Monday, November 14, 2005

A road or two to re-election

Rule number one for incumbent politicians one week before election day.

Make sure the people can get around!

Podunk faced Monday morning with an overnight freeze, which left the roads shall we say a little interesting for the morning commute. The odd sanding truck was spotted working the main routes (like the road in front of City Hall) but other roads, including some pretty major ways around town, were left to the Black Ice Gods and podunks notoriously unawares drivers.

Now if I were mayor for a day or a sitting councilor for a day, my one rule would be blow the entire sanding budget in the week before the election. Call out those sanding trucks early in the morning! Have battalions of city workers with shovels in hand spreading sand to every corner of the Podunk, a team of action will show that you mean business.

If you lose you won't care, if you win well you have three years to make amends. But giving Podunk's fickle electorate another reason to be annoyed with the elected ones, seems like an unnecessary pothole on the way to electoral success.

Well of course I exaggerate a tad, but one thing is certain, I'll bet that the Mayors office receives one or two phone calls about the roads this morning, one or two votes that may go to the competition purely by frustration. And in a close election one doesn't want to needlessly send the voters sliding to the other side.

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