I received a comment with suggestions for blog topics and I thought I would knock off the first one. Will the world stop spinning if Sheila wins the mayor's election?
My Father was having an email exchange with Rich Whitney before the 2000 Presidential election. My Father's contention at the time was that the Green Party was playing with fire, they couldn't win the election, but they could make Gore lose. Whitney responded that there was no real difference between the parties, Bush or Gore, it is all the same. Clearly, this was an incorrect analysis.
I am struck by the changes Glenn Poshard is trying to make at SIUC right now and how similar the problems SIUC has are to the problems of Carbondale. Here is the DE's happy take on things at SIU from yesterday. Changing a culture of inefficiencies to one of efficiencies is difficult and Brad is right in the middle of it, just like Glenn Poshard is at SIU. My take on Brad being mayor is that he hasn't removed enough ineffective administrators, but he has gotten his fair share.
We see a clear difference between Sheila and Brad is what they promise to do. Brad promises to work hard and change things for the better. Sheila promises to not work hard and let the city drift along on it's current course. We have seen what happens if you let Carbondale drift along, nothing, absolutely nothing.
We see Sheila's accomplishments over the last four years, they are nonexistent. Brad has a whole list of things he has done. Sheila campaign strategy is to sit back and choose a few items that she had nothing to do with and complain. Brad's campaign strategy is to promise to do more work for the citizens.
Sometime back I came to the conclusion that I would rather have a mayor of accomplishment who wasn't perfect, then a mayor of no accomplishments that claimed they were perfect. I'm a Democrat (when I'm out of Illinois), this isn't about party affiliation, it is about what you want Carbondale to be. It is hard to pander to me, I will not buy in very often. But will the majority of voters? That is the real question.
I'm sure that Carbondale has started to move in the right direction over the last 4 years. I'm not sure it matters for the 12 or 18 months after the election who wins, but I'm very sure that in 20 years it will matter. Like electing George W. Bush instead of Al Gore has changed the world, this election offers us a choice to let the current program take root and move Carbondale forward in the medium and long term, or we can go back to the bad old days and what we had in our city government before Brad was mayor.
Your comments are welcome, but only if you have something to say in paragraph form. I don't have time to explain every little thing today.
2 comments:
I agree if we don't choose to keep Brad Cole. Our I believe our community would cease to continue moving forward in the positive direction it has taken in the last 4 years. Sheila is not a bad person, I just don't believe she has the work ethic, motivation and/or ideas to do what Mayor Cole is doing with Carbondale. Brad has done work in this community and has traveled far beyond to foster strong relationships and get the word out that Carbondale is a great place.
"Sometime back I came to the conclusion that I would rather have a mayor of accomplishment who wasn't perfect, then a mayor of no accomplishments that claimed they were perfect."
Reminds me of one of my favorite business quotes: "It's better to have a bad business plan violently executed than have a perfect businss never executed at all."
I have been vaguely following this race on your blog, but to me Sheila seems like the business plan death perfectionist. The kind of person who needs six meetings and hire ten committee chairmen to decide the hue of the city logo.
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