The Local Independent

By Patrick Brodrick

            (Spoiler Alert: If you honestly think that you don’t know who the Times & Courier will be endorsing for selectmen in the next several weeks you should probably stop reading now.)

            With only five weeks until the culmination of this year’s vicious and vile campaign season the traditional traces of a pending election have started sprouting up all over town – candidate’s signs adorn lawns, the back-alley bartering of favors in exchange for votes has begun, and political junkies can be found huddled in doorways and behind dumpsters, track marks running up and down both arms, tweaking as they try to open a collapsed vein to mainline the latest public opinions.

            And as this hell-bent, runaway train continues to barrel down the tracks, I’ve been asked by a number of people if I have any plans on endorsing any of the candidates in this year’s election. The answer, simply, is no.

            Anyone that reads this blog should be able to make a fairly educated guess as to who I won’t be endorsing and/or voting for.

Fortunately for me, and I never miss an opportunity to point it out to my duped friends or anyone that’ll listen, I was one of the few people that didn’t vote for Selectmen Robert Pasquale Jr. or Joseph Notaro Jr., the two incumbents up for reelection this year, in their first bids for a seat on the board, so I’m sure as shit not going to vote for them this time around. I wouldn’t vote for either candidate to be a bath mat, never mind selectmen. For some reason I was able to see through both candidates’ bullshit veneer, and recognize the two politicos for what they truly are – a power-drunk duo with a complete lack of a moral compass, and an ill-tempered child’s inability to admit to their mistakes or see an issue from any side that doesn’t directly benefit them or their supporters.

Personally, I’ve always found the act of endorsing a candidate to be incredibly pretentious, but for voters that are looking to be led like lambs into the slaughterhouse when it comes time to head to the polls I’m sure the Times & Courier will offer its endorsements – an epic charade masquerading behind the guise of a bona-fide political process. And anyone that hasn’t been walking around wearing their ass as a hat for the last seven months should have the wherewithal to see the Times & Courier’s endorsements for what they truly are – political pandering.

            If you’re surprised when the T&C announces its endorsements of Pasquale and Notaro, make no mistake about it that’s who the paper will endorse, you need to get your head out of the sand.

            I’m sure in the endorsement you’ll see terms and phrases like “proven leadership,” “integrity,” “both candidates possess a deep understanding of issues facing the town,” or “experience as a community leader and someone who isn’t afraid to think outside the box,” but in my time covering the Board of Selectmen during the Notaro/Pasquale Regime, I’ve never seen any of those characteristics exhibited by either candidate.

Jesus, I’ve stepped in puddles with a deeper understanding of the issues facing this town, and the only leadership either candidate has exhibited is a willingness to be the first one to vote to raise taxes on residents. Notaro and Pasquale’s idea of thinking “outside the box” is to tax residents; apparently their problem-solving skills are limited to simply throwing enough taxpayer dollars at any problem to simply bury it without actually trying to solve it.

I’ll have more on what I believe to be the failings of the two incumbents as the election draws near, but this is really a commentary on the sad state the Times is in. I know there are some, many of them the same people that will be supporting Notaro and Pasquale come May, that will claim the paper is under better stewardship now than at any point in its history, which is absurd and illustrates how the paper has become a puppet for Pasquale and Notaro’s propaganda. Pick up the paper on any given week and you’ll see both politicians’ agenda regurgitated, verbatim; a contradictory viewpoint hardly ever expressed.

So in the next several weeks, when the Times & Courier announces its endorsements you’ll see Notaro and Pasquale’s names scrawled in blank ink across the page. Editor Michael Ballway has no choice now, like a good puppet he’ll follow the orders of the puppeteers; the only problem is when a local news organization decides to hop into bed with local politicians, it’s the voters that wind up getting screwed.