New Albany mayoral politics as Duck Duck Goose without the saving grace of limitless vodka.

Here's the way the C-J's Harold Adams phrases the scrum on Twitter:

Four vie for mayor in New Albany: Two city councilmen, a political newcomer and a three-time loser at the polls ... http://cjky.it/sR0rrj

That's an ouchie for libertarian Thomas Keister, but it is "political newcomer" DM Bagshaw who provides the most memorable quote, underlined:

While this is Bagshaw’s first run for elected office, he said that shouldn’t be a reason to discount him in a contest against Gahan and Messer. “What has their experience gained our community versus my life of inexperience?” he asked.

That's good enough to become the mission statement for New Albany's bicentennial celebration in 2013 ... if we make it that far.

Let's see if I have it straight.

DM Bagshaw would have been on the GOP council ticket for the primary, but was instead sent to the bullpen to await the outcome of party chairman Dave Matthews' backroom mayoral negotiations, first with the twice-elected Democratic at-large council person Jack Messer, who flamed out (see below) and then with lifetime Republican Irv Stumler, who abruptly flipped to the Democrats for a far better deal at sitting (Democratic) mayor Doug England's instigation, but was defeated by Jeff Gahan, meaning that freshly minted council candidate England's master plan to achieve Lebensraum was thwarted, and Messer had spin the bottle a (2nd? 3rd?) time by running for mayor as an independent, his own strategy of jumping to the GOP having been rendered moot by what he says was England's telepathic sabotage in the form of Messer's own widely reported racial malapropisms, and Gahan now finds himself feted night and day by the England cadre, whose jobs depend on his cooperation.

Shit, I should have taken the buck ninety eight and run for mayor on the One Southern Indiana ticket.

Decision 2011: Gahan tops this field.

The mayoral contest analysis now beckons. Candidate listings are cribbed from the clerk's office, followed by brief comments by the senior editor.

Democratic mayoral nominee Jeff Gahan’s spring primary victory was a tonic, and a much needed refutation of New Albany’s ingrained, perpetual and shambolic political shenanigans.

Gahan defeated Irv Stumler, who had expediently defected from lifelong Republicanism to become, overnight, the bizarrely anointed successor to the purportedly Democratic mayor, Doug England. It was the act we’ll always remember as The Deal, and it reeked of backroom cigarillos.

But the Deal was undone by voters, and ever since the morning after, the same platform-deprived party functionaries who noisily celebrated the attempted England/Stumler coup d’etat have been falling over themselves like Larry, Moe and Curly to curry favor with Gahan, who appears visibly uncomfortable every time he’s near them … and that’s as strong a recommendation for his fundamental character that can be made.

Taken alone, the entertainment value of this panicked, self-interested caterwauling on the part of sinecure seekers would be sufficient reason to cast a November ballot for Gahan. Fortunately, there remain numerous reasons to support him apart from it.

Gahan has eight years of city council experience, and a record upon which to be judged. It is true that he and NAC have not always agreed. However, if we are to focus on the future, and on numerous, positive and shared visions for the city’s operation, we can agree to disagree.

Gahan is no leftist, but he’s also not an unreconstructed Dixiecrat. In terms of temperament and core beliefs, he falls far closer to the vicinity of principled conviction wherein a true Democrat’s political instincts should lie.

Gahan has chosen not to announce his appointments prior to being elected. Although his restraint has not spared us the indignity of job seekers swapping their obsolete Stumler tees for Gahan wearables, it’s the sensible thing to do.

Gahan owns a small, local, independent business, and was instrumental in advising and assisting the start-up of New Albany 1st, New Albany’s first-ever grassroots organization dedicated to the interests of small, local, independent business. Yes, the political wing of One Southern Indiana endorsed him, but there is no indication that he kowtowed to the oligarchs, or has abandoned his anti-tolls stance.

In the end, it would be wrong for previous disagreements to serve as deal-breaking impediments to making a considered, rational choice for mayor. Gahan is that choice.

Libertarian Thomas Keister’s sense of humor is valued, but one simply cannot take a three-and-a-half-year sabbatical from current local events, then belatedly throw a hat in the ring in the expectation of being taken seriously. We believe Keister has something to contribute to the body politic even if he has not quite found it, so let’s hope he stays connected between now and his next run, whatever office it may be for.

After the spring primary was finished, D.M. Bagshaw finally was chosen to run for mayor by the detached suburbanite Republican Party chair Dave Matthews, but only after the city’s GOP precinct committee heads couldn’t or wouldn’t even try to pick a candidate. In all of this, there is little to inspire confidence, even if Bagshaw himself seems likeable, if overmatched by the requirements of the job.

Finally, there’s outgoing “Democratic” councilman Jack Messer, who is running for mayor as an “Independent” after dallying with local “Republicans,” leaving New Albany’s Greens, Constitutionalists, Objectivists, Labor and Raza Unida parties insanely jealous that they couldn’t buy at least a piddling dime dance with him.

We like Messer – always will – but we don’t back Jack for mayor, precisely because there was a general loss of focus when his mayoral ambitions began to take root, to the detriment of his being able to decide who he is and what, if anything, he belongs to. Still, Messer was a fine at-large council representative for a long, long time, and his contributions often constituted the sole council rebuttals to the digressions of the Burger King & Li’l Stevie.

NAC co-editor Jeff Gillenwater adds:

Without having much to add to what Roger has already explained (except a general disgust for what's happening in Indy along educational lines that I think Jeff Gahan and I share), I'm in agreement.

The most important thing this city can do to position itself well for healthy long-term decision making is to end the patrician strangleholds that have turned off and run off the talented and willing from the region for the past few decades if not longer. Opportunities come not from them but in spite of them.

Whether we've agreed or disagreed or will in the future, Jeff has at least shown a capacity for the adaptation and adoption of better ideas as they're presented. A much improved council would undoubtedly help that continue and I think will be necessary for real direction change, but I also think Gahan in the mayor's chair makes that more possible than the other candidates.

On our mayoral candidates and 1Si's attempted usurpation of the local political process.

New Albany First, the city’s first-ever grassroots, local and independent business alliance, held an information session last evening at the Public House, and among the participants were mayoral candidates DM Bagshaw (Republican) and Jack Messer (Independent).

Jeff Gahan (Democrat) was not in attendance, but he has been a supporter of NA 1st from the very start. Also absent was Thomas Keister (Libertarian).

I was hoping Keister would attend, so I could jokingly ask him about his Free Rein Media, which someone masquerading as “Jimmy” recently took to task in One Southern Indiana Pop-Up Newspaper (OSIPUN, an acronym which looks almost “insipid”) for selling items designed to draw fire from Reclaim Our Redneck Backwoods Superstitious Culture Kentuckiana (RORBSCK, which lacks only a “u” to suck out loud, and surely already does).

But, as is my habit, I digress.

Significantly, all four candidates are small business owners, and even more interestingly, both Bagshaw and Messer were willing to report bits and pieces of the interview process wherein One Southern Indiana’s (1Si) political aggrandizement arm asked them questions to see who merits political endorsements, ones calculated to obtain oligarchic orgasms at the highly likely ultimate cost of sacrificing voluntary funding from every last locally elected governmental body able to grasp that taxpayers of virtually every political stripe earnestly wish for entities like 1Si to keep the politics out of whatever it is the organization does to justify its existence – itself a debatable topic.

According to both Bagshaw and Messer, one question asked of them was if elected, whether they would “use” 1Si’s services for outsourcing their economic development tasks. Both candidates indicated they responded with wariness, if not outright hostility. It is rumored that Gahan was more vociferous in objecting to 1Si’s arrogance. Having read Keister’s blogs over the years, I’d expect the same from him. None of the four seem to be buying into 1Si’s errant shtick, and for this, we should be grateful.

It makes me guardedly optimistic to know that first and foremost, our mayoral candidates understand small business issues by virtue of being small businessmen themselves.

Furthermore, not one of them is eager to be co-opted by One Southern Indiana’s creeping and unnecessary interference in the political process, and in this, each candidate lies firmly on the side not only of the general public, but an ever-increasing number of 1Si’s own operatives, who see quite clearly that the Stemlerization (that’s a synonym for politicization, folks) of 1Si impedes whatever legitimacy lies in their daily work. They can’t say it aloud, but readers would be amazed to hear the chilling off-record comments.

In fact, 1Si is so squarely on the defensive owing to its leadership’s perpetual, self-defeating political missteps that it cannot even run the risk of linking its new, vaunted Think Local Southern Indiana diversionary tactic to 1Si, which founded it. Nowhere is the 1Si brand to be seen, which of course does little except deepen the depth of deception.

All of which, to me, seems curiously toxic in nature.

Elect his ass: Four's a scrum.

June 30 was the filing deadline for New Albany's fall election, and when the day was through, we had yet another mayoral candidate.

New Albany mayor’s race draws Libertarian; Thomas Keister joins Gahan, Bagshaw in bid for New Albany’s top job

The header omits independent candidate Jack Messer, although Keister's web site does not:

Tired of the same old establishment candidates? Not impressed with a racist fraud wanting to run your city? Then cast your vote for Thomas Keister, Libertarian Candidate for New Albany Mayor!

The remainder of the election hopefuls are here. Dave Matthews somehow enlisted Republican candidates for every office except city clerk, and in the 6th district, Scott Blair makes it a three-way race as an independent.

You should know the drill by now: City council tonight.

THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CIVIL CITY OF NEW ALBANY, INDIANA, WILL HOLD A REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING IN THE THIRD FLOOR ASSEMBLY ROOM OF THE CITY/COUNTY BUILDING ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2007 AT 7:30 P.M.

I’m looking forward to this agenda item:

Jerry Ulrich & Larry Kochert – report on redistricting lawsuit.

While we’re on the topic of the council’s newfound commitment to redistrict (at the point of an edict), here’s a classic Steve Price moment, as described with notable restraint by the Courier-Journal’s Dick Kaukas:

Steve Price, District 3 councilman, said whatever redistricting plan is adopted could make it more challenging for some incumbents to win re-election.

For instance, Price said, one proposal being considered would take away a precinct now in District 3 and replace it with another that is now in an adjacent district.

"That could make it a little harder," Price said, because voters in the precinct new to his district won't be as familiar with him and his record.

But Price acknowledged he will have four years to make himself known.

That’s certainly a hopeful sign, since Price is so well known in the presently configured 3rd council district that more than 60% of registered Democrats regularly vote against him, and this fact brings us to Price’s main opponent in the forthcoming fall election, Republican Brenda Scharlow, and her simple yet functional platform, which is now posted at the GOP web site:

1. Enforce Ordinances
2. Clean Up Our Neighborhoods
3. Improve City Parks
4. 2-way VS 1-way Street Evaluations
5. Promote Business in the Downtown

It isn’t exactly weighty, but it touches the needed bases, and so I’m delighted to endorse a Republican candidate for perhaps the first time in my life.

Vote Brenda Scharlow in November.

Yes, there is a third candidate in the 3rd district race. We’ve been monitoring Libertarian Thomas Keister’s web site for signs that he knows anything at all about the current state of affairs in New Albany, and that he intends to take the race seriously.

As yet, no such evidence has emerged that Keister is willing or able to apply his Libertarian principles to the 3rd district’s current dilemma. Until Keister, who has all the appearances of a budding perennial candidate (one Verle Huffman is enough for this reporter's lifetime), manages to be credible, there is no reason to risk yet another 3-way vote split that will have the inevitable result of returning the underachieving Price to office.

Who’s going to the meeting tonight?

I’ll be the one wearing the beanie.

Lucy pulls away the football: Another 3rd district 3-way for November.

Geez, NAC is starting to feel profoundly marginalized. Are they trying to tell us something?

According to the July 4 edition of the Tribune, and contrary to all previous indications, there’ll be yet another three-way race in the 3rd council district. With the entry into the race of a Libertarian, incumbent Steve “36% Solution” Price will be gifted with his third chance in four career races to win an election by polling less than half the votes cast.

Where is Walt Kelly’s Pogo in our time of need?

While the article by reporter Eric Scott Campbell isn’t archived on-line as of this writing, here is an excerpt:

Days after the Floyd County Rpublican Party appointed Brenda Scharlow to oppose District 3 City Council incumbent Steve Price, a Democrat, in the Nov. 6 election, a Libertarian has joined that race.

Thomas Keister lives on Center Street near Bicknell Park in the city’s east side. He hasn’t run for office before.

Not so fast. Keister (sorry, but purchasing an on-line diploma doesn't make one a "Dr." any more than the Wizard of Westside's Bazooka Joe U. parchment makes him an expert on sewers) actually ran for sheriff last year, with this electoral eulogy offered by the Tribune’s Jennifer Rigg on November 9, 2006:

In the end, (Democrat Darrell) Mills received 12,490 votes with 49.9 percent of the vote while (Republican Frank) Loop received 12,056 and 48.1 percent of the vote. Libertarian candidate Thomas Keister had 503 votes.

Keister’s My Space site makes reference to a second county office run in the past, but is not specific, although it details his involvement with the world of championship wrestling.

Meanwhile, a self-penned Keister press release at Associated Content touts a presumably unscientific 8th precinct telephone poll that shows him losing resoundingly to Price, but with a higher level of support than the Republican candidate.

Wonderful.

The filing deadline passed without a challenger to 1st district incumbent Dan Coffey, and also blessedly was absent last-minute maneuvering by veteran 4th district thespian Larry Kochert. With 2nd district incumbent Bill Schmidt defeated by Bob Caesar in the primary, and pending the results of the general election, at least the council’s Gang of Four has been halved.

Can a Libertarian make a difference in the 3rd? Only if the 3rd is different from the 1st. Let's go back to the July 4 Tribune article:

Libertarian George McAfee ran for the District 1 City Council seat in 2003, earning 19 votes to incumbent Democrat Dan Coffey’s 841 and Republican challenger Richard Berryman’s 216.

That’s 2%.

By the way, we're prepared to consider candidate platforms for the fall election ... and reasonable offers for our houses.