This presidential race has me wondering if my compass may be off just a bit when deciding what is and is not an important story.
The day after the final Trump-Clinton debate, the national press seemed most interested in “The Donald’s” refusal to accept the results of the presidential race and his decision to describe Hillary as a “nasty woman.” But exactly no one reported what I saw as the debate’s biggest takeaway moment — Trump’s admission that, if elected, he would appoint “pro-life” judges to the Supreme Court.
In fact, few stories I saw ever acknowledged the abortion discussion that took up the first 15 to 20 minutes of what was clearly the most substantive debate thus far. And Trump’s litmus test admission wasn’t all that huge of a shock given some of his recent comments on a woman’s right to choose.
Hearing a Republican presidential nominee effectively promise to give the religious right their judges was pretty astounding, and something that would ordinarily be a fatal mistake for any GOP candidate.
Equally as disturbing has been the decision by many media outlets to pass on reporting many of the recent Wikileaks revelations, that have unearthed some pretty atrocious stuff about the Democratic candidate, ones that would seem to validate some voter concerns about the Clintons’s alleged penchant for engaging in “pay to play” government.
No matter how you feel about Julian Assange’s tactics, I’ve always believed these types of back stories are good information for people to have before they go to the polls — assuming someone is actually willing to break them in wide circulation.
Fortunately for the Democrats, they are still running against Trump, whose personal narrative has provided much more fertile ground for reporters than the boring policy differences that will actually impact people’s lives. Fortunately, that clown car will stop as soon as one of these two is elected, a day that I believe can’t come soon enough for many of us.
As expected, the Greenfield Town Council last week passed a resolution opposing Ballot Question 2, but it did so very carefully.
Councilors made it clear during the debate — and in amended wording — that though they are not in favor of lifting the cap and allowing 12 new charters per year, they very much do support the efforts of the Four Rivers Charter School, which has been educating students in the Greenfield meadows since 2003.
“This is not about whether you support charter schools, but whether you support unlimited caps on them,” At-Large Councilor Mark Maloni said. “It is indeed possible to support charter schools, like Four Rivers, and this resolution.”
Councilors also made it clear that the resolution’s intent was to “send a message” to the governor, not to try to convince Greenfield residents to vote against the question, a subtle
Old friend Dan Eaton rang me up last week to express his dismay that Republican 2nd Franklin State Rep. Susannah Whipps Lee had not been given proper credit in recent coverage of the awarding of state money for new surveillance cameras at the French King Bridge.
“The bottom line is that Sen. (Stan) Rosenberg and Rep. (Paul) Mark had many years to make cameras on the bridge happen,” Eaton wrote. “Rep. Whipps Lee made this a priority during her first term. She personally lobbied the governor and DOT (Department of Transportation) for the funding, and in my opinion, deserves some credit for this bipartisan effort.”
Mark could not agree more.
“She absolutely did all of that,” Mark said. “It probably wouldn’t have gotten done without her.”
It does my centrist heart good to hear public officials of different parties taking up for each other. It restores my faith that there are still people in government willing to put doing the right thing above toeing the party line.
If only we had 535 more just like them.
Chris Collins, who worked in local radio in a number of capacities, has observed political life in Franklin County for years. He also is a former staff reporter for The Recorder and a Greenfield native.