Local politics and reality

The first week of the election campaign has concluded. With 14 people competing for seven places it’s going to be a tight contest.

Matters became a bit personal for me during the week when two candidates implied through the newspaper that I couldn’t be trusted to fairly edit the Community Forum web site (no longer available). It was a rather nasty thing to say. My focus has been to release policy ideas, not to attack others, but now I find that I have to defend myself. Such is politics, I suppose.

One thing I’ve discovered is that candidates talking among themselves have a distorted view of the issues and the electorate. It’s reassuring to learn from people on the street that they don’t know or care about the petty backroom machinations.

I coined a phrase, which if I were someone famous, would probably end up in a book of quotations:

Politicians and voters are like different planets orbiting the same sun. They share some energy, but breathe different air.