Is this really what David Halberstam meant?

I have no argument with the Tribune's lead platitude today. Yes, of course it would be nice to have genuine choices, and to increase the dim wattage of elected officials hereabouts, but there's just one small problem.

Running in the May primary requires declaring a party affiliation, right? And America provides a grand total of two non-choices: Republican (Dick Cheney's fascist peers) and Democratic (can any party Steve Price belongs to be a real political party?), both sans coherent local-issue platforms.

Independent candidacies in November? Possible, but with the odds stacked against them because they must solve the tendency of unprincipled and partisan straight-ticket ballots cast by uneducated robots for non-parties without coherent platforms.

Look, either "best and brightest" implies intelligence, or it is a purely nonsensical concept.

As such, if they haven't already moved away, perhaps the "best and brightest" avoid participation in politics precisely because the current system is decidedly unintelligent, and they can see this fact with disheartening clarity.

In fact, perhaps they see the local bottom-feeding political system as a failure, and determine that their time is better spent at their jobs and careers, and building community in other, myriad ways.

TRIBUNE EDITORIAL: A call to New Albany’s best, brightest

What we need are choices. So many times in recent years, including this past election where county seats were up for grabs, several races have been uncontested. That is not what a democracy is all about ... that is not what we need in these crucial times. Running a government in these tough economic times, will continue to take the best, and brightest, we have to offer.