Kirkland calls out Woodland

I love political debate. 

Ever since the Chester Spirit came to town, the politicians finally found a place to share their platforms and opinions. They don’t share often, but now that election time is coming up, we should expect to hear a lot from them.

Since they don’t use this blog to communicate with you, I’ll take this space to give my opinions on their opinions. I encourage you to comment on my comments. 

This season’s political exchange was started by candidate Nolan Woodland who wrote a fluff piece editorial a couple weeks back on the great things the Chester republican party is doing.  I support fluff pieces because if you don’t promote your beliefs, no one else will. 

This week, State Representative Thaddeus Kirkland retorts with an editorial on his take of what Woodland wrote along with predictions of what will happen if the democrats take over city hall in the fall. 

Kirkland did a decent job of picking out Woodland’s fluff and offered valid criticisms of the city government’s absentee role with the school district. He also implies that city government is taking credit for development in the city that they had little or nothing to do with. From his perch as a State Rep., I imagine he knows what he’s talking about.

I only question Kirkland’s points about the ‘Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)’ presence in Chester. 

I sat in the room when President Obama’s team made their SC2 announcement in city council chambers, sitting right across the aisle from Kirkland. If body language is any indicator, Kirkland didn’t seem to know what was going on any more than I did.

As the city’s leading democrat, I would have thought that he would be directly involved in the process that qualified Chester to the Obama administration, but I don’t believe he had any input in their selection process. 

He certainly wasn’t asked to speak.  I don’t remember him chatting with any of the Obama folks, and he certainly didn’t get in any of the group photos. 

During the main presentation from the Small Business Administration’s Marie Johns, she kept speaking of the mayor’s vision, not Kirkland’s vision. 

I’m not sure what the mayor’s vision is or if he has communicated it with anyone other than the Obama team. 

Yet, the one thing that’s overwhelmingly obvious, as strange as it seems, is that it was the current republican administration that was responsible for getting the Obama team into Chester. Kudos to them!

For Kirkland to write that once John Linder and company becomes mayor…the Obama Team will be able to work with a team of leaders who know the importance of putting people and education first, seems more hopeful than anything based on fact.  

From what I saw that day, I question if the Obama Team even know who John Linder and company are since Linder wasn’t even in the room for the announcement.

Election season. You gotta love it.