Political Posturing
08/12/08 16:51 |Personal|Permalink
Here's something that honestly irks me: A while back, my city councilman (who's campaign materials I designed & created, and I voted for) made a political move on the council to push through a raise for the city police. Here's the catch - he knew full well the money for that raise wasn't in the budget for the city, but pushed it through the council anyway.

Why, you ask? My councilman knows that his base of voters would be in favor of such a raise - I mean, who doesn't think our public service officers aren't paid enough - and that his voters aren't exactly seeing eye to eye with the current Mayor.

Cue the Mayor: there isn't enough money in the budget - we'd love to give them a raise too, but the money simply isn't there. He then vetoes the proposal, keeping the city within budget, but now appearing to those uneducated on the matter as against giving fair pay to the public service officers.

So my councilman comes off looking like a hero, and has positioned himself for a mayoral bid in the future. This has been the plan all along - to further his own political career and play the political system to its fullest by manipulating public view on items so they put a favorable light on him.

I hate politics. All politics. I especially hate politics when it's really obvious to see it as a game being played by the people in it.
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