Yo, Democrats: Anyone except England against Clere, please.

For too many years, New Albany’s three-term former mayor, Doug England, thought of himself as the heir-presumptive to the Indiana House sinecure occupied for so many decades by Bill Cochran.

Unfortunately for Hizzoner, time chose not to wait. A Floyd County Democratic Party unable to devise coherent tactics for succession stuck with Cochran for one election too long, and buoyed by thick wads of the GOP’s out-of-state PAC cash, newcomer Ed Clere unseated the incumbent in 2008. England was forced to settle for a third, curiously underachieving term as mayor.

Clere, now comfortably ensconced in the House at least in part because of the local Democratic Party’s serial disorganization, is seeking a third term, and yet again England – who was unable to best Shirley Baird in the recent at-large city council race – is assuring all and sundry that he’s the anointed challenger.

Let's hope it's a dream, and Bobby Ewing comes bounding out of the shower.

Although not without intrinsic entertainment value far transcending even our degraded local political norm, an England candidacy for the House would be a tragically doomed waste of an election cycle for the Democrats. The only way such a run even remotely approaches making sense is as an act of calculated political cynicism.

"After all, it's finally his turn, so let him raise some money and run, and maybe he'll bloody Clere a bit and give us more time to plan."

But this notion implies a depth of strategic acumen seldom witnessed in local Democratic circles. Time to plan? Plan for what? A fourth consecutive Clere win in 2014? Isn’t allotting candidacies by seniority what brought us Walter Mondale’s bold capture of Minnesota (1 down, 49 to go) in 1984?

If our local Democrats wish to arrest the party’s headlong descent into irrelevance – and in fact there are few signs that any of them have any clear ideas how to do so – they’ll surely have to do better than England as "next" against Clere. Barring better, which in itself is a staggering admission of core impotence, they must at least find someone younger.

Rep. Clere is young chronologically, which plays well to the cadres of the Clere Youth brigades, among whom he functions as a matinee idol. Clere’s youth is artfully balanced by the Falangist proclivities of a man at least twice his age; he began his political career by trumpeting a pragmatic centrism, and then once elected, openly bragged of a headlong rush to the right-wing fringe, exciting Floyd County’s geriatric antediluvians, whether Republican or nominally Democratic.

Having previously fumbled away the opportunity to hold Cochran’s once secure seat, and coming gratifyingly close with Shane Gibson last time around, the Democrats must opt for a fresh face, preferably with sensible, progressive, 21st-century grassroots credentials. There might yet occur that rarest of local phenomena, a contest of ideas.

By contrast, an England candidacy would be an exercise in old school down and dirty, with the respective party PACS slugging it out over mailers of extended skeleton hands, boudoir allegations and the occasional graphic designer’s depiction of collegiate moon shots. It would be hilarious, and futile. England has more personal and political baggage than containers filled with plastic trinkets on the deck of a Chinese ship bound for Wal-Mart. The GOP slimings would be vicious, and impossible to refute.

There may be nothing the Democrats can do about Clere’s ongoing incumbency, but the very least the party can do in the interim is give its apparatus a good scrubbing, begin thinking in a future tense, and offer the community a viable alternative. Anyone except England against Clere, please.