Today's Mitchell Daily Republic has a reflection on the results of the citizens of Mitchell overwhelmingly defeating Senator Vehle's and Dusty Johnson's big-government agenda:
We must say we were surprised to see the city manager issue overwhelmingly fail in Tuesday’s city election.
Although we hoped for a victory, we assumed a loss would have been close. Instead, the issue fell 66 percent to 34 percent, making us wonder why voters genuinely dislike the idea.
Next they provide their source of false confidence:
The issue was backed by all living former mayors of Mitchell. It was backed by seven of eight members of the City Council. It was backed by the governor’s chief of staff — who is a Mitchell resident — and this district’s lone member of the state Senate. At least one service club in town appeared entirely behind the idea. The idea was officially proposed by Focus 2020, a planning group made up of many city leaders, and The Daily Republic endorsed it.
What does the defeat truly say about Mitchell, local government and local politics?
The answer is that our governor's chief of staff is just as much of a big-government liberal as Senator Mike Vehle. It says that those two state level politicians along with Mitchell's mayor, seven of eight city council members, city business leaders, and the local paper are out of touch with the people. The only way these people are successful is on the backs of taxpayers. Unfortunately the silence from the apathetic majority gives these elites false messages. And when the silent do complain, the answer from our politicians is usually...we need more taxes and bigger government to fix it. And these are mostly Republicans. It took a Democrat to bring forward the limited government side of the debate.
Mr. Sibby, we need you in Pierre so you can sit at the big table with all the establishment and shine light in all the dark corners.
Posted by: grudznick | June 13, 2011 at 09:47 PM