BY GRIF PRITCHARD
SPECIAL TO THE ELMORE/AUTAUGA NEWS
Every action has its equal opposite reaction … Newton’s third law can be applied to situations beyond physics. Nowhere more is it on display than in the world of politics; especially when you look at politics on the local level.
The driving force in city, town and village elections is anger. Someone does something someone dislikes therefore the goal is get said offending person out of office.
To paraphrase a conversation between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton: “They don’t need to know me (Burr to Alexander) they just don’t like you.”
And that’s what it comes down to on a local level: “Regardless of what you’ve done here lately, I don’t like you and I’m gonna get a bunch of my buddies to vote for me.”
That’s all great and fantastic – but what’s next?
You see that’s the difference between active and reactive leadership.
Active leaders have a plan and a set of goals they want to accomplish. Reactionary leaders work like Hell to get into office and then have little to no plan to move forward and that’s why you see successful towns all of a sudden regress after a sweeping electoral change.
Teddy Roosevelt, one of my favorite leaders and possibly the baddest man (in terms of Leroy Brown, you know, the baddest man in the whole town) on the planet to ever ride a moose across a river as president said: “It’s not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows of great enthusiasms, the great necessary devotions; who spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best knows in the end triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst of it, fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”
But that moreso applies to politicos on the national level. On the local level if after four years of successful governance, don’t change just for the sake of change.
This is why I think it’s important that both incumbents and their challengers should have an opportunity to debate and introduce their views to the voters.
Are you running because you want to effect change on the city and think your ideas will help move things forward and make it better for the residents, or do you just not want to see the other guy (or woman) in that elected office?
Author William S. Burroughs describes that mentality thusly: “A paranoid is a person who knows little of what is actually going on.”
Here is my suggestion – and I don’t know how it would come about in this age of the ‘rona and the need to socially distance – I think all candidates and incumbents should have to stand before their constituents and debate the week before the vote. In Tallassee, for instance, you could do it on the Thursday before the election. Start with the school board, then move to council wards and finally the mayoral race. Since it’s my idea – I’ll even start the ball rolling with the questions:
How informed are you about what’s going on within the town? And I’m talking really informed, not just fueled by the endless nonsensical rhetoric found on social media platforms?
As candidates — how many council or commission or board of education meetings have you attended? What is your motivation to seek office? How versed are you in what’s been going on within your ward, within the city, county or state? What are your goals? Where do you see the office after your first term?
What is the last book you’ve read, podcast you’ve listened too?
“In politics, stupidity is not necessarily a handicap…” wrote Napoleon Bonaparte, a famed French leader and also a guy known for his complex and height.
If the candidate or the incumbent refuses this opportunity, then I would have to seriously question their viability beyond “so and so hurt my feelings that one time over the past four-to-eight years.”
Now don’t get this twisted I wholeheartedly believe in Mark Twain’s views on politicians: “They are like diapers and should be changed as often.”
I’m not a fan of keeping a person in office just because they’ve been in office for the past 20-plus years and nothing major in the town has exploded. I believe in putting the best people in place to be successful and with that to see success continually bred into other successes.
I’m not so naive to believe that my suggestion will come to life. I completely expect it to fall on deaf ears.
It’s that simple.
Grif Pritchard is a newspaper veteran and freelance writer in our area. He lives in Tallassee, Alabama.
