Panhandle Truth Squad’s attempt to endorse candidates in the Amarillo city election evoked the cliché that organizing Democrats was akin to herding cats. Or the famous Will Rogers quote that he didn’t belong to an organized political party. But, of course, some of us are Yellow Dogs, and some of us currently belong to the Democratic Party out of a convenient, lesser-of-two-evils sort of thing. And some of us vote-Democratic-but… and all of that complicates things even further.
So this is not so much an endorsement as a set of apologiae. Here goes...
The Mayoral race was one of the easiest for us and validated the conviction expressed previously in these pixels that our Mayor could show the Emperor W a thing or two about Uniting. Our eyes are not starry. We don’t doubt that Ms. McCartt’s husband will profit financially from her pet issue, downtown revitalization. But we also accept that there are worse things that politicians can profit from, and the hipper among us look forward to hanging out in ever-cooler downtown bars and restaurants, and, perhaps, to even living downtown.
Meanwhile, we admire the fact that “Debra”—as everyone in town is allowed to call her— has demonstrated leadership by speaking at GLBT events. We believe that we owe her our votes for not being scared of the bullies that have traditionally populated this city and the city commission. Debra has done a great job, and let us never forget her defeating "the good ole boy", (
Hodger the Dodger) who thought he would simply ascend to the mayorship 'cause of who he was. Like all great politicians Debra may even inspire us to grow beyond her.
She has been the most inclusive of mayors to hold the office here in
Yellow City, but has been unable to take the next step and support single-member districts.
We’ll take the next step with or without her . . . but for now we—along with damn near everyone else in town—are with
Debra McCartt.
Place 1 was, not surprisingly, our most difficult choice.
Our votes were evenly divided and no one seemed enthusiastic about their choice:
Some among us voted for Sumerford because the other guy seems like a tool. We wanted anyone but Scotty Mad… or Mad Scot… or....we don't know, check with the
AG-R for the correct name of his opponent. We demanded anybody but Madison Scott!
Those of us who would vote for Scott didn’t doubt that he was a tool, but took issue with Sumerford’s support of the tax freeze.
We swore that we didn't care, but if one of them was against the tax freeze than we were for them.
In the end we divided evenly on Place 1, and will endorse
neither o’ them idiots.
Place 2, Wanda Marie Sanner got one “I know her. She’s cool.”
Our vote total: 1.
Brian J. Eades, M.D. received one “Not Eades” vote. Our vote total: -1.
The rest went to Prenis Williams. Our endorsement:
Prenis Williams.
Place 3, Ron Boyd also earned a coupla of “anyone but—” votes, and Daniel Martinez got some lukewarm “I think I know him too and I liked his comments printed in the Indy” sorta support.
So we’ll go with (really, who else is there?)
Daniel Martinez. For
Place 4 we unanimously support
Erik Williams, often with an exclamation point.
One of us pointed out that Erik once saved a newborn from the jaws of a pit-bull and claims to have seen the event.
If this eyewitness report proves true, it will go a long way toward explaining why the
Amarillo Globe-Republican has taken a consistently anti-Erik position.
If Erik is truly committed to solving
Amarillo’s pit bull problem, he will create serious financial problems for the
AG-R.
Since, you know, their current subscription base depends on their weekly front-page pit bull attack stories.
Epilogue: Our survey didn’t ask for votes on Constitutional Amendment Proposition 1.
However, two
PTS’ers expressed an unsolicited “no” vote. We can’t express an opinion on this in the first person plural.
But it's always possible that R. Spacedark has an opinion on the matter and will find time to write about it in the near future.
Panhandle Truth Squad
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