Huh?

Sometimes you have to hang in there for a few days to see which way the wind blows. On October 3rd, the Vote Smart Forum was held live on WCCA-TV, the city's cable access station. (I missed the cablecast.)

A couple of days later, an article in the paper focused on sparring that took place during the forum between Konstantina Lukes and Rick Rushton over endorsements. I read that and thought, "Gee, I wonder what really happened?" So, I waited for WCCA-TV to put the video of this sparring up onto their website. Today, I saw that it was up, and I watched it. Here's a link to the clip (the sparring is at the tail end of the clip).

Now, first of all, the representation in the paper is overblown. If you read the article, noting that the title of the article is "Candidates' Debate Gets Lively", and then view the video clip, you may come to the same conclusion I did. The description in the text of the article makes it appear to have been much worse than it plays in the video.

But this oddly hyped and overstated (in the paper) sparring could hardly be disconnected in my mind to the news I read in the paper today. US Rep (D) James P. McGovern's big announcement that he's endorsing Mayoral candidate Rick Rushton, coming on the heels of the sparring incident, certainly appears to be tarnishing the Mayoral campaign by submerging it down into the realm of partisan politics. It definitely treads across that line, in my view.

I've always been led to believe that partisan politics is verboten, per the City Charter. And this development isn't merely an "endorsement" it's a plunge into the exact area of political discourse that this city's "Home Rule Charter" supposedly forbids. And the timing makes it blatant.

By plunging the Mayoral campaign, or any part of it, into the morass of partisan politics in this manner, Jim McGovern has effectively thrown a giant turd into this city.

I feel violated.