Is Mother Nature on Carty’s side?
One of the first things that caught my attention in the article written by Barrett Andrews in the Toledo Free Press was this one quote:
“Mother Nature’s been supporting him. I mean, in the cold weather people aren’t going door to door yet,” said Ed Nagle, a member of the group.
I started envisioning Carty up there in the clouds, having the power of the Gods able to change the weather, I mean who in their right mind would ever expect cold weather or snow in Toledo in January? It has to be the work of some evil plot designed to prevent Take Back Toledo from getting their signatures…
I can’t draw beyond stick figures, so I shared my vision of Carty throwing down icicles from the clouds with my oldest daughter…
Today is day 26 of the Mayoral recall attempt, they have 90 days to get 19,937 validated signatures total which means they have 64 days left, and it’s not going to be warmer, especially if the groundhogs who do predictions, are right about there still being six weeks left of winter. I’m guessing since Mother Nature is on Carty’s side, that the ground hogs are too, which would mean if all of this is true? We can blame Carty for the cold weather and the snow too!
It was suggested by some who are a bit more experienced with this type of thing that starting this in January was not a great idea, because of the very reason that the Take Back Toledo group is discovering, the weather…
The group had 2,400 unvalidated signatures when Barrett did the interview, they now are stating they’d like to get at least 30,000 down from the 40,000 that was originally their goal, because anywhere from a quarter to a half of signatures on a petition can turn out not to be valid, yours truly discovered how something as simple as a person not signing their name exactly as they sign it on their voter registration card can end up having a signature be declared non-valid.
I haven’t changed my mind about Take Back Toledo but I do think that the petition process is one that is fraught with problems, it’s not only easy for someone to take signatures from another petition or to not be honest in presenting what the cause is for the signature because we know not everyone takes the time to read what they are being asked to sign. On the other side of this issue, it never made sense to me to be so darn picky about the signatures, sure, I could see it if the signature was very different, but signing “Jim” rather than “James” if it’s pretty darn clear it’s the same “Jim/James” seems a bit much of an overkill. I also despite not being in support of this recall, think that even if Mother Nature wasn’t on Carty’s side, it’s a difficult task to get that many signatures without hiring a professional firm.
I’m not sure what the alternative should be, I understand why there would have to be a certain amount of signatures to do a recall, but in the four times that I know of now that have been attempted to recall this particular strong Mayor or the last one, no one has really come close, and none of the groups have managed to get the recall on the ballot. While the impeachment process can also be fraught with problems because it becomes so political, what if there was an impeachment process in place instead? It could be brought upon by a certain number of council members voting or by a lower number of signatures required from the public. That way if there was a situation where it was felt a Mayor was really failing to perform his duties as Mayor, it’d be easier to remove him or her and it wouldn’t require an election.
Granted, to do that? It’d probably take a petition drive of it’s own, ironically to change the charter you’d need less signatures than to recall a Mayor…
I am surprised that with all of the hype and the promotion of the local radio station, that only 2400 people have signed the petition.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:50 amPerhaps, Toledoans just don’t believe that it makes sense to go through the entire recall process to recall a Mayor who will be out of office 3 months after the election. However, it gives the local conservative radio station something to promote to garner listeners and advertising dollars.
It is hard to get people to want to go door to door in the winter, it’s also hard to have access to people the same way you can in the summer months when there are more festivals, fairs, etc.
Though if there was a huge burning desire, you would think people would go to the locations where they know those collecting signatures are going to be at, they have done a pretty good job in promoting that information.
They still have a little over 2 months left, I haven’t listened to a Clear Channel station recently, but if they are still continuing to have Andy Stuart promote Take Back Toledo almost every half hour, even on the music channels, I am surprised that didn’t get more people. This is the most publicly promoted recall effort, it remains to be seen if they can get the necessary amount of valid signatures, they still might, a lot can happen in two months.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:02 amLisa,
A couple of things:
Garnering petition signatures in the Winter, especially this Winter is undoubtedly a tough nut to crack, that is a given.
That said, Andy Stewart could/should probably update his all too frequent message or throw some similar messages from other people into the mix.
I feel that Mr. Stewart’s all too frequent message is so familiar now that it is being ignored and is effectively doing more harm than good.
And, with only three months at stake, perhaps the group would be better served by moving on to their other two stated goals, Charter changes and more/better “business friendly” candidates for the mayor’s replacement.
If I were involved (other than signing the petition) that’s what I’d be recommending.
P.S.
I’d also be praying that our “beloved” mayor depart this world peacefully in his sleep, but that wouldn’t be the Christian thing to pray for (but I could still wish it)
Seriously though, the Take Back Toledo would do well to cultivate and promote better candidates and work on that Charter than picking on a mayor who has run out of “mental ammo” at this late date. . .
February 7th, 2009 at 10:48 amHmmm, I thought GW Bush had the evil weather machine. Maybe he rents it out….
February 7th, 2009 at 11:08 amHT,
As an FYI, the TBT group was formed specifically for the recall effort. There was a separate PAC created for the Charter and candidate efforts (On Our Watch Toledo). It had to be done this way because of how PAC rules for contributions are written.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:00 pm