Comment 68781

By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted August 31, 2011 at 14:51:04 in reply to Comment 68776

Laura, you're right. However...

However, both sides gift themselves with a pretty forecastable outcome.

People are cynical about 'politicians' because... Well, because they have no real, intimate understanding of the system, what a politician does...and they've been burned by behaviour on so many occasions, the whole 'politics' thing has become a nasty sport, not reflective of the intent of governance at all...and, if I can be forgiven for using this reference, there's something reminiscent of prejudice going on here, the kind that evaporates once a certain group of people is actually interacted with, and those who were negatively-charged against them think 'Hey! They're not evil, they' not even strange!'

Politicians are cynical about the public because... Well, because most times they hear from them it's expressed in some variable of screeching, it's a complaint, it's bad news...or it's because of a meeting or a committee and Lord knows people tend to tie up processes... They want nothing more/less than to be left alone to do their jobs.

Guess what? This relationship isn't working.

As for the 'small number who want to serve'... Yes. But look to the above for why...and honestly, I don't want people in local governance who aren't doing it for the right reasons, that they're drawn to it, that they're compelled to serve the public good.

(I have to say that most of the Mayoral candidates in the last election...and maybe most in Ward 2...were not 'appropriately qualified' to serve...and in my view, gummed up the system. There may be a case for 'primaries'.)

We need to create a better landscape, improve the residents' engagement with it all, and while we're getting better candidates, more importantly, we need to get better voters.

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