Yesterday's election: Historic? Monumental?
Oh, please. I know people are excited. Me too. But all one has to do is look at the wall of 200 years of mayors' portraits at city hall to realize that electing an older white man* is not some monumental break with history. Bill Knight deserves all the credit due for winning and maybe his tenure will prove monumental is some way, but his election is more of a return to the status quo than history in the making.
I'd also caution against thinking that everybody who voted for the winners all did so for the same reasons.
(* Nothing personal, Mr. Mayor)
Your comments remind me of the expression on Yvonne Johnson's face on the front page of today's N&R.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why we even bothered to vote. It was just another day at the polls.
Monumental? That's debatable but the fact that an incumbent who has been supported on a local and state level by the status quo does say something positive about Greensboro's voters.
ReplyDelete--Brandon Burgess
It was maybe not monumental, but it sure as hell surprised a lot of people. Namely Yvonne Johnson. Tony's right. Johnson's photo in the paper's front page spoke volumes. Her expression said, "WTF?"
ReplyDeleteJohnson didn't necessarily do a bad job. I don't think the job of mayor is designed for someone to do a bad job. You're essentially a cheerleader. Your vote is only one vote on the city council.
Yet the perception on Johnson was this: she was not in control of the long, raucous, insult-laden council meetings; agendas were not followed; the budget languished for months on the agenda without being addressed; she was clueless on the black book ("why not a white book?"
she infamously asked), supported Mitch Johnson, who, by all objective evidence, was a bona fide creep, supported the ouster of David Wray over what I believe were racial reasons, and generally stood by and watched the police department deteriorate before her eyes.
She was popular, and had a pretty powerful base of support.
By comparison, Bill Knight did not campaign to the level of Johnson...I don't recall billboards for him. I never got a robo call from Knight. Yet he was able to gin up a tremendous amount of support and when the turnout was low, he carried the day.
No, not historic or monumental, but a big surprise. I myself miscalculated how big the backlash would be.
Now with Knight, Thompson, Rakestraw, Wade and possibly Vaughan and Matheny, the power structure has definitely tilted away from the Robbie Perkins-Diane Bellemy-Small faction, which of course, championed the ouster of Wray and supported Mitch Johnson to the letter.
It's going to be very interesting.
Thank you for the comment, Doc. I certainly don't mind long comments, but if you have that much to say, you might enjoy having a blog of your own. It takes about 2 minutes to set one up at blogspot.com.
ReplyDeleteI just hope that the blogging community (aka the hyper informed and curious) continues its due diligence and hold people accountable.
ReplyDeleteRyan
What's it got to do with race? It is monumental that the city actually had the sense to vote the bums out. Anyone regardless of race can have a detrimental effect on the well being of a city. You are actually showing your own racial bias, which is the root cause of most of what is wrong with Greensboro in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI think the word you're looking for is "reactionary."
ReplyDelete