Gas Pains

More Palace Less Intrigue

Posted by Tom Gaertner on April 21, 2009

Mayor Didier, Politics-Tosa, Random Musings and Idle Chit Chat

Alert - to my 16 readers.  Journal Interactive is gravitating to a new blogging platform and your comments have been sent to cyberspace - hopefully temporarily.  Thank you for your patience as we attempt to restore them.  -Gas Pains

4/23/09 9:29 PM  - Comments have been published.  See below.  -Gas Pains

On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.

Not my words but those of Adam Smith - Scottish philosopher and economist.

I may be a skeptic but the doings over at the palace are hardly ambiguous.

Am I the only one around here that senses that things are different at city hall?

Has my naively idyllic vision of small town governance been shattered?  My innocence lost?

Sigh.

The last time I ventured into the palace there was the pungent odor of partisanship in the atmosphere.

I caught a whiff of it and it reminded me of fish, unwelcome guests and a wee bit of pandering in the run-up to someone's gubernatorial campaign.

It's new to me and quite unusual for a small town like Tosa where life and political leanings have generally remained unchanged for so many generations.  

For as long as anyone can remember Tosa was solidly and predictably Republican.

Sure, there were coalitions and both good and marginal Alderpeople.

But I don't have a recollection of Mayors wearing a party affiliation on their sleeve.

Or political parties playing an actively organized or visible role in local government.

If I had to guess, the comfortable status quo was rattled slightly by the seismic shift of the last Presidential election.

Now the Republicans want payback and the Democrats smell blood in the water. 

That might explain why I thought - for the briefest of moments - there might have also been the acrid suggestion of fear in the air too.

I'm beginning to think that the GOP wants the moat around the palace deeper and wider.

You'd almost think they were expecting a siege.

If that's the case I would recommend a swiftly deployable (and less incestuous) cavalry.

In modern political warfare the bunker can be a trap.

Alas, I'm probably wrong.

My political instincts aren't very good.

And nobody listens to me anyway.

There are eight applicants for the position of former Alderman Purins' Council seat in the 7th District.

If I had to predict who would be anointed I would pick either Cheryl Berdan or Bryan Olen. 

Berdan is on County Executive Walker's Staff.   Choosing her would be consistent with the Mayor's taste for surrounding herself with people from the County. 

I know - it is an odd trend for sure - but a trend.

Olen has all of the compulsory conservative credentials.  If you look at what he submitted to the committee he is clearly an overachiever. 

That picture of him with Cris Kliesmet and Scott Walker is the clincher.

Either would be a good fit with the Mayor's plans to consolidate her grip on the affairs of daily living at the palace. 

Furthermore the Scott Walker connection would be solidly established.

Nonetheless, my faithful dog disagrees.

Her sense is that the Mayor should not go with Berdan or Olen. 

I can only speculate that Girlfriend believes that either of those choices would be akin to poking the opposition in the eye and saying - Nyah nyah!

So reciting each applicant's name in the order listed it was the wagging of the dog's tail that led to her pick.

The dog has a good nose for sniffing-out the politically astute choice.

And that would be Peter Hart.

Fiscally conservative but otherwise liberal - Peter isn't easily stereotyped.

By choosing him the Mayor could lay claim to being mavericky.

Therefore I believe the dog has arrived at a useful political calculus.

See you all at the meeting tomorrow night.

There is more to come.

The Committee to anoint the individual to fill former Alderman Craig Maher's 8th District seat is Donegan, Jay, Organ, Birschel and Dennik.

Rubber stamp it and git er done.