Local Election, Part 3: Party Headquarters
Of Elite Butterflies and the Food of the God's
If you are just joining this report on our local election of a new county commissioner for our district, we suggest you start here to see how the fiasco began, and then here to see how it evolved a short time later with the previously decided retirement of the county clerk.
In this report, we’ll try to describe the chaos as local voters attempted to align themselves with the new reality.
This special election to seat a new county commissioner was not envisioned when June’s cool nights rolled into the warm, long sunny days of July. The bloom this year on the fruit orchards was tremendous and the whole county, farmers and retirees alike, strode about with the relaxed confidence and cheer of men and women who are blessed by God’s grace, and damned appreciative for it.
The vacationing families started to make their way up as schools closed for the summer in cities to the south. It wasn’t long before the local grocer had lines in front of the newly installed self checkout machines. Slowly, the county catches up with the rest of the country.
Mitch Hartley was a regular visitor to the grocer. In an off hand conversations many years ago with a local farmer, Mitch learned that the butchers would take quality steaks not sold the previous day and grind them into burger meat for today’s meat counter special. After his morning routine, which now also included a fifteen minute swim in the bay as the warming weather allowed, Mitch made a trip to the grocer a couple of times a week to try his luck for the “burger meat of the God’s” as he described it. He went all in on a dinner of a grilled hamburger with lots of toppings and a big salad, which helped the meal to pass muster with his wife Sherry. This was just one of many little rituals which, taken together, were Mitch’s retirement.
New to this group of daily rituals was Mitch’s run for our district’s county commissioner seat. This started in early July after the main political parties delivered their petitions to the county clerk’s office, and Mitch and the lawyers asserted, argued, debated and eventually settled the question of Mitch’s candidacy and party affiliation with a compromise that only the ones who bourn it could love. Mitch, all agreed, would run on a third party ticket, and unopposed, since no other candidate came forth with their own petitions.
Mitch fumbled around with a name for the new party, looking through various searches on his phone. His first attempt, Liberal Conservative, turned out to be an actual political party in Canada, our peaceful northern neighbor well known for flamboyant hairdo’s and teeth lost to either the puck or the stick. Mitch immediately scotched the idea; the last thing he needed was accusations of international influence, especially from the Canadians who we all viewed with at least curiosity, sometimes distrust, and lately contempt. Finally after a few other attempts, Mitch came up with Progressive Libertarian, which seemed a little over the top, but he was out of other ideas. After a few eye rolls and raised brows, the assembled jurists accepted the new moniker, and, relieved the whole ordeal was put to bed and they could be out on their boats within minutes, made their hurried way to the parking lot.
Mitch returned home after that sideways meeting at the clerk’s office with a strange sense of foreboding. The lawyers for the two political parties had been brusque, just a hair short of vicious when addressing Mitch, who, after a life of competitive athletics and hardball business, took it all in stride, but still felt a little bruised afterwards. A few of his neighbors collected on the Hartley patio for an afternoon cocktail and several stories circulated there that we have on very good authority. Apparently the strength of the margaritas had something to do with the loose tongues.
Linda Stein, a member of the local Democrat party committee, told the assembled that a number of prominent members, meaning those you could put a face to their name, had decided to relinquish their Democrat party affiliation in protest of party’s involvement with a candidate who could run as both a Democrat and a Republican. And they had done so publicly and quite dramatically at party headquarters, the Glass’s house, reminding anyone within earshot of the great names of the party, leaning mostly on more recent vintages though. “Travesty", “Outrage,” and “Sickening” were commonly used to describe their collective feelings. These speeches went on for quite a while until a few more level headed types took the meeting back from the most traumatized and reminded the gathered that Mitch Hartley could be as good a progressive as any with a little light prodding.
Georganne Rhinehart, likewise a member of the local Republican committee, regaled the assembly about a similar meeting at Republican HQ, Lee Bingham’s house, where similar histrionics were heard. By this time, the second pitcher of margaritas nearly a memory, people were laughing outright, without a care for party affiliation. But while the assembled may have found the melodrama sparked by Mitch’s run hilarious, the rest of the district was not the least amused. When an elite butterfly flaps its precious wings, the gnats on the other side of the world, or the other side of the peninsula in this case, rush into a tornado of fruitless activity.
No sooner had the aggrieved of both parties walked out in righteous contempt of a ‘broken system’ than the day to day members were clamping each other’s noses and carrying on as if a second civil war were under way. There were condemnations all around of ‘fascist’ and ‘communist’ and, worst of all, ‘progressive libertarian’. Mitch, still resolutely keeping his promise of sobriety, listened to all the stories and laughter with an uncertain smile, knowing full well that he had caused much stress and strain, and still completely surprised that such a small issue as this, his unopposed run for a county commission seat, created such rancor, such drama. Mitch worked deals worth millions of dollars, and nearly boundless risk to all parties, for the last 25 years before his retirement, and had never seen so much name calling and other odd behavior when adversaries sat across the business table. “This is really how people act?” he asked himself regularly these days.
Well, yes, they do in fact act just like this. Two brothers, Lonnie and Lennie Chiens, who first came to the peninsula as vacationers and stuck around as a sharp stone under the county’s heal every summer, had no known source of income but were ever present at a golf outing, or some social event or another every day, took to fisticuffs during one golf match where a large wad of $50’s traded back and forth after each hole. During the preliminary hearing before the local magistrate Lisa Gibbons we discovered that it was these two who started the nose clamp frenzy, and, embarrassingly, it wasn’t ever about a noble political cause, but rather a nice bottle of wine they pinched from a garden party. All the participants who once bragged of their ‘reddy’ achievements fell silent at this news.
Mitch’s wife Sherry sensed that a third pitcher of the devil’s brew might turn her patio into all night party central, so emptied out the last of the Number 2, and told a story herself which had nothing to do with politics or elections:
“Do any of you know Jerry Bobec and his wife Millie? Does the name ring a bell? Well, they were lifelong residents of the peninsula. Jerry, some of you may remember, spent the last few years of his working life at the boatyard north of town. Evidently he was quite a mechanic,”
“Oh yes he was, and a good guy,” one guest offered.
“Well Millie took a turn for the worst over the winter and Jerry provided her such wonderful care. She died in June, and Jerry decided to move to Tennessee to live near a son and daughter there. He came to the senior center today for the last time, so they had a sendoff for him, a very nice party. So many of their old friends, boys and girls he and Millie knew since grade school, told stories about him. Really fun.”
And with that the party toned down somewhat, the various couples made their way home to prepare for dinner, some taking a left, others a right, to giggle along the water’s edge. Mitch for his part was worn and weary and glad to let go of his forced smile. He got the charcoal chimney fired up and prepped dinner in the kitchen.
The following Wednesday, the local paper published the letter from retiring county clerk Patricia Kowalchuk. The letter cleared up a lot of misconceptions, and threw ice water on a number of ill-founded rumors. Alcohol of any kind played no part in the meeting at the clerk’s office where Mitch’s unopposed run as a Progressive Libertarian crystalized we discovered, which actually produced a collective wince in the district when we realized something this stupid happened with all parties sober.
The letter also ended the unwelcomed intrusion of politics into summer activities. Over the following months people throughout the district returned to their normal summer activities. Of course the farming community never lacks for work, and all of the normal retiree events, from art shows to garden club meetups to charity golf outings, require organization and strict attention to the 1001 little details which make a a social event memorable.
Mitch for his part began to think seriously about the campaign. At first he thought that as an unopposed candidate he could put issues on the back burner until after the election and take them up one at a time in the most common sense way imaginable. This brief fantasy ended when members of both parties happened to hear the plan from the man himself at the local barbershop. The ruckus that ensued convinced Mitch that he needed to study at least a few of the issues and give voters some honest idea of what they could expect from him. About this time, he also helped his son Rick to do a break job on a Honda Civic Mitch found in an auction. Mitch was appalled when he sat down to dinner that evening, barely able to contain his enthusiasm for the burger of the God’s, and saw his glassy eyed son eat the burger without comment and then sleep the rest of the evening on the dock, one hand touching the water. “Pot dispensary” rolled around in Mitch’s head all night. That’s a tricky one he thought.
There was a rumor that Lee Bingham and Deedee Glass, both with their respective spouses, shared a dinner table one evening and things got a little dicey. But since there had been so many rumors that turned out to be completely wrong, people lost patience and if you want to be taken seriously you’d better show up with the bloody shirt, the weapon, DNA tests and a couple of first rate witnesses. Nobody did, so it was soon forgotten.
The exodus from each of the parties, which started with so much excitement to leave, ended with the same excitement to stay. All the exit cards that had been filled out and turned in were kept in a box in the clerk’s office, so when the re-entrance cards came out the new clerk, Karen Soren, just matched them up one to one and destroyed both. When the new clerk’s decisive action became known her esteem among the public rose considerably. And while never one to partake herself, several glasses of fine wine and tap beer were hoisted in her honor. Job well done!
Summer moved along to fall without too much drama in the political realm. Next week we’ll cover the media’s role in all of this, the election and Mitch’s first months on the county board. (Yes, he won.)
You can read Part 4 here.