Well, I'm not sure I 'respectfully' disagree...

Andrew Dreschel, reporter/editorialist/ opinionator for The Spec, held forth last week in the article 'Most mayoral hopefuls not up to the job'. I encourage you to go there and read what he had to say.

Today's 'The Hamiltonian' features the results of a poll they conducted as to the 'fairness' of Dreschel's final summary comment:

"But on Oct. 25, we all know that the winner is going to be one of the big three. And that’s how it should be. They’ve paid their dues. The others haven’t."

It's fascinating to me how Dreschel conflates...and Cal DiFalco and his editorial content crew don't really focus on what the actual issue is here.

I think it's folly to believe that anyone other than 'The Big Three' is going to win this election. I've state previously my belief what percentage of the total votes cast this triumvirate will capture. It's either going to be Di Ianni, Eisenberger, Bratina, or Eisenberger, Di Ianni, Bratina, and the breakdown will look something like 40/30/20.

So while I can agree with the first of Dreschel's conclusions -"... the winner is going to be one of the big three."- his reasoning as to why he sees things this way is to me at the least pedestrian, simplistic...and therefore wholly supportive of a the kind of voting process that his employers have been engaged in with their campaign coverage. And his final conclusion -"They’ve paid their dues. The others haven’t."- shatters the integrity of the entire piece. (Shame, that.)

From my perspective, I believe that the 'rest of the candidates' compose a pretty mixed bag. Many of them are, in fact, not even remotely qualified to run the city. In fact, I actually shiver at the prospect of some of them being responsible for anything more than having a paper route, never mind being elected to contribute to local governance.

But in that mixed bag are some great insights, some sound ideas, opportunities for creating answers to some of our problems...if not exactly the answers themselves. Some of these men are entertaining, some are worrying...some grasp some of our challenges while others are entirely out to lunch and clearly unfit to play the part of Mayor, and are actually walking the line of disservice to the process. I wish more people would respect the office, respect the election process more; sometimes it's not appropriate, not grace-filled to exert your rights while gumming up the works. There are other avenues to take, other mechanisms by which to make your thoughts known, to effect changes in the way people regard the political process.

(Recently I had a conversation with one of the 'lower tier' candidates in my driveway, and it was quite illuminating that he was unaware of one of his opponents, one whom I referred to as 'the most intelligent of all those running'. It's astounding to me that anyone running for office wouldn't be intimately familiar with who he's in competition with. But litmus tests sometimes occur at the strangest times.)

Just yesterday, in a private correspondence with one of our 'second tier' mayoral candidates, I bemoaned 'the 'non-campaigns' run by The Big Three...none of which have issued anything that I would ever construe as a 'platform'. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I cannot imagine how a more non sequitur-esque election could have unfolded. And the real question is 'Who's to blame?' (I'll look at that in an upcoming post.)

As for The Hamiltonian and their 'unscientific poll', I'd have preferred it if they'd not wanted people to consider whether Dreschel's comment was 'unfair', but had been a little more exacting and focused on which of the four statements he makes in this paragraph they're wanting an opinion on. During a decidedly imprecise election campaign with imprecise coverage, it's a little disappointing that we're stuck with editorial polls smacking of the same bland flavour of imprecision.