With David White as mayor we'll have ethical standards from the get go -- not Jeff Gahan's pay-to-play cesspool on the down low.

During the coming weeks, as the Jeff Gahan Money Machine Data Base Project gathers steam, there'll be much discussion in this space about an eight-year-long process in which self-interested parties give Gahan lots of money, and receive benefits so blatantly obvious that a six-year-old could figure it out.

Could someone run off and fetch a six-year-old to narrate the video?

Let's make one thing perfectly clear. Everyone involved is responsible for perpetuating the cynical patronage system Gahan has laboriously constructed, but the simple truth of the matter is that one person and one person alone might have chosen from the beginning to eschew the inevitable corruption stemming from the practice of pay-to-play.

That'd be Jeff Gahan himself. 

Honesty proved to be too much for us to expect from a C-minus student, and so Gahan opted for the behind-the-scenes money. Tens of thousands of dollars have migrated to Jeff Gahan from out-of-town special interests and PACS, and they've been rewarded accordingly. Now there is a pervasive odor requiring an overdue electoral purge.

But there's another way. David White has stated publicly that he will not accept donations from individuals and corporate entities seeking to do business with the city or to benefit from the disbursement of public funds. 

Rather, White seeks to restore merit to the process of contract seeking.

With White we'll have ethical standards from the get go -- not a cesspool on the down low.

During the coming weeks, I'll do my very best to introduce you to David White and to contrast his policy positions with those of the slush-engorged incumbent. White won't have Gahan's $175,000 campaign finance war chest to fall back on, but he has something even better: straight talk, transparency and a desire to put the people of New Albany first, not Gahan's special interests.

That's a fine place to begin taking back this town.