... it's the new 'thing'

The Athens Banner-Herald did a nice story on the impact that poverty is having on this year's local elections this past Sunday. As someone who works with an organization that helps homeless families and deals with these types of issues on a daily basis, this is most refreshing. Serious community discussion and involvement is needed to combat this problem, and the more the candidates pay attention to it, the better it'll get.

And, again, I like what Heidi Davison said and I feel comfortable and pleased with the leadership she has offered this community with regard to Partners for a Prosperous Athens and poverty.

Now, earlier I said that despite our disagreements and differences, I had the utmost respect for the folks who work with Charlie Maddox's campaign. They're good people who are fair and very talented, and though I don't know Maddox, I imagine he's just like the people he surrounds himself with.

However, being a nice person and being the right man for the job are two different things. So allow me to offer some criticism and briefly articulate why I think electing Maddox as mayor is, quite frankly, a bad idea for Athens-Clarke County.

Maddox has been one of the longest declared candidates for the mayoral seat, however I probably know the least about him. This used to be a criticism I reserved for Tom Chasteen, but the commissioner has done a very good job in fleshing out his thoughts and his opinions and his beliefs over the past few months. He and I don't see eye-to-eye on many of the issues, but he's come a long way with regard to expressing his vision to the community.

Maddox, on the other hand, is an enigma. I honestly have absolutely no idea what his grand plan is. He speaks in simplistic sound bites, all designed for him not to say too much and not to get into too much trouble. The less you say, the less your opponents and the media can pick apart.

The problem is this does an absolute disservice to the voters. For instance, on poverty, his brilliant response regarding a plan was that he 'knows Steve Jones' and he'd 'like to implement those recommendations' that PPA brings forth. Fair enough. Steve Jones is a good man doing good work, but this, to me, appears to be a rather naive answer to a very complex question.

And that's typically how most of his answers are. They come in all sorts of generalities, while the answers from Davison and Chasteen dive into more details.

And here is what I find troubling about politics today ... that we love the guy who's 'just like us' ... one who doesn't have all the answers and speaks in non-threatning language. The penalty in doing that is you elect someone who is possibly overmatched for the position and you don't have the foggiest idea what they actually stand for.

Think I'm making this up? Consider the number of moderate Republicans who have come out with harsh criticism in the past few years over President Bush, a man who they thought was one of their own. In 2000, Bush ran as a 'Compassionate Conservative' yet no one really knew what that meant

Now, as Xon would agree, Bush is far from an actual tried-and-true conservative. However, my point is that he ran as a very vague something, and then turned out to be a not-so-vague something else.

And because of his success, folks from both parties try to duplicate that. We had a Democrat in the Montana Senate primary who refused to say he was a Democrat to avoid offending anyone. We have a Republican governor in Georgia who got elected, partially because he said he didn't appreciate how our flag was changed, and then proceeded to do ignore the wishes of a very vital constituency which put him in office.

And now, here in Athens-Clarke County, we have a nice enough guy seeking the mayoral office, quite possibly because some people who have very defined opinions about how to do business in this community told him to, and we're mighty puzzled to what it is he really wants to do.

We know that he wants to 'balance' the different interests in the community and that he wants to 'evaluate' where we are as a government ... but we don't know how he intends to go about doing that.

Good intentions, for sure ... but details to accomplish your plan are essential.