More Candidates, More Choices

As is often the case, Steve Chapman is making sense. Here's a little something from the archives...

09/21/2007 09:03:57
There was a candidate for the 43rd Ward at Drinking Liberally last night. He’s been there once before and is pretty much a boring schmuck. He asked for people to go door to door to get signatures so he could get on the ballot. I would have signed his ballot but it did not get passed to me. I wouldn’t go door to door for him. People didn’t like him so they did not want to sign his petition. I find that wrong. The man, any person in reason, should be allowed to get on the ballot. I agree there is a point where there may be too many candidates. How does one narrow down 12 candidates to the one they should vote for. And then do that for dozens of elections. Still, a problem exists. It is too hard to get on a ballot. If an activist for Sen. Bill Frist came to my door asking for a signature to get the Senator on the ballot for president I would sign it. I disagree with Frist on just about every issue I can think of but Frist should be able to get on the ballot. Same with the schmuck last night.

One of the keys to a functioning democracy is the exchange of ideas. Like I said, the 43rd Ward candidate that was at Drinking Liberally all those months ago was more or less a goof ball in my mind. BUT!! BUT, he was involved and trying. There was no real reason to exclude him from the ballot and ultimately he did get on the ballot (Peter Zelchenko(sp?) is his name). He got on there, he participated in at least one candidate forum, and ultimately the voters did not choose him. No harm was done. In fact, I would argue some good came out of it because people heard the views of someone else and had to consider them.