Head Games

We can't help it, but sometimes we simply have to speculate about what goes through the minds of our council members. The Lucy Van Pelt strategy used by, among others, Pat McLaughlin (D4), to yank the football from the tee just as Jack Messer prepared to kick off a new council year, positively begs for psychoanalysis. Here's my take, speculative as it is.

While I had looked forward to a council presided over by the senior at-large council member, I could never quite trust the head counts I overheard. Messer was clearly the best choice, and Jack was determined to lead the council in a focused and deliberate manner, independent of but collaborative with the incoming administration. In fact, more than one of the new council members had sought him out and encouraged him to run for president. Weeks prior to being sworn in, all the council members had the opportunity to meet and discuss goals for the next four years. Messer expected to win and was looking forward to the challenge. He was willing to step back from the debate and preside impartially. So what happened to prevent that?

McLaughlin, following the established pattern for New Albany Democrats, ran a careful, if not timid, campaign. He, on the advice of his counselors, decided to take no stands, support no positions, and promise nothing to anyone. His platform was nonexistent. Even if Pat didn't know where the middle of the road was, he was determined to find that middle and plant himself there. This seems to have carried over into his term.

Pat likes (and is liked by) practically everyone. If you've read this blog before you know I don't consider that to be a pre-eminent qualification for leadership - a person who tries to keep everybody happy ultimately satisfies no one.

Having staked out that position, Pat was supremely vulnerable to being persuaded to seek what I am sure he understands to be a compromise. It was a given that Dan Coffey and Steve Price would have cut off their hands before voting for Messer. Let's call it a violent opposition to having Jack in the chair. Three or four other council members would have gagged before voting to support Coffey. But Coffey wasn't running, at least not after he read the tea leaves.

How then, could Coffey prevent Messer's election? He couldn't run and beat him. The solution was simple, however. During the past year since Jeff Gahan stepped down from the chair and began to engage more fiercely in the debate, Coffey occasionally supported Gahan, resulting in an alliance that grew more solid during the insane attempt to give away the municipal sewer utility to an unaccountable board. Both Coffey and Gahan saw that as a way to handcuff elected officials. That it would have removed accountability to the voters was a price they were both willing to pay if it would rein in what they believed to be a secretive and corrupt operation.

Gahan and Coffey rarely came into conflict in 2007 and by the end of the term were voting in lockstep most of the time. The "reasonable" Gahan respected Coffey's legitimacy and Coffey returned that respect. That made Gahan the perfect tool to accomplish Coffey's objective of keeping Messer out of the chair.

With a candidate in place to oppose Messer, Coffey needed only to pick up one more vote (Gahan and Coffey, of course; Price, obviously; and it appears that Benedetti is determined to learn at Master Coffey's institution of "higher" learning).

Imagine, then, this confidential gathering, in twos and threes.

Jack "can't get along" with Price and Coffey (a reason to endorse, to my way of thinking, but I digress). That duo, inalterably opposed to Messer, put that forward as evidence that Jack can't "bring the council together." Well, duh! Gahan, on the other hand, hasn't opposed the dumb ideas put forward by D1 and D2. During his terms in the chair he permitted Coffey to ramble on with his "expert" opinions, his "legal expertise," his sophistry, and his demagoguery - something Messer could be counted on to put a limit on. So Price and Coffey "could" support Gahan.

Hey, Pat. You don't want to start out your term with a situation where the president doesn't have the support of the whole council, do you? Then Gahan's your man. You know him, you like him, he's pretty smart. And he's experienced. He has even been president of the council before.

So, in essence, Pat McLaughlin, hewing to the center line, fell for the oldest trick in the book.

Here's another translation: We despise Jack because he doesn't fall for our schtick. Jeff at least pretends to. So, because Jack would resist our idiocies, we should have a veto. We should be able to stop his election. You, Pat, are our patsy. With your vote, we can veto Jack. Everybody wins, because we wind up with Gahan as the compromise, and you like compromise, don't you? Why can't we all just get along?

Analyzing why Benedetti would throw away her incumbency by becoming a disciple of the Wizard of Westendia would take too long. Let's just assume she has thrown it away and start planning for 2011.

Oh yeah. John Gonder. Let no one forget that Gonder, too, cast his vote for Gahan. I have my thoughts on that one, too. But since it's raining so hard, I think I'll keep my powder dry for the time being and let John explain his vote in his own good time. Tick, tock.