It’s almost Election Day in Macon, and as usual the Telegraph will endorse its favored candidates in some of the major contests as we close in on the big event. I’ve been known to occasionally make some endorsements in this space as well, and I’ve decided to formally back one of the competitors in the Macon mayoral contest this year. But before I get to that, I should probably clarify the criteria I use when picking a candidate to lend my support to.
The editorial board of a major newspaper like the Telegraph endorses candidates who they think will best represent the interests of their constituents. As an opinion columnist, however, I have a very different agenda. I endorse the candidate who I think will be the most fun to write about should they be elected.
In order to decide who I’d most enjoy writing about, I have to calculate what I call a “goofball factor” for each competitor. There are several personality characteristics that help to increase an individual’s goofball factor. Possessing an inflated ego, having no sense of shame, and displaying an obvious contempt for one’s political opponents all help ramp up the goofball factor, and being completely oblivious to how ridiculous their actions appear to the general public really helps put an individual over the top.
Calculating this factor for each of the four Democratic candidates for mayor quickly eliminates two of them from contention for my endorsement. Paul Bronson is a political newcomer and as such he is a largely unknown quantity, but to date I am not aware of his saying or doing anything silly or outrageous so he can’t really compete for my endorsement at this point. Incumbent Robert Reichert has held the job for nearly four years and I can’t recall a single instance of him embarrassing himself or the city of Macon in all that time. He has given me virtually nothing to work, with and it’s time for him to go.
Luckily the other two candidates rate much, much higher on the goofball scale. I felt my heart skip a beat when the Honorable C. Jack Ellis announced his intention to pursue the office he previously held for eight wonderfully bizarre years. The Ellis administration was a gold mine for an opinion columnist who loves to skewer politicians. Whether he was cozying up to Hugo Chavez, conducting one of his many diplomatic missions (taxpayer-financed vacations) to exotic foreign lands, or changing his name/religion and then immediately changing them back again, Ellis was the kind of gift that keeps on giving for a snarky news columnist.
An Ellis endorsement would be a slam dunk if lovably wacky State Senator Robert Brown hadn’t thrown his hat into the ring as well and made my decision quite difficult. Brown seems to only pay his taxes when the mood strikes him and he recently made headlines when he made a statement that seemed to imply that certain local Republicans just might be members of the Ku Klux Klan.
When a predictable media firestorm erupted over this statement his idea of “softening the blow” was to call a news conference and claim that his reference to the GOP’s need for stocking up on “white sheets” was actually meant to imply that they were especially prone to sexual indiscretions. As the press conference broke up, the son of one his Brown’s best friends inexplicably roughed up a Telegraph photographer who was trying to snap a close-up of the mercurial senator. Good times.
It’s a tough call between Ellis and Brown. Ellis has a proven track record of mayoral lunacy, and it’s very tempting to stick with a known quantity. But I really have to give credit to Senator Brown, who has a stellar track record of buffoonery as a state senator and has faithfully continued his personal war on logic and humility while campaigning for mayor.
And so, considering his solid history of bizarre behavior and the air of self-importance that seems to animate his every statement, I hereby endorse Robert Brown to be the next mayor of Macon. Let’s help him bring the goofy back to the mayor’s office.
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