For most of the mayor's race, I thought the race was about people supporting Paul Simon's daughter. But, Sheila surrounded herself with people that had no interest in winning the mayor' race. Instead their goal was to gain sweet revenge for the close loss of Maggie Flanagan 4 years ago and they hoped kill the future political career of Brad Cole forever as part of the bargin.
Blogger's note - killing someone's future in the USA is a tough thing to do. For example, how many minutes until Don Imus is rehired? Anyone seen a Kobe Bryant commercial lately? That isn't the way this country functions. Everyone gets a second chance.
Instead of trying win a close victory, Sheila camp seemed to set their goals on 66% of the vote or bust. In order to score a knock out punch, they threw everything and the kitchen sink at Brad and only hit themselves. If you are in Sheila's inner circle, you should be kicking yourselves for being so stupid.
One of the things that I like about Brad (and I think is true of Joe Moore too), is that he likes politics and the laws of government. I feel that Brad sees "Politics" as his career and hobby, the same way that my Father does Math and I do Technology Business. You see all these organizations of politicians and political causes that Brad joins and then becomes leader soon after? It isn't luck. He likes it, he eat and breaths it. He seems to have an unending supply of ideas of how to improve things, and is limited by budget and reality, but never ideas. I agree that this makes Brad a professional politician, but it also means he is on top of the issues. I really get the idea the understanding the city budget and its subtle meanings are fun for him.
If you look at the 45% or so that voted for Sheila, many of them are so closed minded that they will cheerfully vote for an inferior candidate. I still don't get the Sheila supporters idea for a better community, what were they talking about? If you can't put it into one sentence, doesn't that mean you can't explain it? As I have said here of late, "the Emperor has no clothes."
After watching Sheila and the gang's running an 11 month campaign of deception and smearing, it will be nice to start trying to move the city foreword. Politics of us vs. them don't help in a small town.
Maybe the question we should be asking ourselves is, what kind of city do we want Carbondale to be in the future and start working toward that.
I'm sick of writing about this election, but a couple more before moving on.
6 comments:
Any ideas on why Channel 12 announced that they were not invited to the Cole victory party?
I hope that Brad Cole will become a nicer person. I think that it would eliminate the major problem with his continued success.
Cole didn't allow any video cameras inside the Dragon. I don't think he has all that much use for TV journalists (that's an oxymoron), which he probably should get over.
Maybe he wasn't feeling so confident at the beginning of the night?
I have the impression that Cole is just sort of shy and reserved. I've never worked with him but I've spoken with him on a few occasions and found him pleasant, considerate and approachable. So, I don't understand why a few people say he's "not nice".
Sunny
I like Brad, but he's been a jerk to the TV reporters. He allowed no video cameras inside just because he thinks they pushed Simon in the election (that's an oversimplification, but it's pretty close to an accurate paraphrase).
I very much disagree with 'Sunny'...I like Brad personally, and we get along fine, but I think it's interesting that I'm hearing that many, many people who voted for Sheila did it because, well, they didn't like Brad personally. Not because of policy...the guy himself had rubbed them the wrong way.
A good comment. I think both Sunny's and this one are equally correct.
I would be willing to bet you that most of the people who voted against Brad, because of his personality, have never spent any time with Brad.
Brad is very much a west coast style super achiever. He doesn't suffer fools well and he hates to have his time wasted. I was very much like this for 10 or so years, it works.
Combine these attributes with needing get things done, and you have to make a few enemies along the way.
It is clear that no one could argue they were voting for Sheila based on merit. Her whole campaign hinged on people decided they wanted nice over results.
I think Sheila shot herself in the foot with the dumb comments about expenses that it turned out she voted for that she later admitted that she paid no attention to.
She could have just smiled her way to victory.
I wonder who advised her to go into the "attack" mode that backfired?
Remind me never to hire THEM if I need a political adviser!
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