“All politics is local.”
So the legendary Boston ward heeler Tip O’Neill said, and in the main, he was right.
However, in recent years those big, pressing national issues have trickled down to infect local politics with America’s maddening “us or them” ideology, when to my way of thinking these grassroots races are about integrity and competence as they pertain to the stewardship of resources, public safety and quality of life issues.
What I’ve come here today to discuss might be viewed as political in nature, I suppose. But as a writer, one charged with knowing words and understanding concepts, it has more to do with political semantics than my flagging interest in the games our local movers and shakers insist on playing, whatever their party affiliation.
To wit: I’ve just now glanced at a sample ballot for the Floyd County election cycle on November 8.
The ballot is organized into the familiar categories of Democrat, Libertarian and Republican, save for our school board races, which are officially non-partisan for the purpose of campaigning and balloting.
Obviously in real life these school board candidates are D, R, L or ABP (Absolutely Bonkers Party), but the overarching point is that they’re the only ones not identified by party affiliation on the actual local ballot.
What this suggests to me is that in the absence of explicit legislative admonitions, all the other local races are intended to be partisan in nature, including the one for Floyd Circuit Court judge.
If not, then why is party affiliation indicated beside the candidates’ names on the ballot?
The judicial sinecure in question was occupied for many years by Terry Cody, who is retiring, and while I haven’t researched past elections altogether closely, or considered the possibility of informal agreements existing in olden times (baseball players called them the “unwritten rules”), I’ve never had a single doubt that Cody was a Democrat.
If for no other reason, I knew this because it said so right there on the ballot every time I voted.
As such, why is it that local Democrats are seized with paroxysms of bile in response to Republican judicial candidate Justin Brown’s not-exactly-shocking revelation that he’s a Republican?
He has identified himself as a Republican on his yard signs, and it’s also (duh) how he is listed on the ballot.
Exactly which rule is he violating?
This reaction is especially puzzling given that if local Democrats are keen to drive home a contrived “straw man” point...Read more