On the front page of The Citizen today - keysnews.com - is yet another article about creating a park on most of Truman Waterfront. The article mostly concerns putting out bids to contractors to build the park, right next to a beautiful state park people in Key West call “Fort Zach,” for Fort Zachary Taylor, an old US military fort, which lies within the park boundary.
I wonder how many of the loud voices clamoring for this new park use Fort Zach, which I have used quite a bit? I wonder why they feel compelled to make another park out of what looks like moonscape to me? I doubt anyone else views it any differently, because it is moonscape. It is man-made from channel dredgings, just like Sunset Key and Wisteria Island, and, yes, Fort Zach. Except Fort Zach has an Australian pine forest and sea grapes and palm trees. I wonder if it has to do with you can’t walk your dog in Fort Zach, or even take your dog there. Or maybe you can take your dog there and I just don’t remember ever seeing a dog there. Once, though, I saw a young couple dogging it in the lagoon by the jetty there. They saw me, too, and kept dogging it.
Oh, well. So much for what I wrote in yesterday’s if you really want better city government, Key West … post on what could be done with Truman Waterfront that would be a bonanza for the city government and the people of Key West.
I drove down to Key West yesterday, to see the new Transformers movie. I wondered driving down if the transformers theme was in play in my life. Arriving at the box office, I saw Chief Assistant Attorney Manny Madruga. He said he’d been out of town. He asked if I was running for anything this year?
Oh, well. So much for what I wrote in yesterday’s if you really want better city government, Key West … post on what could be done with Truman Waterfront that would be a bonanza for the city government and the people of Key West.
I drove down to Key West yesterday, to see the new Transformers movie. I wondered driving down if the transformers theme was in play in my life. Arriving at the box office, I saw Chief Assistant Attorney Manny Madruga. He said he’d been out of town. He asked if I was running for anything this year?
Oh, well, so much for people reading The Citizen, which reported on Tuesday that I am running this year.
Yeah, people tell me to run. Yeah, people tell me I have great ideas. Yeah, Todd German, Chairman of Hometown! PAC, tells me onging that I bring something to races and candidate forums no other candidates bring. So what? Did anything I ever brought to races or candidate forums ever get put into play? Help me here. Maybe I’m missing something. I don’t believe I am, but maybe I missed something.
Along similar lines, this email exchange the other day with a fellow I sometimes call The Sultan, for reasons he earned. It took him a while to come up with a retort, which is the name he sometimes calls me.
What are you running for from Little Torch? I think TG [Todd German] is right – if you want to be elected to anything, don’t talk about God, angels, or even your dreams. If you are running for something and people are supporting you, you should not let them down and should campaign in the most effective way possible. If you want to run just as a gadfly, you don’t need any supporters. Just say whatever you want and end up in the low triple digits. Try it the pragmatic way just one and maybe you’ll be surprised how enjoyable running a serious campaign can be.
I ran several times, in both Republican primaries and general elections [in another state], and I can tell you that I always worked my ass off. I won three general elections – no losses – and won about four primaries and lost two. Believe me, you feel a lot better when you win than when you lose. And if you lose by a small margin, that makes you really second-guess yourself. In the close primary that I lost, the total vote for Republican committeeman for my opponent and me was more than the vote for the unopposed, and very popular, Republican Congressman running for reelection.
Hi, Sultan.
I am not running for anything from Little Torch. As I have been lamenting in posts, it seems I will be running for Mayor of Key West again, meaning I will move back down there to do it.
Yours is excellent advice for anyone running for office, unless that someone is me.
I am no where near convinced yet that my Campaign Advisers ever intended I would get elected. I am pretty near convinced my Campaign Advisers make me run for office to give me a bigger pulpit in which to hold forth, make a fool of myself, or an ass, depending on perspectives in the viewing audience. I was trained to be a priest, not a politician. I imagine I have about as much chance of being a politician as a horse as of being a pig, and vice versa. Maybe God is testing Key West, since it is so very far out there relative to other places in America. Maybe God is testing Key West to see if it really believes its creed: One Human Family.
Whatever, you have never been to a candidate forum and seen and heard me field questions. If you had done that, you would know I give better and more sensible answers than any other candidates. I give answers that actually will benefit the city and county, as if they are business entities trying to make ends meet and even a profit. That might shock you to hear, but it’s the truth, and it’s just not me saying it. I get told that a lot, hard to believe as that might be for you to accept. I also suggest zero-to-low cost strategies for bringing more visitors, thus more revenues, to this locale.
Besides a practical, no-nonsense business outlook, I am a columnist, novelist, poet, artist and, so to speak, street comedian. I fit right into that very substantial segment of Key West. I understand them, am sympathetic to their craft and how truly important it is to the heart and soul of Key West. I have zero prejudice against gays, as the gays in Key West who know me will readily attest. I get along as well with black people as with white people. I get along as well with Spanish people, as with Gringos. I get along as well with Europeans and Asians, as with Americans. I have traveled a good bit of this world, and a good bit of America. My thinking and outlook is renaissance, expansive.
The saving grace for me, when I ponder the frightening thought of actually getting elected, a psychotic thought process, given the zero odds of it happening, the mayor’s term is only two years. I would not have to put up with the strain and hassle past that, and the people of Key West would be rid of me just as quickly, if not sooner, depending on various uncertainties, including natural and man-made causes.
Never in my wildest dreams did I figure I would run for office again, when I ran against George Neugent last year. Just goes to show what a dunce prophet I am.
Potentate, but of what?
I am not running for anything from Little Torch. As I have been lamenting in posts, it seems I will be running for Mayor of Key West again, meaning I will move back down there to do it.
Yours is excellent advice for anyone running for office, unless that someone is me.
I am no where near convinced yet that my Campaign Advisers ever intended I would get elected. I am pretty near convinced my Campaign Advisers make me run for office to give me a bigger pulpit in which to hold forth, make a fool of myself, or an ass, depending on perspectives in the viewing audience. I was trained to be a priest, not a politician. I imagine I have about as much chance of being a politician as a horse as of being a pig, and vice versa. Maybe God is testing Key West, since it is so very far out there relative to other places in America. Maybe God is testing Key West to see if it really believes its creed: One Human Family.
Whatever, you have never been to a candidate forum and seen and heard me field questions. If you had done that, you would know I give better and more sensible answers than any other candidates. I give answers that actually will benefit the city and county, as if they are business entities trying to make ends meet and even a profit. That might shock you to hear, but it’s the truth, and it’s just not me saying it. I get told that a lot, hard to believe as that might be for you to accept. I also suggest zero-to-low cost strategies for bringing more visitors, thus more revenues, to this locale.
Besides a practical, no-nonsense business outlook, I am a columnist, novelist, poet, artist and, so to speak, street comedian. I fit right into that very substantial segment of Key West. I understand them, am sympathetic to their craft and how truly important it is to the heart and soul of Key West. I have zero prejudice against gays, as the gays in Key West who know me will readily attest. I get along as well with black people as with white people. I get along as well with Spanish people, as with Gringos. I get along as well with Europeans and Asians, as with Americans. I have traveled a good bit of this world, and a good bit of America. My thinking and outlook is renaissance, expansive.
The saving grace for me, when I ponder the frightening thought of actually getting elected, a psychotic thought process, given the zero odds of it happening, the mayor’s term is only two years. I would not have to put up with the strain and hassle past that, and the people of Key West would be rid of me just as quickly, if not sooner, depending on various uncertainties, including natural and man-made causes.
Never in my wildest dreams did I figure I would run for office again, when I ran against George Neugent last year. Just goes to show what a dunce prophet I am.
Potentate, but of what?
_______________________
I imagine more than a few people have some thoughts on that. As do I.
As do I wonder about County Commissioner George Neugent, who, in another Citizen article today, is reported as having presented to the Marathon City Council that they allow a gambling casino in the white elephant up there known as the Marathon Airport. Mike Forster was vilified in the Marathon press last year, after he made that very suggestion at the Marathon Chamber of Commerce candidate forum, in response to a question of how the airport could be made profitable? Yet nowhere in the Citizen article today does Mike get even a molecule of credit for putting a casino in the white elephant, and nowhere in the article is there any mention of George lying low last year, while Mike took a shellacking for putting out the idea George now is trying to run with. I wrote last year that I don’t care for gambling casinos, for lots of reasons, but putting a casino into the Marathon Airport was the only idea anyone had come up with that would cause the airport to turn a profit. According to the article, Neugent wants the county to partner with a casino operator and use the county’s share of the profit to pay for upgrading wastewater collection and treatment in the Keys.
Ciao