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That first name is an, "Aw Shucks", approach wherein
the candidate wants you to feel as if they just came by and
are sitting at your dinner table, politely wolfing down
creamed corn, roast chicken, green beans, scalloped potatoes
and puffy rolls.
I mean, come on...! How bad can you feel about a
politico who wants to be your friend and wants you to call
him or her by the first name! So what that you do not have
any common history with the politico! So what that he or she
may not have a track record of accomplishing anything of
note or value.
What is important is that you can call them by their
first names and all is well! From the initial size of the
gatherings that these politicos are generating, not too many
people are calling them by their first names!
I mean, we have heard it all. Their dazzling plans to
cure city government of its ills. To expertly manage your
tax dollars and to pave the crappy roads and round up the
stray cats and dogs and keep the homeless from pan-handling
for some spare change.
We voters, polite as we are, smile at them when they
get stony serious about cutting the fat out of government,
or their grandiose plans to make Toledo a serious contender
for becoming a 21st century city.
We have watched politicos for decades play hopscotch
with city personnel moving here and jumping there. We have
heard their blather about how their plans for civic
improvements are far superior to those of their opponent.
And we watch and wait for one of the politicos to
explain how all of this can be done on a shoe string budget
without raising taxes or to do so with recycled city
personnel who are clueless as to how to be catalysts for
innovation and creativity.
Of course when you ask the politicos why they are
running (their cue to get their tissues for a good cry...or
two), they all speak the same lingo in that they
are so civic minded and altruistic that public service is
the only thing that comes to mind.
After they dab their eyes with the tissues, they go on
to state that public service is a high calling that they are
mandated to fulfill.
But when they get elected for the next two or four
years, they make chop suey of government and mangle the
budgets.
Some are probably satisfied with simply drawing a
paycheck, going to chicken dinners and giving trite
blah-blah speeches about nothingness.
Of course all politicos take credit for anything that
happens under their term of governance. Even if the positive
results were not as a direct or indirect result of their
initiatives or leadership, they will still jump out in front
of a camera, any camera, and tell the uninitiated voter,
"See what I did....vote for me!"
Politics is part art and part science and part luck.
You decide the allocated percentages. Politics has as its
goal the making of images, real or imagined, that the
politico has a set of skills and talents that will benefit
you but only if he or she is elected.
Even if a positive result is directly attributable to a
corporate event or investment or the private sector taking
charge and doing what the Office of Mayor can not or will
not do, the mayor will beam with imputed pride that it was
his or her Herculean efforts that caused the new business to
relocate in the downtown area or it was his or her
outstanding staff that caused a company to relocate here
from Illinois.
That is how politics is played.
I have had the chance to present to our current mayor
some 11 ideas that I called, "low hanging fruit." Ideas that
could be accomplished by the creation of an Office of
External Affairs that reports directly to the mayor's
office.
These were ideas that, if accomplished or even
attempted, could have had a salubrious effect on encouraging
young kids and recent college graduates to stick around
Toledo and make it a destination city and not a city from
which you launch.
To date, all I have heard is the sound of crickets on
those ideas....and that sound also emanates from the other
minority city council members.
My theory on why there is this deafening sound of crickets
coming from the top floor of the government center building?
Simple. Too many people who get engaged in politics do
it for the wrong reasons.
Oh sure, they are warm to the idea of service and want to be
recognized as a servant of the people and that is fine.
But I contend that if public servants are not willing to
devise and implement creative solutions to old problems,
they eventually become part of the problem.
For example, if they are terrified of being hit by a Toledo
Blade editorial questioning their heart and conviction, they
back off and go back to playing show jams and not the needed
hip-hop tunes.
Besides watching paint dry, there is nothing more
boring or more of a waste of time than seeing a politico
grab a mike and do the pre-programmed recitation of how we
all need to work together and how we can accomplish so much
if we just plan the work and then work the plan...and yada...yada...yada.
My earlier critiques of Mayor Hicks-Hudson and the
then five, now four, minority council members were that if
they are not willing to combine their political firepower
and initiate programs and ideas that would specifically
benefit the central city, then their value as progressive
politicians is of no value. None. Nada.
Why so harsh, you say? Politicians, unless they are in
it for the money or the retirement benefits, should be
covered with battlefield scarring due to their constant
picking at the scabs and sores of society and not settling
for the status quo.
If the Super Six (the name I coined for the Mayor and
the then five minority members of city council) were not
willing then or now to make such commitments to
rock the boat, they should be voted out of office because
they serve no useful purpose other than doing what an all
white city council and white mayor has done or can do.
Being black or a minority, as you should know by now,
is no guarantee that a person will be intelligent,
articulate, progressive or aggressive in carrying the water
for the minority community from where he or she has the
"base" support.
When will be the next time that Toledo will have a
black mayor and five minority city council members? The
window of political opportunity in which they could have
come together and issue an eye-popping city wide plan that
would benefit all of Toledo while paying particular
attention to the central city has tragically come and gone.
As for me? I am voting independent this time around..
There is no one I see who is worthy of my vote. The Super
Six! What a lost opportunity to have grabbed the brass
ring! No guts...no glory.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
tolliver@juno.com
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