Okay they came knocking to our doors last Spring asking us to vote for them, unlike most people out there who would just politely take their buff and tell them 'Yes I will give you my number one' I decided to actually listen to their petitioning. With the exception of one or two candidates, I asked each candidate who called to the door a simple question which was 'why should I vote for you?' I felt this was a fair question, if they asked me to vote for them, I should be at least entitled to ask the question why. I judged the calibre of the candidate on how eloquently they answered this question. Surely they would have the answer to this simple straight-forward question well rehearsed. How wrong I was. Their lack of preparation was appalling. One guy just kept repeating 'Track record my track record, just my track record and that is it'. He was starting to sound like an old worn out record to me. One other guy, who nearly fainted when I asked the question got quite defensive stuttered 'because I don't bullshit others do but I don't bullshit and that is why you should vote for me' One other guy seemed not to want to meet the electorate and just annoyingly played Joe Dolan from a Transit like van and kept repeating 'time for change’ - so impressive, not! Another innovative gentleman went around in what appeared to be a funny looking wheelchair - he definitely did not get my sympathy vote. However, one or two candidates made an acceptable attempt, interestingly; the female candidates answered this question the best, although one female candidate who got elected answered this question by fixing her eyes on her colleague and never looked at me once while answering.
If I were a captain of Industry and was considering setting up shop in Carrick and had to meet with a delegation from our town council, would I be impressed with their reply if I asked 'why should I bring my business to Carrick-on-Suir?’ I think not!
Inspired by the above, I now rerun the Carrick-on-Suir local council election 2009 to determine your satisfaction rating with our councillors. Have they achieved what they promised? Would you vote for them again? Vote now!
Subscribe to RSS Feed