By Kerri Havnen Gordon
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. This is my new mantra. I’m getting fed up with people doing misguided things just because they can or just because it is legal. This is happening everywhere.
We’ve got 18-year-old candidates for the school board and city council whose motives in running are to interest young people in local issues. All well and good, and I’m sure these young men will do great things with their lives — but their candidacies are ill-advised. Within days they’ll be off to college hours away, reason enough for them not to run for local office. Do they truly understand the breadth of responsibilities involved? The school board candidate has told the Mountain View Voice that he now hopes to lose. Holy moly. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Then there’s the 55-year-old man who apparently joined the school board race out of solidarity for the 18-year-old challenger. His knee-jerk, 11th-hour candidacy seems to be centered around another candidate and not rooted in the issues of the school district.
Where were these two candidates the last 18 months, when our district went through two elections, a complex school closure issue and fallout from the state budget crisis? I want candidates who have routinely warmed chairs at school board meetings and who understand the district, not candidates who run to motivate other voters or to support other candidates. These are the wrong motives. Our schools deserve better. Just because you can …
How about the city council candidate who is seeking a third term of office, taking advantage of a loophole in a law stipulating that city council terms should be limited to two? This candidate may be within the letter of the law, but he is far beyond the spirit of it. Just because you can …
And then there’s the charter school effort. Supporters tried to cram the charter down the school district’s throat, despite a poorly developed educational and fiscal plan as well as incredibly broad community disapproval from parents. I read several aggressive e-mails from a charter advocate, who coincidentally happens to be the same city councilman seeking a third term, in which he used a bullying, condescending tone and insisted that this charter will go through despite community objections.
Again, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
The state recall brings this concept to the height of absurdity. The field of 135 gubernatorial candidates includes a used car dealer, a professional golfer, a marijuana legalization attorney and a psychologist-farmer. On the seedier side are pornographer Larry Flynt, a woman whose platform includes taxing breast implants and another woman, hailing from Mountain View, who is selling thong underwear on her campaign Web site.
Lastly, film writer-director Art Brown says that he initially ran “for publicity, but now that I’m running, I kind of want to run.” Whoa. Such conviction.
It’s insane that these people are running for governor. While they get a nifty souvenir in the form of their election booklet, California cements a reputation of being completely wacko. It’s enough to make a gal want to move to Minnesota, but then again, they had Jesse Ventura.
All these local and gubernatorial candidates should have put more thought into the jobs they were seeking before placing their names on the ballot. I wouldn’t dream of running for an office that I was not committed to or that I was unqualified to hold. And I wouldn’t dream of using a loophole to circumvent policy.
Please join me in restoring common sense. Repeat after me: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
