Write Here in Rochester's First Ward
I'm impressed by his ability to attract followers. Even though his only fame in life (before W was court appointed to our country's highest elected position) has been his ability to fail at ousting Saddam Hussein, he has a massive following. People think this man is top-notch even though the only thing at which he has been successful is bombing the heck out of civilians and starving soldiers. People wanted him to run for President!
I suppose this is the same mentality that has CEOs of bankrupt businesses given multi-million-dollar severance checks. You fail; we reward you!
With his only fame being failure, people wanted Powell to be the President. Man oh man, THAT is charisma! No, this guy should not be leading the country; he should be leading a cult.
Note that I actually give Powell the respect of using his actual name. (Unlike some people I've written about.) I don't know the person. All I know about him is what everyone else knows about him. He was in the public eye and, through no doing of his own, he stayed there. He had fifteen minutes of fame and the clock stopped ten minutes into it.
I could never understand his popularity. So I asked around. "Why do people want Colin Powell to be the President?" My philosophical brother-in-law gave me an answer I hadn't heard before. He said, "because he doesn't want the job."
Makes sense to me.
It turns out that the more someone wants a position, the less other people want to give that person that position. This seems especially true for politicians. The lack of trust of politicians is so high that anyone wanting to be one is IMMEDIATELY looked down upon.
Let me continue by making this announcement:
I do NOT want to be elected to the position of First Ward City Council in Rochester, Minnesota.
I don't want the position. Please do not put Mark Wentz in as your write-in vote.
The reason that this is an issue is because I thought long and hard about running for the position. The incumbent is running unopposed. I don't think very highly of him. I didn't vote for him last election because I thought he was too ready to throw my tax dollars at business owners. He proved me right. When local Developer Dude decided he wanted to build a very large building and wanted the city to chip in a mere $30,000,000+, the First Ward Council Member said, effectively, "Sounds good to me!" Then, when the majority of the city council voted for another developer's project, the First Ward Council Member attended our neighborhood association meeting to give some bleeding-heart corporatist sob story about how Developer Dudejust wants to do right by the city and if he wants to build an edifice to himself he should be allowed to do that. I don't recall seeing First Ward Council Member at a neighborhood association meeting since then. Hmmm.
I don't need that! We don't need that!
So earlier this year, First Ward Council Member announced he was running for re-election; calling himself pro-business and pro-growth. Duh! He had to tell us this? How about pro-resident? Nope. How about pro-citizen? Nope! How about pro-consumer? Nope, he didn't mention any of those.
Unfortunately, no one else seemed to be signing up to run for the position. So, I gave a lot of thought about running for Rochester's First Ward Council Seat. Ultimately, I decided against a run. Why?
Because I don't want the position.
While I'm no Colin Powell, I do have the failure thing going for me. I failed in my attempt to achieve a computer science degree. I've failed so far in learning to play the guitar. I've failed in my dream of becoming a writer for David Letterman. I've failed in my last three attempts to get letters-to-the-editor published in newspapers to which I subscribe. I feel I have shown that I can fail on the local level as well as Colin Powell can fail on the global level. Think globally; act locally.
So those of you living in the First Ward of Rochester, Minnesota; feel free to not vote for Mark Wentz as a write-in candidate for city council. Feel free not to vote against the pro-business alternative. Feel free to not vote against the pro-growth alternative. Feel free to not vote against a person who wants to give millions of taxpayers' dollars to people who really don't need.
So, thank you for not voting for Mark Wentz as your Write-in choice for Rochester City Council First Ward.
I don't want the position.
return to Commentary index
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.
© 2002, Mark Wentz