(Check out the print version of the Metro Spirit for the pull-out bracket poster).
Face it: As important as politics are and as much as the people we elect affect our lives, the act of getting elected often seems little more than a sport.
The drama might be played out in the front of the paper or at the beginning of the newscast, but the election process has all the action and theater and intrigue of March Madness.
Which is why we’ve included our own version of the brackets. We feel that sometimes a dense amount of information is most readily understood in a visual format.
For one thing, it lets you see at a glance just how expensive the Richmond County sheriff’s race is going to be. With its scrum of candidates and the probability of three separate and very serious campaigns (primary, runoff and general election), you look at all that bracketed real estate and wonder how much money is being directed here that would have otherwise gone to other candidates in other races and how much all that might affect the election as a whole.
Not only that, but how many Republican candidates are going to suffer because people care so deeply about this messy race, since voting in the primary is an all or nothing party proposition.
It also allows you to contemplate the power of incumbency. While the four Republican candidates vying for the 12th Congressional District seat have been campaigning — and spending — for several months (spending to collective tune of $397,000), the incumbent, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow, hasn’t yet had to spend a dime on anything other than moving expenses.
Seeing all those Republicans lined upon one side of the mark, mustering their energy, scrambling to make a beachhead, forces you to consider just how difficult an invasion of any kind really is and how many more advantages go to the defenders.
It’s like the invasion of Normandy, only the Germans know exactly when and where the invasion is coming.
And speaking of incumbency, we’ve left those candidates running unopposed on the list because often it’s those races that show where the real power lies.
Do you really think Columbia County Sheriff Clay Whittle is the only person in the county who wants to be sheriff? What about Kay Allen? Doesn’t somebody else — anybody else — want to be tax commissioner?
Of course plenty of people covet those offices, but political power — real political power — is fighting the battles and waging the war long before anybody even thinks about qualifying.
What our brackets don’t show, however, are the missteps and the drama that happened to some along the way, those that never made it on the page.
Remember Damon Cline’s fiery rhetoric and his vow to hold Trey Allen and everyone else in Columbia County government accountable for the Magnolia Trace housing development? You don’t see him up there, because it turns out he didn’t live in the district he needed to live in to mount his campaign.
And what about Vanessa Dianne Hewlet-Quinland, who flamboyantly prepared to take on Judge John Flythe, only to find out she did not meet the minimum qualifications needed to hold the office?
She’s nowhere on the list, either.
Also not on the list are the Richmond County Board of Education candidates or the commission candidates, who missed qualifying with everyone else because of a lawsuit and the schoolyard-like need many from both parties and both races have for one-upmanship.
The best thing about our brackets? No Dick Vital.
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(Check out the print version of the Metro Spirit for the pull-out bracket poster).
Face it: As important as politics are and as much as the people we elect affect our lives, the act of getting elected often seems little more than a sport.
The drama might be played out in the front of the paper or at the beginning of the newscast, but the election process has all the action and theater and intrigue of March Madness.
Which is why we’ve included our own version of the brackets. We feel that sometimes a dense amount of information is most readily understood in a visual format.
For one thing, it lets you see at a glance just how expensive the Richmond County sheriff’s race is going to be. With its scrum of candidates and the probability of three separate and very serious campaigns (primary, runoff and general election), you look at all that bracketed real estate and wonder how much money is being directed here that would have otherwise gone to other candidates in other races and how much all that might affect the election as a whole.
Not only that, but how many Republican candidates are going to suffer because people care so deeply about this messy race, since voting in the primary is an all or nothing party proposition.
It also allows you to contemplate the power of incumbency. While the four Republican candidates vying for the 12th Congressional District seat have been campaigning — and spending — for several months (spending to collective tune of $397,000), the incumbent, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow, hasn’t yet had to spend a dime on anything other than moving expenses.
Seeing all those Republicans lined upon one side of the mark, mustering their energy, scrambling to make a beachhead, forces you to consider just how difficult an invasion of any kind really is and how many more advantages go to the defenders.
It’s like the invasion of Normandy, only the Germans know exactly when and where the invasion is coming.
And speaking of incumbency, we’ve left those candidates running unopposed on the list because often it’s those races that show where the real power lies.
Do you really think Columbia County Sheriff Clay Whittle is the only person in the county who wants to be sheriff? What about Kay Allen? Doesn’t somebody else — anybody else — want to be tax commissioner?
Of course plenty of people covet those offices, but political power — real political power — is fighting the battles and waging the war long before anybody even thinks about qualifying.
What our brackets don’t show, however, are the missteps and the drama that happened to some along the way, those that never made it on the page.
Remember Damon Cline’s fiery rhetoric and his vow to hold Trey Allen and everyone else in Columbia County government accountable for the Magnolia Trace housing development? You don’t see him up there, because it turns out he didn’t live in the district he needed to live in to mount his campaign.
And what about Vanessa Dianne Hewlet-Quinland, who flamboyantly prepared to take on Judge John Flythe, only to find out she did not meet the minimum qualifications needed to hold the office?
She’s nowhere on the list, either.
Also not on the list are the Richmond County Board of Education candidates or the commission candidates, who missed qualifying with everyone else because of a lawsuit and the schoolyard-like need many from both parties and both races have for one-upmanship.
The best thing about our brackets? No Dick Vital.
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