While it is profoundly disturbing to contemplate local election year politics solely as the dully repetitious practice of efficiently distributing campaign yard signs, such a low common denominator is as much a fact of New Albanian life as television, light beer and non-ironic disingenuousness.
That said, there are three campaign yard signs on my property. It may surprise most of the city’s 37,000 residents to learn that two of them are for Republican candidates: John Click (coroner) and Larry Summers (county council at-large). As an added note, more Republican than Democratic prospective office holders came to Fringe Fest last weekend, and their presence did not go unnoticed.
Longtime readers will recall that while I can generally be depended upon to vote against Republicans at the state and national levels, primarily owing to their lockstep tendencies to abjectly fail my personal litmus test of unequivocal support for church-state separation (contrary to uniformed opinion, atheists have consciences, too), up-close local political races are another matter.
Verily, local Democrats cannot always depend on my support even if I generally vote for them most of the time. The reason? They simply aren’t always ideologically Democratic enough to suit me, which is to say that from my perspective, they aren’t sufficiently strident in liberal, progressive terms. As an example, Steve Price fancies himself Democratic, which makes about as much sense as George Clooney playing the role of Marilyn Monroe.
Anyway, if you’re wondering what the third yard sign says, it’s Obama/Biden. The first one placed out front of the house survived Hurricane Ike and a half dozen botched vandalisms until it finally was stolen outright during Harvest Homecoming. The second one probably won’t make it past the publication of this column, but the detestable proclivities of random blithering idiots in the populace aren’t the reason for my bringing it up.
Rather, it is my yard sign’s relative isolation in the context of a city that remains heavily Democratic in terms of voting preference. Of course, Floyd County beyond the city limits is another matter, having long since been thrust into a whole different demographic by the twin influences of wealth and superstition.
Is it just me, or have you noticed that in New Albany, clusters of yard signs touting the same familiar local Democratic faces are seldom accompanied by Obama/Biden signs?
Rather, as is the case in my yard, Obama/Biden campaign signs are most often seen standing alone, and absent other Democratic placards.
At two prime spots on Spring Street, virtually every perennial Democratic candidate has a sign grouped in a cluster like Conestoga wagons circled on the prairie, except the one that points to the ultimate party leadership position residing at the very top of the national ticket.
What does this mean?
This phenomenon may be coincidental, and my mention of it is not the result of a scientific sampling. But I cannot help concluding that at least some local Democrats are completely incapable of elucidating the platform planks that differentiate them from Republicans.
Label me unimpressed by selective memory of this stripe, and even if the passion’s missing, I wouldn’t mind seeing a few better actors hereabouts.
Of course, being on the wrong side of history isn’t a lamentable coordinate restricted to New Albany, but a clueless egregiousness is unbecoming when it’s your own neighborhood.
I’m proud to say that at-large councilman John Gonder isn’t among the prevaricators, and in spite of our differences over workplace smoking, his advocacy of Barack Obama is to be commended. Faith, Love and …
Indiana in play? Wow. Who’d have thunk it?
Unfortunately, many hidebound local Democrats can’t think.
