Surprising exactly one person, Bob O’Connor (D) beat Joe Weinroth (R ) for mayor of Pittsburgh today. I don’t know who this Weinroth guy is, but you have to know that he was only running in case O’Connor got hit by a truck or got caught with a kilo of uncut Panamanian blow. This is Pittsburgh; Zippy the Pinhead (D) would take Dwight Eisenhower (R ) without breaking a sweat.
Some thoughts.
O’Connor keynoted his victory speech with a promise to “increase efficiency” in city government. With apologies to Godwin, when I hear about efficiency in government I reach for my browning. Representative government isn’t efficient. Two-party politics is far from efficient. True democracy is a mess, a theater of the absurd which Churchill was right to describe as, ‘the worst possible form of government, except for everything else.’
One-party rule is efficient. Corruption and cronyism is ‘efficient.’ ‘Efficient’ leaders make decisions without deliberation, never to be unmade. Of all the things to which the Bush administration aspired one of the most important in their view was ‘efficiency.’ If mess means representative government, and clean government, I’ll take the mess.
Weinroth’s concession speech focused on how everybody won because his presence contributed to ‘the debate.’ If he ever had a chance of winning he’d have made noises about the spirited race and the solid effort that his supporters put in, but the best he could do was that he got people to talk about him. Judging by tonight’s dinner with the extended family, he could have accomplished the same thing by having his girlfriend glue his balls together. [link]
Your snapshot of one-party rule in Allegheny County. This is why I busted my ass for Jim Roddey (R ) when county council decided to reinstate the post of County Executive. Naturally the Democrats ran Cyril Wecht, the last guy who’d held the job when county council decided to fire him and eliminate the position over accusations of embezzlement. Wecht, who’s a big fan of running government as a family business, knows all about efficiency. As strange as it felt reassuring nervous borough leaders that Roddey wouldn’t vote to increase abortion rights (like he could if he wanted to), it felt great when he won.
MI
Judging by tonight’s dinner with the extended family, he could have accomplished the same thing by having his girlfriend glue his balls together
HAHAHA
Candidus
Then you can’t be all bad.
Good aesthetic sense, too.
John
So let me get this straight. When George W. Bush promises “smaller, leaner government” that’s a good thing. Because hey, efficiency is good. Unless, of course, the guy promising efficiency has a (D) after his name.
Look, I know you’re not one of those partisan “party before country” types that plague both sides of the aisle, so I don’t want to make a huge case out of nothing, but for you to argue that efficiency in government isn’t a good thing in and of itself strikes me as… what’s that? We’ve ALWAYS been at war with Oceania?
Tim F.
John, I think it’s safe to say that the point sailed right past you. I’m not John Cole and if you think I would cite Bush approvingly (not that he would either) you haven’t been reading very carefully.
Steve
That’s pretty hilarious. John can’t help but be accused of being a fascist water-carrier for the Bush Administration, even when he didn’t make the post.
yet another jeff
Smaller govt is good, promises of efficiency are bad. I think we’re all safer with inefficient govt. When the govt. has to take their time to pass bad laws, Democracy is safe.
I am wondering, however, what could have been accomplished by having Weinroth’s balls glued together.
DJAnyReason
Whatever Weinroth wants to say to make himself feel better, the debate ended in mid-May. If people didn’t like Bob (and, believe me, I’m not a fan), they had the choice to make between Bob, Bill, and Mike five months ago.
Pittsburgh politics aren’t without choice, its just that our choice is between a democrat and another democrat. As a big stinking liberal, I’m quite happy with that :)
John
I certainly apologize for mistaking the poster for someone else, but my point stands: efficiency in government isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s something to aspire to.
If there’s a problem, and solution A requires 10 employees and 100 million dollars to fix the problem, while solution B requires 8 employees and 84 million dollars to fix the same problem, which solution will you choose? I’ll choose B, the more efficient solution.
And yes, promises of efficiency THAT ARE NOT KEPT are bad, just like any other promise that isn’t kept.
Tim F.
Local joke. I can’t explain why, but everybody has been talking about that stupid story for what feels like weeks now.
yet another jeff
Heh…ok. I think that gluing someone’s balls together would be a better decision than most of the one’s made by “efficient” govt. An efficient govt is one that Does Things…and we’re all going to suffer when the govt Does Things.
Dave Ruddell
Okay, but what if he was taking on Ben Roethlisberger(R )?
(I see why you had to put a space after the ‘R’, otherwise you get one of these: (R))