This page ©1999 Chip Brown.

Let the Bidding Begin

That's right folks you heard it here first. My vote is for sale! So all you candidates get out your wallets and fork it over. I don't know what the average vote goes for but mine should be worth twice as much. I vote with conviction! I believe in the candidate I vote for and this year I believe I'll vote for the candidate that pays me!

And if any of you candidates for office believe that, send your money to my P.O. Box. I'll be sure to remember you at the polls.

I have never in my life been offered money for my vote. I have been offered jobs, but I choose to think that's because I have a clue to what I'm doing. That's a novel idea in politics today.

However, I will say that if I go to early vote (I always early vote) and someone wants to offer me $10 for my vote I will most likely take it. I will most likely take it and then go vote for whoever I wanted to vote for in the first place. How stupid can you be to stand out in front of the courthouse and hand out money for votes?

Yet every year it seems to be rumored to happen.

If I were running for office I'd probably want to buy votes. I don't have a lot of friends and the more articles like this that I write, the less I'm likely to have in the future. Shoot, I'm probably going to have to hire folks to come to my funeral. But my real problem is I can't afford to buy votes. I know all you people believe that some guy that owns a website must be getting rich. This is not the case! If I wanted a Big Mac I'd have to go ask my wife for the money.

So when I run for office I'm going to use the barter and trade system. Instead of standing outside the courthouse with a wad of money, I'll stand out there with lawnmowers, chainsaws and weedeaters. When some guy walks by I'll pull him over into the corner and in a suave voice say, "Hey buddy, wanna' earn yourself an easy weedeater?" Shoot it's a bargain for us both, he gets a weedeater and I get a vote! It's smart decisions like this that convinces me I'm qualified to run our county financially!

What I don't understand about all this is if I buy all these votes and don't win, how do I get a refund?

But seriously, the real fact is that this does go on and we all know it. But you know who I get madder at than someone who sells their vote? Someone who trades it for a pat on the back by an elected official. At least the guy that sold his vote get something tangible.

This select group of voters will allow a candidate to convince them that they're lifelong buddies and that they should vote for them. These people never get out in the county until campaign time. These voters haven't seen them since last election. They pass them in a store and the candidate doesn't speak. Yet a month before election time these candidates go out in the countryside and pat people on the back and call them friend. Whammo a vote! These people are mesmerised at the possibility of someone in office being their friend. They're so caught up in it they forget this person hasn't darkened their doorstep in four years. That's sad. But it happens and has for years.

Then there are the candidates who stand on my doorstep and say, I'm tired of the way our county's so and so office is being run. I intend to change this or change that. Then when they're elected, it's not business as usual, it's worse!

Lets have a look at the facts. Some people benefit from the way things are, in Union County. Some people do not. Where does the money come from? From the people that benefit. These people aren't going to change anything because they're doing okay the way things are. So they chunk money behind candidates who will leave things alone.

So with this in mind, I will say right now that this is my platform. If someone with a lot of money will get my campaign going. If someone with a lot of money will get me elected to whatever office they want me to have (I'm not picky) I promise to spend the next four years doing absolutely nothing! Shoot I may only go to my office a couple of days a week.

Now what could be better than that? The people with money get what they want, nothing rocks their boat. The regular voters will even benefit because I intend to do nothing. With that said you don't have to worry that I'll make things worse of that I'll do something wrong, because I intend to do nothing!

I promise you that if elected to office, that four years from now nothing will be different than it is today in Union County. There you have it, there's my platform. It's the same one you've voted for, for years now, just that I'm being tons more honest.

Vote Chip! The do nothing candidate. It sort of has a ring to it doesn't it?

Now back on track here. I know there are things that it is not in the power of the local public official to change. But yet when they campaign, we allow them to tell us they'll change these things. Worse, we believe them. There should be some form of accountability in campaign promises. If you go to testify in court, about nothing more serious than a fender bender, they make you swear an oath that you will tell the truth. If you are caught in a lie you are tossed on the pokey. But yet, we allow people to run for office and say whatever it takes to be elected. Then when they're in office, it was all just campaign promises.

I don't think the average person can buy tar anymore. I have no idea where one might purchase feathers. But I'll bet you back when these items were readily available, people campaigning for office were more honest.

So in the next few weeks we'll hear things like, throw the bums out. I'll say right now that they're all not bums. Possibly guilty by association with the ones that are but some really want to help. And what if we do throw the bums out? Will we get better people or will we just get another set of bums? Most likely, in my opinion, we'll get another set of bums. But the new set will be just a tad smarter than the old set. The new set of bums will realize that we tossed out the other bums and will them too.

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