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| ‘Write-in’ candidate raises good question |
By: By JACI SMITH, Managing Editor
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Posted: Friday, July 25, 2008 11:14 pm
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I think I can appreciate a good performance when I see one.
One of the things I consider when gauging a performance is how easily it makes me forget my surroundings and fall into the “reality” of what is happening onstage.
Suspending belief, it’s called. You know it’s not real, but the acting is so good, it makes you believe nonetheless.
Last week, I was asked to enter a new reality when I got an e-mail from Brendon Etter, a local playwright/satirist/blogger, wondering why the paper hasn’t covered his campaign for mayor.
Etter, the self-styled “Handsome Write-In Candidate for Northfield Mayor,” or “Extremely Handsome Write-In Candidate for Northfield Mayor” or “Leading Write-in Candidate for Northfield Mayor” (you get the idea), has among the planks of his platform (Read it at bleeet.blogspot.com) that he will get “more money for everyone,” put “a chicken in every hot tub in every car in every garage,” “listen to stupid things other leaders say,” and “build liquor stores everywhere I possibly can.” He lists among his qualifications that he has “hardly ever been convicted of anything,” avoids conflicts of interest by “not being interested in anything,” and he’s “not a complete idiot.”
After I received his e-mail chastising me for ignoring him, I got a little miffed. I mean, this city really has some important issues facing it and now is the time for serious candidates with strong leadership and good ideas.
Not jokesters with too much time on their hands.
So, I responded to Etter, asking as politely as I could, what the heck he was doing, and assuring him that if he was really launching a serious write-in campaign, we’d cover it.
There was a sentence in his response, which basically never answered the question of whether he was serious or not, that really struck me: “All politics is performance art and theater.” Having recently attended my first city council meeting here in Northfield, I’m inclined to agree.
But in all seriousness, consider some of the lowlights of the last year in city politics: Investigators searching the mayor’s place of business, the council voting to take his keys to city hall away, he and his son suing the city, the council sniping at each other so much that they have to hire a consultant to come in and help them figure out how to get along better. It goes on and on, and it sounds like a sketch from “Saturday Night Live.”
So, when someone comes along and suggests that it’s all so silly why not make a little fun of it, it’s hard to judge.
In explaining why he is as “real” a candidate as those who signed affidavits of candidacy, Etter writes:
“If my campaign is made up of fictional accounts of my actions as a candidate, how different is that from the spin put out by political candidates, even those in small towns? At least my ‘spin’ is painfully obvious in its brazen unreality, not just subtle tweaks of my character or record.
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes fiction might be truer than truth.”
Bravo.
— Reach Jaci Smith at 645-1116 or jsmith@northfieldnews.com
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