I'd Vote for That!

Forget it.
If you think I can explain this past Saturday’s town election results, think again.
I haven’t been this confused since I was fourteen years old and trying to understand my inability to succeed with the opposite sex.
The same excuses apply.
Hormones.
Acne.
Peer Pressure.
Elections in Plymouth are like Junior High dances, only not as well attended.

Both sides in the charter revision debate have the opportunity to claim victory –and I expect that they will.
The Mayor for Plymouth slate can say that charter revision received overwhelming support.
The OPEN Slate can boast that their candidates won eight of the nine seats on the charter review commission.
The Thatched Roof Party can once again claim to have kept their people at home, on ladders, doing some emergency thatching to keep the rain out.
From one perspective the numbers suggest that the people are asking for a completely different kind of government, that residents don’t have to participate in, but with the same people in charge every year.
The government model that this brings to mind is Monaco or, more officially, the Principality of Monaco.
We could do worse.
They’ve got it all in Monaco: no taxes, gambling casinos, a rich and randy monarch, and their own Grand Prix auto race (not necessarily in that order).
And the success of that form of government is not based on silly things like tax rates or MCAS results or whether your street gets plowed, but instead by how many times your leaders are featured in People Magazine or on Access Hollywood.
Granted, Karen Buechs is no Grace Kelly, but we could fix her up with a handsome Prince and go from there.

But like I said, I really have no clue what the recent election numbers are saying.
I am a parent though, and I know what I do when I am worried that I am losing control of my seven year old: I send the kid to his room.
In the case of the race for Selectman many voters may have simply exercised their parental right to be arbitrary and capricious.
How else can you explain voters who take the time to pick through 23 charter commission candidates, give a vote of confidence to a group of nine who have been attacked as representing the ‘status quo’ and then, on the same ballot, throw out an incumbent who is arguably the most capable elected official in the whole town?
Ken Tavares, go to your room: and don’t come down until you are ready to apologize!

On the other side, there has got to be some joy in Mudville: the Mayor for Plymouth forces have been trying for years to unseat Tavares or to place one of their own on the Board of Selectmen.
The mud-slingers have accused him of being an elitist, of conducting back-room negotiations, of placing his self-interest above the best interests of the town, of not caring, and of putting Ketchup on his hot dog.
I don’t think they convinced anyone that Tavares was from the dark side though: I just think that if you throw enough mud (or Ketchup), some of it is bound to stick.
But while Tavares was being pelted Saturday, the mudslingers were nowhere to be found: their names barely registering at the polls.
The numbers for the Uugly twins - Frank Paoluccio and Charles Checkley, were really ugly, placing them at the bottom of the charter commission candidate list.
Michael Jones continued his downward political spiral, going from national prominence as a spokesperson for the 2000 Florida Presidential debacle, to a failed run for Congress, to a failed run for Mayor.
What’s next for Jones: perhaps a run for town meeting member?

I’m just flailing away in the fog though: I’m really not sure what happened, or why.
About the only thing that this past election clarified, for me at least, was the power of the media. We have none.
We in the print media however, do take some comfort in the fact that other mediums may have even less power than we do.
Like Cable Access Television.
The five most prominent faces on local cable access television during the recent political campaign -Charles Checkley, Frank Paoluccio, Michael Hogan, Loring Tripp, and Michael Jones, were all defeated at the polls.
That may be the one sure way to lose an election in Plymouth: get your own cable access television show!
Of course if Plymouth now becomes a hereditary principality ruled by a movie-star Prince, with its own gambling casino and Formula-1 race cars hurtling down Water Street, the authorities may not allow just anyone to produce their own television show.
I’d vote for that.