Wednesday, April 4, 2007

The Joeyification of the City Council Election: How to Run a Dirty Campaign While Claiming the Moral High-Ground

I am posting this to encourage honest debate.

By the time this gets posted and read by those who actually enjoy these posts and my dead-on opinions, the election will most likely have passed, so I feel as though I can post some feelings on the election without being accused of being a surrogate of the Mayor. If I were to be carrying water for the Mayor and Council in hopes of effecting the election I would have posted this much sooner. Hopefully that is the end of that nonsense.

I want to start this post with a little bit of scolding to all the bloggers out there that have posted on the upcoming election and the candidates. I would say that with the exception of one blogger, all the other blogs have posted in my opinion completely irresponsible and immature in their coverage. ( I guess I should give props to Monoblogue for keeping it respectful and on the issues as best as possible. He actually had the balls to go up against Joey. The fact that people kept wanting to talk about Bubba’s personal life and cared less about the facts is proof of how low the campaign dropped. However, he is still a Republican nut job and not to be trusted, as that remains unchanged.)

I am continuously impressed about the blogging community on the Eastern Shore and how active it is. Unusually incorrect seeing as how it is mainly conservative, but impressively active. While many of the mess on the blogs can be attributed to the commentators (many undoubtedly one of Joey’s pseudonyms), I have been disappointed to see the maturity level drop when city politics has come up.

To me it is the sports radio/cable television talking heads mindset that pervades our society. Everybody picks a side (oftentimes around here it is one political party), digs in and will do anything to “win” in the end. Hypocrisy is pervasive. Nobody will acknowledge when somebody else makes a valid point and will not acknowledge that there may be two correct opinions. It is a pervasive attitude of “My way or the highway”. This is an example of Joey’s attitude further infecting Salisbury and nobody moving to stop it.

What is even worse is the lowbrow discussion. I am sorry, but I do not believe that personal lives should be discussed so much on these blogs. The worst offender is of course is Little Joey, but Delmarva Dealings and Duvafiles have really been slumming in the gutter the past couple of days, followed by horribly offensive personal remarks by the commentators.

(Interesting side note: The Professor appears to have ceased posting on Duvafiles, most likely because dissention was allowed and she was corrected on her absurd behavior. Duvafiles and Gunpowder may have disappointed me by their lack of maturity, but they are at least allowing for rebuttal. “Joey’s Side” obviously cannot intelligently stand up for themselves and just want to surround themselves with backslapping sycophants.)

I just want to go through a couple of thoughts for the record that I would like to get out there, and I invite any “anti- Mayor” commenter out there to debate me.

*For the record, I believe that Spies, Cohen and Smith did not run a clean campaign as suggested. When you have a vital and active member of your campaign on a constant promote and smear mission for the past month, you need to be held responsible. This wasn’t a rogue supporter sending out a flier, this was someone who went out everyday hoping to affect the election. I challenge anyone to defend any of his actions or posts as “clean campaigning”.

*I believe that as they have not spoken out against Joey’s behavior and instead have invited him into their camps, they are complicit in his behavior and it should be reflected on their character. Someone stated that they were using him at an arm’s length and will drop him after the election. I disagree because that is what they said about Sheriff Lewis, and he still appears to be buddy buddy with Joey. I challenge someone to produce a convincing argument in why their characters should not be questioned due to their association with Little Joey?

*In regards to comments that Comegy’s ran a dirty campaign, I would counter to the contrary. There was no blogging from his supporters that I saw, much less negative personal attacks which were prevalent from the Spies, Cohen, Smith campaign. Show me even one instance of his campaign being dirty?

*On the issue of Bubba’s (I will call him Bubba from here on out because his name is annoying to type) wife and her actions. I did not understand the big deal about this. (This issue I refer to of course is her behavior, not Pengate, which I have already addressed as being wrong). Do you not realize that she is being tormented by Little Joey’s camera? How would you respond to his behavior (of which no Candidate has condemned)? How would you like to have a camera constantly trained on you, awaiting an off moment to be captured and placed on his widely read blog to be held up to redicule? Why did nobody mention this?

*There has also been much made of the SAPOA letter. I found it very deceitful that this was tied to Bubba. They are an organization that has their own agenda, they are not a mouthpiece of the Mayor. They are out for what is best for them. To me everything in the letter is correct, and I find it laughable that the candidates denounced it so vehemently as opposed to wearing it as a badge of honor. One of the only troubling things from the candidates (besides their allegiance to Little Joey) was this blatant lie to the citizens. They are from the Camden area and will more definitely be making moves to not only regulate the rental industry but to try to retract the rentals from their neighborhoods.

*The main issue of course that I had problems with were the constant dredging up of the public record of Bubba. Real quick”

-Child Support: Non-issue to me. We have all heard of those horrible divorces where the woman goes crazy after the ex. Michael Strahan from the Giants was just recently taken to court for child support issues. Of course he had just paid his wife about $6 million, as well as the mansion, but was technically owed another payment of about $7million within a couple months of the initial payment. Now technically in the eyes of the law, Strahan was not supporting his children, but was he really a neglectful father or a bad person? Now I doubt Bubba has to pay a $15 million dollar settlement, but that is just an example of how vengeful ex’s use the court system to punish innocent people. Why did no one bring this up, only piling on about him being a bad man? Where is the rational discussion?

-Bankruptcy: To me this is a stretch in its relevance. I can be persuaded either way on it. The fact that it happened in 1989 has me leaning towards no so relevant. It is town council, how deep do citizens have the right to dig? Do we need to start doing credit checks on candidates? Are we going to implement a minimum salary for candidates? I can be convinced either way on this issue, but what I cannot be convinced is that it needs to be constantly discussed. After awhile it meant to me that they couldn’t not find anything on Bubba, and they instead needed to go back almost 20 years to find something and take it out of context.


The main point is, why does nobody call anyone else on the bullshit that is being spewed? Why does everyone just want to just slap each other on the back and reinforce what they already think, without wanting to know the truth. Nobody wants to step outside of their sphere of influence and get to the truth. That leads me to believe that bad things lie ahead for the citizens of Salisbury as they just want to back “their guy”. There is talk of a new 4-1 majority on council, showing their desire to continue this us vs them nonsense. It doesn’t matter who is right, but as long as you don’t agree with the “bad’ guy.

Just look at what happened on that Robinson guys site. He stated that he had respect for both the Mayor and Councilwoman Campbell and commentator’s heads almost exploded. They couldn’t begin to fathom who someone could like BOTH women. He was also given a hard time when he tried to be fair and respectful to all the candidates. He has since turned in his balls and is now firmly in bed with Little Joey, someone who is notoriously close-minded. We need more people with balls to stand up for the truth and civil discourse and not fall into the picking of sides. Who has the balls?

8 comments:

Historical Wit said...

Part of the problem is we like to sling the shit. So the petty bullshit aint going anywhere.

As for fucktard joey and his band of misfits, they will prove to the public they cant rule or even make decisions that benefit anyone except themselves. After their votes show their true colors, on thier asses they will be bounced. Republicans cant govern.

It will only be a matter of time before cromagnon joey becomes a political liabiliy to these publicly elected officials. Considering the bigotry and racism that prevails on shitsucker joeys website, its only a matter of time. A racist can only keep it in so long before it rears its ugly head. See what these new council members better realize is they dont serve moron joey, they serve the public. and thats who will hold them accoutnable.

Gunpowder Chronicler said...

I went slumming because I posted an obviously satirical April Fool's day joke?

You really need to get over yourself, Idiot!. Really, you do.

Idiot! said...

The first one was supposed to say Delmarva Dealings. I will adjust that.

My comments have nothing to do with any of the most recent posts, especially the goof ones.

Turned on me kinda quick I see.

I am not putting myself up on any pedestal, but I merely point out things that I believe need to be changed. Your response is a perfect example of my post, as you quickly jumped on my case with a personal attack instead of approaching a disagreement in a more civil manner.

Now, what about the point of my post?

Michael Swartz said...

I'm glad you enjoyed my coverage of the election. As for the rest of it, I'm sure you'll come around sooner or later. My money is on later though.

Sincerely,

the "untrustworthy Republican nutjob"

Hey, wait a minute. If I kept the election coverage on topic, wouldn't that make me - gasp! - trustworthy? Makes ya wonder...

Gunpowder Chronicler said...

Idiot!--

So you are upset that I responded to your personal attack on me-- which you have acknowledged was misplaced? by my personal retort on you?

Okay, fine.

Actually, I thought the rest of the post was well-written. Although I disagree-- I think any public figures private life should be part of the mix of things to be evaluated.

For example, if you have a candidate who runs based on being an Eagle Scout, or a member of Lions, or because they are kind to animals (all good things), why shouldn't the bad personal things be fair game to?

That being said, let me re-emphasize -- they should be part of the mix. W's drunk driving conviction was fair game in 2000 (IMHO). It was a fact that was verifiable and undisputable. And the electorate should look at that as part of the mix of issues.

Gary Comegys's issues are facts, declared as such by no less authority than a court of law. They should be part of the mix...

That said, you can't summarize Gary Comegys's life totally in those events any more than you can on W's drunk driving conviction. I also don't think it matters on toot that Mayor Barrie is a "former" housewife (and oft-repeated derogatory insult against all housewives aired by The Delmar Dego and Duvall that is unfair). Mayor Barrie's incompetence is not the result of her being a housewife-- it is more the result of the Peter Principle.

I think Bill Duvall did go overboard reposting that stupid thing day after day after day -- wait, skipped a couple of days -- after day after day.. etc.

As for Joe Albero, well, Joe is still grinding the axe over losing the case his wife brought against the city. Although I noticed he doesn't go after the judge in the case, whose summary judgement said "Are you nuts?"

Me? I don't really care who won or lost, because frankly, I don't think it matters. I think the only solution to serving Salisbury's citizens better is dissolving municipal government (I'll be posting more about this on my blog later this week). I think the issues on Salisbury are SO big that they cannot be solved by this or any future group of leaders.

bye said...

I sure am glad to see the bloggers are still active. I was afraid we'd have a melt down after the election and JOEY would be the only asshole left! But No there are many of us still alive and kicking!
Idiot,
I like this posting!

Gunpowder Chronicler said...

No Sympathy--

What happened to your blog?

bye said...

I shut down for election day.....out of respect for all the candidates!