Local Election, Part 1: Recruitment
Mitch Hartley Threads the Needle
“Now @hartofmitch is telling everyone how he's not a progressive, he rejects us and is now calling the Democrats on the board "pinkos." What the heck? This is why people lose hope, because of frauds like Hartley. You work hard to get a progressive elected and they turn into a Libertarian instantly.”
The above is a verbatim quote which appeared in social media about a current local election campaign. After a great deal of research, much of it from the mouths of babes at the local barbershop, probably the most honest 200 square feet on the peninsula, I decided to share the experience and some of its aftermath with you, my faithful readers, in the hope that the lessons learned here might enlighten all our lives and recall Sir Walter Scott’s perfect admonishment: ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave/When first we practice to deceive.’
Mitch Hartley is a well known unknown here on the peninsula, if that makes sense. Where he’s from and how he managed to own such a splendid home on the water no one has ever really figured out, though they’ve given the puzzle several hours of their focused attention. His wife Sherry is a medical doctor, retired, so there’s always been speculation that it was her money that afforded them the life they have now. But that’s all just empty conjecture.
In truth, Mitch is, or was, a hardworking business man in the right place at the right time to invest a few bucks in a medical device startup that turned into a few millions. Then, as often happens, a few millions became a few more millions and it wasn’t long before Mitch and Sherry had a helluva place on the water, two kids in and out of college, and onto their own lives, and a retirement spent nine months of every year on the peninsula. A mundane rags to riches story like this one never ignites the public’s imagination to the proper temperature so is often disdained, just as often as it’s also true.
Along his life’s path Mitch never concerned himself with politics, in the office or out in public. It just isn’t his thing. He voted by trying to discern who was more honest in any election, and failing that he often pulled the lever for one side or the other, whichever side he thought had a better current understanding of the state of things. “Nothing is nailed down,” was how Mitch spoke about politics, and it’s how he practiced it as well.
When a county commissioner seat suddenly opened up last summer, the local Republican masterminds met at Lee Bingham’s place high above the big lake and conceived of a plan to place Mitch on the ballot under their flag. Mitch held no previous post, had no public record of his ideas about policies or issues that anyone could remember, so a perfect candidate. Plus, his wife Sherry was a retired doctor which, with some deft handling, could give could the candidate the patina, at the very least, of being a decent, caring person. Actually, not far from the truth.
Incredibly, the Democratic machine kicked into gear at the same time. Led by Deedee Glass, heir to a large industrial fortune and doyenne of the peninsula ‘grey hairs with political smarts’, and her husband Dick, the Democrats also targeted our man Mitch for the same open county commission seat, and for much the same reasons.
Within less than a week, separate parties were held at two of the finest estates on the peninsula where Mitch and Sherry were feted and where Mitch, inexplicably, aided a good deal by some excellent ‘vino’ as he liked to call it, agreed to run for the open seat as both a Republican and as a Democrat.
Earlier that summer Sherry, a bit restless in retirement, took a volunteer job at a local senior center. The local population, people who grew up on the peninsula and worked the apple and cherry orchards, had a decidedly aged, shuffling bent after most of their children moved away. Sherry thought she could help, and she did, bringing her educations and skills to bear on the lives of local seniors.
Well, Sherry was surprised after Mitch accepted the Republican offer to run for the seat, but then appalled after Mitch also accepted the Democrat’s offer, especially since she was in attendance both times.
She thought Mitch should throw in the towel if he couldn’t make up his mind under which flag he was going to run. But Mitch, never shy to apologize for a mistake, was also always keen to find a compromise. “A little back and forth” as several eye witnesses heard him say in the barbershop just a few months later, was his way of negotiating the twists and turns of life. While he allowed that the ‘vino’ played some small role in the fiasco of running as both a Republican and Democrat at the same time, for the same seat, he also believed some clever negotiations could resolve the whole messy situation in everyone’s favor.
Meanwhile, the local parties, their competitive fire stoked by Mitch’s lack of allegiance, for how else can we understand it, went into full on campaign mode and gathered enough signatures to place Mitch on the ballot under both flags. A small scuffle broke out in the hallway outside the county clerk’s office when both parties tried to hand in their petitions on the first morning they were to be accepted by the clerk. There were no reports of punches thrown at this first incident, though several participants later publicly stated that they “really wanted to” but held back for the “sake of the system.”
Mitch for his part continued to carry on like he was above the fray. He refused to take a position on any issue currently before the commission, or even those rare issues from the past that had been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Mitch spoke about the need for civility while dropping hints here and there about both tax cuts and new property millage increases. The barbers even got into the act when one accused the other of cutting Mitch’s hair too short to convey a ‘conservative’ persuasion, while the other accused him back of leaving it unnaturally long to present a ‘liberal’ bent.
This continued to press our little northern community until the last day that candidates could announce for the election. Mitch, after a long, primarily liquid, lunch at the local Dick’s Pour House, made his way miraculously, as many described it, to the County Building. There he presented the whole rigamarole to the Clerk in such a way as to leave her exhausted. This is a woman who has seen the snow in one winter approach 300 inches, and who had worked from the age of seven until, at that moment, a month before her retirement. When all was said and done she put down our Mitch Hartley under the newborn Progressive Libertarian Party. Since he was the only candidate that had put in petitions it was also decided, by default really, that he would run unopposed.
Well this was the day when civility broke! The community was on fire. The elderly farmers had enough of millage increases which only exacerbated their current struggles with an over supply of tart cherries and apple juice due to cheap imports. On the other hand, the retirees from the cities to the south wanted all the nice amenities of their past lives without the economic and social dislocation they had been made to witness over so many years.
However, both sides had been forewarned by the Sherriff, after the scuffle outside the clerk’s office, that punches thrown would lead to time in jail, and he was not kidding! But everyone knew that something had to be done. Who fastened on to this new idea has been the subject of much speculation, but within twenty four hours the nose clamp, as it is called, took the public’s imagination like Elvis’s hips. Two cars rolled into a gas station and before either man bothered to pump, they tried to clamp the other’s nose between two fingers and squeeze the life out of it. “They bent our nose, and we’ll bend theirs,” was a common cry by participants. Soon nose clamp practitioners were abundant and one could watch a ‘reddy’, as they came to be called, that lasted a full five minutes, until both men burst forth in uncontrollable tears. It was not uncommon to meet polite, soft spoken men at the local library, for example, who sported a beet red nozzle as big as their own fist.
Doctor Sherry as she is now known and beloved by all who gather at the Senior Center, was visibly embarrassed by the whole affair and made our man Mitch swear off the vino until after the election, which by all accounts he has done. When a few of the seniors showed up at the center with the telltale sign of their participation in a reddy, Dr. Sherry laid down the law: Anyone who participated in a nose clamp reddy could no longer seek her help. This threw a bucket of ice on the whole practice and passions soon calmed down remarkably. The nose clamp business is on hiatus until further notice, or until the election, whichever comes first, is how I heard it described at the barbershop.
Meanwhile Mitch spent a fair amount of time since his sobriety check doing the difficult work of campaigning; putting up signs, some with confusing slogans like “PROGRESSIVE LIBERTARIAN: WE LIVE IT TO GIVE IT,” shaking hands at the grocery store, you name it. He recently told a group of men waiting for a haircut that “the only way around is through,” offered as explanation for the fact that he “completely owns the Progressive Libertarian label, without hesitation,” though he could not actually define it. This short “campaign convo” led a few listeners to recommend a recommencement of the nose clamp games until the barbers threatened all of us with expulsion. Overall most residents became used to the whole fiasco and started to regard it affectionately, especially when Mitch’s most prominent yard sign announced that he was no longer content with the county commissioner post:
How this all ends is anyone’s guess, though at this point the community has really reached the point of exhaustion. One bright light from the whole controversy of Mitch on the ballot unopposed is that the local Democrat and Republican parties have seen huge membership losses, followed by huge membership gains. I’m as flummoxed as you, but as soon as I have a better grasp of how this happened and what it means, you will see it posted!
Again, Happy New Year 2024 to you all!
(Part 2 of this report can be found here.)