Long Live the Kings
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Juanita is pleased, for the most part, with the election results yesterday.
But, there is one thing that she has been delighting in and laughing about. She came stumbling in late this morning, wiping little sleep balls from the corner of her eyes.
“There were two white male elected officials who wanted to be kingmakers,” she begins as she pours coffee and settles down at the appointment table to see what miracles she has to perform with hair today, “and both of them ended up with enough egg on their faces to have a breakfast platter named after them at Denny’s.”
“One was a Republican and the other was a Democrat. They both wanted to be kingmakers on the west side of the county.”
“Republican Sheriff Milton Wright, God love him, thought he could personally name the next district attorney on the sheer force of being a white male and having a gun,” she starts.
“Milton pours all his amazing political skills into electing his good buddy, Richard Raymond. Milton personally strutted the guy around town, wrote political ads for him, and stood in front of the polls on election day,” Juanita recounts.
“It was a three person race and Richard Raymond came in fourth,” Juanita hoots. “No kidding, he was so far behind the pack that he had to take out an ad in the newspaper for somebody to come find him.”
“This morning, the poor guy has to unzip his pants to see out,” she grins, “and Milton Wright has to face the fact that his name and his reputation are good for about 20% of the vote. Good Lord, Honey, my name is dirt and I can russle up 25%, which means that Milton Wright has as much political clout as lockjaw.”
“So, all Milton’s bravado about electing his chief deputy the next sheriff in two years might want to get re-thought or the chief deputy might want to take some night classes because it’s beginning to look like the sheriff has the coattails of a 6 year old girl, which is to say diddle squat.”
The other wannabe kingmaker is Richard Morrison.
“Well, Richard caught a bad case of ‘commissioner disease’ and started thinking he was all that, a keg of beer, and a funny hat,” she grins.
“He wanted to be the Democratic kingmaker of his cowboy fiefdom but wandered off somewhere between A and B and let his ego override his butt,” she explains. “He bull headedly supported all the incumbents in an election where people wanted change.”
“He supported Dora Olivo in spite of the fact that she had never done squat for another Democrat or that she’s been a waste of good air for eight years. But Dora is real good at one thing – feeding people’s egos. I mean, if she could find professional employment at that, she’d get rich.”
Juanita continues, “So instead of getting the ethics reform he promised or the road widen that he was all gung-ho about, Richard spent time adoring Dora. You might as well talk Egyptian to a pack mule as try to reason with Richard.”
“Richard sat on his hands for the county chair race because a weak county chair means more power for Richard. He was a complete nincompoop about it and even his friends will likely remember that he’s worthless as a barrel full of feathers when it’s crunch time.”
“So, all in all it was a pretty good election,” Juanita concludes. “I got to see old white men learn that just because they’re crowing doesn’t mean it’s daylight.”
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