I guess when you’ve convinced yourselves that Issue 6 tapped the ancient Greek font of the purest Athenian democracy elixir, and have spent the last year or so prancing about like colonial Williamsburg re-enactors in period garb, the notion that mere POLITICS might enter into the new county government would seem a bit….unseemly.

That’s if you’re the PD and Henry Gomez, who today are shocked, yes shocked! that any of the county council candidates might actually have begun asking for votes to be the council president in the new county council.

Word of the premature jockeying came Monday, as The Plain Dealer’s editorial board began meeting with council contenders. Nicole Dailey Jones, a North Olmsted city councilwoman running in the District 1 Democratic primary, let slip that such discussions were happening.

Oooh!  She “let slip”!  So clever of you to have caught that, Henry.  Here’s a newsflash.  The council presidency is a $10k a year bump in salary, from $45 to $55,000, charter mandated.  If you’re not trying to get that bump, you’re an idiot.  Ooops – guess I just “let slip” that I’d love to be council president, too.  Darn.  Discussions!  How much you wanna bet that $45k addition to Chris Ronayne’s $165,000 UCI salary still isnt enough for Ronayne, and that he too is quietly hoping to be council president?

And the nerve of these people to actually engage in politics when they’re engaged in a hyper political activity of politically running for political office.  Such fiends.  How dare someone entertain the notion that the position of council president might, perhaps, under certain circumstances, possibly, who can ever tell, lead to another rung on the political ladder?  Evil, I say. Pure evil.

I’ve decided that I will in fact attend my PD endorsement interview on Tuesday, July 20 at 11 am, despite knowing precisely how it will go.  Perhaps we’ll start with a little lesson that the participants in my seminars in the former soviet republics, eastern Europe, and the Middle East actually taught me over a decade ago – democracy doesn’t end politics.  And politics isn’t pretty.  This is how we govern ourselves, whether there is a new charter, an old charter, no charter, or even a local newspaper to ritually beat its self-righteous, morally indignant, pious puffed out chest over the horror of it.

Grow up already.

Tags: dale miller, nicole dailey jones, pd

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