ICYMI: "Giggles the Pig," a sow belonging to attorney Michael Ewing of Flint, has been put forth as a candidate for the mayoralty of Flint, Michigan.
I'm all for political theater. But, really? A pig?
This ridiculous situation was made possible by a series of errors made by the Flint City Clerk and compounded by the prospective human candidates for that office. The City Clerk apparently gave several candidates the wrong due date (April 28) for delivery of their nominating petitions. Eric Mays, currently on the Flint City Council, is the only candidate who DID meet the actual deadline, April 21--sort of. However, Mays did not file enough valid signatures for his nomination before the real deadline, so his name won't be on the ballot in any case.
Ewing claims to have been motivated to run his pig for office out of frustration with the caliber of the other candidates. He finds it especially problematic that one of the candidates, Wantwaz Davis, is a convicted murderer who served 20 years in prison. [Link here to Giggles' FB page, with Ewing's statement from May 5; link here to MLive article quoting Ewing.]
The prospective candidates have responded in a variety of ways to the implicit insult. Mays thinks Ewing is being "racist and hypocritical" in his bogus campaign, since Ewing earns a living as a criminal defense attorney and thus in Mays' view should not hold people's criminal records against them. The two black men in contention for this office both do happen to have criminal records. Mays' most recent legal difficulties arose from a bizarre incident in early 2013 in which he was found apparently intoxicated standing next to a car with three flat tires on the shoulder of an interstate freeway, headed in the wrong direction. That case has been in and out of court for several months both before and after Mays was found guilty of impaired driving. I don't have the time or the inclination to track down all the details, frankly.
There is one white man and one black woman who hope to be on the ballot as well--Dayne Walling, the current mayor of Flint, and Karen Weaver, a psychologist and entrepreneur. Walling came into office in 2011, immediately before an Emergency Manager was imposed on the city, so in many ways he has had no opportunity to prove himself in the position, or to fail. (Interestingly enough, Walling was a Rhodes Scholar and an aide to U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee.) Weaver, holds a Ph.D. in psychology; she has deep roots in the city and has been a leader of various prominent community-based organizations, including a ten-year stint as director of Behavioral Services at Mott's Children's Health Center. Neither one is especially flattered by Ewing's gimmick, understandably.
The latest development is a bill introduced in the MI Senate by Jim Ananich of Flint to allow a one-time waiver of the deadline. Without the passage of such legislation, there will be no names on the ballot for the mayor's seat.
Flint's situation is precarious at best. As residents know far better than I, they're coping with a disastrous decision to break off from the Detroit water and sewage treatment system and start their own. I apologize for the scant details here, but in general the project has been a clusterfk of massive proportions: major cost overruns still haven't brought people good, safe, clean drinking water. I'm confident that's a direct consequence of the GOP SOP in MI: Privatizing profits and socializing losses and risks. And that's on top of decades of disastrous losses of manufacturing as GM downsized and closed plant after plant, taking many thousands of decently-paying jobs with them. In many ways, Flint's been harder hit than Detroit, since they have even less economic diversity to develop.
I don't endorse Ewing's stunt, even though I can sympathize with his exasperation. At least, I'd rather not endorse it. I prefer to believe that the political process does matter, and that the caliber of candidates we have for office does matter, and that the mechanisms of government--when responsibly run, for the common good--do matter. Then again, we live in Michigan, where over and over again these past few years we've seen the will of the people undermined and the spirit of democracy mocked. So perhaps a protest vote is in order at moments like this. What do you think?
REMINDER: DEADLINE APPROACHING TO SIGN UP FOR THE KOSSACK GROUP VISIT OF THE RIVERA/KAHLO EXHIBIT.
Our plan to date:
Sunday, June 7, 1:30 PM, meet at the DIA for entry to the exhibit. Tickets REQUIRED, for a specific time. Estimated time for the exhibit is 90 minutes.
If we get a group of 15, we can get tix for $16 each. Otherwise, they're $19 each.
If you're interested, please send me a Kosmail by next MONDAY, May 18. I'll seek to buy the tickets that week and will need to make arrangements with each of you for payment. Thank you!
Yeses so far:
1. DoReMI
2. mideedah
3. mideedah guest
4. 2thanks
5. peregrine kate
6. ProvokingMeaning
7. gregsullmich