(Sadly the links do not show up in this blog very well. You have to move your cursor around to find them.)
I am not the only one who's saying this blog is for campaigning. This from the USCF's Forums, thread "I Will Only Vote Positively", post #180806, Gary Walters himself says,
I am also campaigning actively on my blog at http://graysonebc.blogspot.com/. You can find out more about me there.
This compares to Hillery's comment cited above:
"You failed to mention that he only started his blog after he launched his election campaign." [quoting me - JL]
That would be a fair point if his blog were primarily (or even significantly) about politics. It isn't. It's a chess news and analysis site, and a good one.
The point of all this is that what we have is a candidate who is not willing to work his way up but wants to start at the top. In order to make up for his lack of chess experience, he launches a blog so that he can have at least some chess thing to campaign on.
Let's face it. In a year with the USCF in a financial crisis, it is going to need a very active Executive Board, aggressively helping with fundraising and promoting. It's stuck with Walters because the alternative is so unacceptable. If the members expect this pol to be more than just a resume credential collector, they are likely to be disappointed.
The "start at the top" argument is valid (you may recall that I made it about both Mottershead and Lafferty in the last election), but what's the alternative? There are three candidates, and Sloan has proven himself unfit to be elected hall monitor in a kindergarten. (Personally, I think he's proven himself unfit to be allowed out without a leash, but that's another story.) Like it or not, not voting for the other two is the equivalent of voting for Sloan. It is certainly possible that Waters will not be a "good" Board member (there haven't been all that many in my lifetime) -- but it is absolutely certain that Sloan would be a disaster. Again.
ReplyDeleteIf you want a real-world comparison, consider this. There were a lot of reasons I didn't want to vote for McCain in 2008. (See McCain-Feingold for starters.) But not voting, or voting for a fringe candidate, would have been the same thing as voting for Obama. In politics, we rarely get everything we want.
I agree with you, John. Sadly.
ReplyDelete