Mendenhall's spring offensive begins

WARNER MENDENHALL has begun his spring offensive against Mayor Plusquellic  so I would alert you to be prepared for round-the-clock shelling from his recall regiment.  Recorded phone messages.  Neighborhood blitzes. Petitions circulating like the wind-blown leaflets dropped from World War II bombers. Ahhh...Democracy in action.  Or is it demagoguery in action by an overreaching politician who would have you believe that he isn't a politician at all but rather a savior of all that should be pure and good in his city of Akron. 

He has been planning this 15 minutes of narcissism for several years, I'd guess, and the moment has arrived to bring the Plusquellic administration to its knees.   Although the inquisition  boasts of many Plusquellic sins, the one that stands out  as pure sophistry is that the mayor has been recklessly sending taxpayers dollars on out-of-town trips hither and yon, the last being a visit to the White House with many other city mayors to engage the President's attention on the need for stimulus dollars.   Or his earlier travels  as the head of the national conference of mayors , a distinction not only for Plusquellic but for the city itself.

Excuse me.  Wasteful spending?    If Mendenhall's campaign  goes the full route with a special election and all that follows, it would be a fair guess that the taxpayers'  bill for wasteful spending will be greater than what Plusquellic has spent on his travels.  Besides, with apologies to the poet John Donne, "no city is an island".  Any mayor is not only in charge of filling potholes and snow clearance but also in representing his or her city at the state and national level.  That has been, for all the world to see, one of his strengths.  He does it well. 

As one who spent many days and weeks on round- the-clock reporting of the recall campaign against then Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich (which he narrowly survived ), I can assure there are never any winners in these spectacles. The pace of governing slowed  considerably as the Kucinich administration was distracted  by the expenditure of time, energy and treasury , not to mention the newspaper headlines.   And I would challenge anyone to point out any great strides the city has taken in progressive management since Kucinich left office.  

Unfortunately, when these rare spectacles arise they usually have less to do with improving the welfare of the entire community but are rather a scheme by relatively few people inciting enough voters to achieve the ends of those few.    At the core, Mendenhall for mayor.  Seems that way these days, doesn't it?