On May 18, 2005, at 7:53 AM, Joseph Barisonzi wrote:
a seasoned political
veteran who has yet to articulate how he would be a step forward rather then
a step backward.
I'm curious about why Joe thinks that Peter is the candidate with unanswered questions, and not R.T. R.T. has given no indication of any major items for a second term agenda. R.T.'s website has an "R.T. on the Issues" section which is 90 percent about what R.T. has done in the past, and which makes no effort to prioritize or organize the issues by relative importance. Even that minimal bit of information requires you to drill down -- the front page is simply "Help R.T. with the Summer Campaign" and some links to lists of people who have endorsed R.T. R.T.'s convention speech was also fairly vague about future action: "Give me a chance to do more great things" was the gist of it.
R.T.'s political past is equally murky as a guide to his future actions. It is beyond dispute that R.T. broke every significant promise he made during the 2001 election (i.e., opposing a stadium, adopting 24-hour snowplow, and no political fundraising between election years). From R.T.'s perspective, he was forced by circumstances to break these promises -- but even still the record is clear that R.T.'s words are not an accurate predictor of his future actions.
So what would R.T.'s second term look like? I follow city politics as closely as anyone, and I really don't have a clue.
This is a big problem for voters trying to evaluate the candidates. For example, the Police Federation flyer that was mailed to DFL delegates before the convention claimed that another 90 cops are scheduled to be cut in R.T.'s future budget projections, on top of the 150 or so that have already been cut. Is this true? I may have missed it, but I have yet to hear anyone from the Mayor's Office deny it. And if R.T. does deny it, who's to say that he won't change his mind after the election (again) and implement the cuts?
Peter, unlike R.T., has a track record of following through on his political objectives (Exhibit A: light-rail).
No candidate is perfect, but at least with Peter what you see is what you get.
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