to David’s family and his friends. May the community rally in their support.

   As Russell Drumm reported this week in the fishing news, the fall striped bass run has begun and fanatics from near and far are heading to Montauk Point to get in on the action. At the same time, late summer and fall can produce the best waves of the year, drawing surfers and sightseers as well to the Point, where the town is responsible for a small parking lot reached by a bumpy gravel road, from which one can quickly step onto the beach at Turtle Cove.

    By an arrangement worked out some years back, the parking lot is closed during the summer and open when the fishing and waves are good. But like any number of other public beach accesses the Town of East Hampton manages, this one is a bit of a mess — both visually and functionally — and unnecessarily so, although the fix would be simple.

    We happened to be there just this past Sunday and watched as a  town marine patrol officer reluctantly wrote ticket after ticket for vehicles that, to our eye, were not parked illegally. It turned out that, though the area in terms of space can hold perhaps a dozen vehicles, there were only legal spaces for six; three handicapped spots were clearly marked, but signs denoting the other three were unclear, if they were visible at all. No visitor — or town official for that matter — could fairly have a clue as to what was a legal spot and what was not without a map.

    So we asked the officer whose responsibility was it to clarify the confusion to put up more signs and spare well-intentioned people an expensive parking summons. The answer? The East Hampton Town Board, some of the same folks, we thought, who wanted to open up a new ocean bathing beach on Napeague. Oh, yeah. Right. Great idea. And we went about our business.