Paul Richardson: The weird season

It’s a special time of year, the weird season. It isn’t an annual event but comes around regularly. 

I am not a politician, the best thing about me is that I say what I mean and the worst thing about is that I say what I mean. Some people appreciate that, some don’t. 

While I am not a politician, I do understand the role of government, the need for good people to fill the positions in that government and task of selecting and placing the right people in those positions.

It is this weird season that makes this so strange. For some reason we are expected to vet these candidates based on the practice of self-validation, self-promotion, and numerous other self-perpetuated actions. 

I always preferred a third-party validation, a validation offered by someone who had nothing to gain by recognizing my ability or attributes. That validation means something to me. But this is the weird season, a time where people want us to hire them to fill a position for the next few years and their interviewing technique is to make claims and assertions about themselves that all seem to be self-promoting but empty.

Maybe this is the result of radio and television ads. People trying to cram information into one minute or less depending on what their budget allows. 

Until the November election I don’t even want to turn the television on due this problem. You can’t get to know someone in a minute. There is a time investment that must be made in order to really know someone. With that being said, these candidates still rely on reaching the masses with messages that may or may not reflect what you will be receiving.

There are other ways to communicate with people and with the general public. Most of those require a huge time investment and a real dedication, but isn’t that what we want in people who are going to fill those positions in our government?

I guess the ones that really send the wind whistling up my skirt, are those that have apparent legal, moral, or personal problems but refuse to address them. To add insult to injury, some even develop a dialog to deny the issues. It has been my experience that whether they win or lose, these issues develop into full grown monsters later on. What did they think it was going to do, just go away?

My practice has been to avoid this type of emotional release in my writings. This year has seemed to have taken a toll. Part of the problem is that a lot of the information and candidates are located in areas that I am not affected by thus giving me cause to form an opinion of the area as well as the candidates. How can people that live there put up with this kind of nonsense?

Well, good luck with all of this. I recall a contractor that I was having difficulty with during my thirty-one years with the State Highway Department, he said, “What did you expect, you guys took the lowest bid?” 

(Paul Richardson's column, The Horse I Rode In On is published weekly in the Neosho Daily News, Seneca News-Dispatch, Aurora Advertiser and on the Turner Report.)