An endorsement? How's this: Anyone but the incumbent for 3rd district councilman in 2007.

For much of the past two years, I’ve ceaselessly espoused the position that to gain a quick, intuitive grasp of the condition the city’s condition is in, observers need expend little more effort than the bare minimum required to monitor the statements and votes of Steve Price, the 3rd District city councilman.

Verily, if CM Price is for it, the measure at hand is at best suspect, at worst utterly senseless, and either way it bears exceedingly close examination.

If he’s against it, then "it" is almost certainly right, urgently necessary, and inevitably destined for an attempted kneecapping by CM Price and his merry Gang of Four council cohorts.

Granted, he’ll surprise you every now and then, but when he throws that occasional soft curve, you can take comfort in knowing that it wasn’t intentional. In scatological terms, sometimes it just happens.

In a recent NAC council meeting analysis (Conjoined Councilmen wear boogie shoes, seek help in VCR programming), I noted that as the conceptual vacuity of CM Price’s wasted term in office continues to trickle down to his increasingly impatient constituents –- at least those whose neighborhood interests and cultural proclivities range somewhat beyond those of the entitled beneficiaries of New Albany’s Slumlord Protection Act – the councilman’s blind counterpunches grow more erratic, and his public persona more bizarre.

CM Price, however, is increasingly willing to assume the role of the shambolic court jester. Whether intentionally mispronouncing (John) Rosenbarger’s name in the fashion of a junior high school slight, or publicly struggling to comprehend simple mathematical explanations desperately proffered him by friend and foe alike in an effort to spare him from steadily compounding embarrassment, CM Price has now pole vaulted past the point of self-parody, belly-flopping instead into a bubbling tub of bile and bathos.

Amazingly, last evening’s meeting found CM Price professing his inability to fathom the type of average salaries that are paid to college graduates in numerous fields in all sectors of the American economy – all of whom know far less about their professions than CM (Dan) Coffey – and concluding plaintively that this slowness and incomprehension is to be expected because CM Price comes “from the poor side of town.”

And, as we know, whether from rampant personal insecurity or just a plain unwillingness to fathom any other course, CM Price has acted in office as if he fully intends to keep his side of town just as poor as his excuse for quoting singer Johnny Rivers, using as justification the handy and pathetic mantra, “we can’t afford progress.”

Not only blog readers but all citizens, especially those with children, are invited to think very carefully about such impotent expressions of “we can’t” that bizarrely masquerade as public policy pronouncements.

So it has come to pass that aficionados of self-imposed and backward-looking despair have been provided a patron saint in the form of our 3rd district’s Bard of Dewey Heights, and while it makes for compelling, bottomless satire, it’s not the sort of platform upon which to build morale – or any semblance of a pro-active civic future that rests on any foundation other than decay management, but alas, the eternally corrosive politics of envy and venom blossom in such perpetually narrow worldviews.

When they do, CM Price’s self-fulfilling prophecy is unsurprisingly borne out, in the sense that we as a city remain burdened with a virulent form of impoverishment, but not one capable of being measured in neat stacks of accumulated nickels and dimes. Rather, we are pauperized by the blithe denial of hope, the cruel stunting of dreams, and the fatalistic acceptance of a status quo that can result only in an inexorable slide backward, and never a great leap toward something better.

Why this reprise? The calendar page has turned, and 2007 is a city election year. To begin the New Year, let there be no mistake as to who we think is not the best choice to represent the 3rd district. Of course, this isn't to suggest that we know who is qualified, at least yet. I imagine it will become clearer as the May primaries approach.

Almost a year ago, CM Price consented to an interview with NA Confidential, and unlike the vapid creampuffs later bestowed upon him in a carefully scripted Q & A session at Freedom to Screech (Yellow), our hard queries, and CM Price’s serial non-answers, really did combine to illustrate how much the city of New Albany continues to lose by ennobling short-term political mediocrity at the expense of those capable of thinking in the future tense.

Here is a brief excerpt, followed by links to the entire January, 2006, series. Now more than ever, CM Price's evasions are relevant and should be considered by 3rd district voters.

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1. Mr. Price, you ran for council as a Democrat. How does your performance in council reflect your role as a Democratic Party officeholder? How can we separate your public statements from those of myriad Republicans over the past 40 years? Why are your stated preferences so different from the historic and progressive ideals of the Democratic Party? Does being a Democrat mean anything to you? What would that be, and how do you differentiate yourself from a Republican?

SP:
I am a 21st century Democrat who represents all the people. I believe in standing up for what is right and speaking out against injustice. New Albany is seeing first hand the repercussions of frivolous spending. History has been my teacher. I am not against “community-based” progress just force fed growth. It is not about trying to differentiate myself from anybody; it is about fulfilling the needs of the citizens of New Albany, and doing what will ensure a positive future for this city.

RAB:
CM Price’s answer to the opening question sets the tone for the remainder of the interview by indicating clearly that either the specifics of the question elude him, or just as likely, he had no intention of risking an explication of them in the first place.

Along with (300) million fellow Americans embracing a myriad of political persuasions, CM Price claims to stand up for what “is right” and to “speak out against injustice.”

He provides no concrete examples of what these might be, or how his definition of “right” and “injustice” as a member of the Democratic Party differs from the perspective of the card-carrying Republican on the other side of the aisle.

Exactly when has CM Price taken the lead in “speaking out against injustice? Exactly what was the injustice?

In the overall context of political self-identification, CM Price’s choice of words seems quite odd, for in fact there is an organization called 21st Century Democrats, which has antecedents in the political campaigns of the late Paul Wellstone and former presidential candidate Howard Dean, and connections to another contemporary “blue” Democratic lobby group called Think Blue.

It should suffice to say that neither of these philosophies seem to be in harmony with what little of his personal political beliefs that CM Price is willing to let us glimpse in his answer to our first question.Moreover, he moves with unseemly quickness to distance himself from the obvious burden of political self-examination by establishing the existence of his own personal bogeymen, “frivolous spending” and “force fed growth.” As you will see, these concepts are vital to CM Price’s narrow worldview, but they are not defined.

What is Steve Price in the political sense? He doesn’t tell us, but he strongly suggests that it is cautious, provincial and populist.

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Here are the links:

Part 1: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price’s interview responses.

Part 2: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price’s interview responses.

Part 3: NA Confidential examines Councilman Steve Price’s interview responses.