Hats off to Randy for providing Blount County with this forum.

From what I’ve been reading here bad guys run this county, the newspaper’s a rag and the opposition is pretty weak. Fair enough. Probably true on all counts. But that begs the question. How’d it get that way?

In my humble opinion democracy simply works. People tend to get the government they deserve.

Nobody stole the last county election. Jerry got elected without ballot stuffing or goons at the polls. Rag or not, the Daily Times has 20000+ Blount County subscribers (myself included). The organized opposition (Ravens, CAPPE, Democrats, etc.) are so self centered they rarely even talk with each other.

That’s not to say it’s gotta to be that way.

Show me 400 or 500 motivated Blount Countians who’ll donate 1 or 2 days a week through November 2010, who’ll donate a significant portion of their disposable income to partisan political races and are willing to boycott every last advertiser on every page of the Daily Times… show me that and we’ll turn this thing around !

You think I kid ? Let's look at what we're up against.

The Blount County Republican Party has 150 to 200 Executive Committee members who PAID to be part of their organization. 65 percent of Blount County voters consider themselves Republican. Half of those believe you go to hell for voting for a Democrat. The other half has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, our own version of the “Permanent Republican Majority”. Don’t kid yourself. These guys are well funded, very motivated and could really give a crap about what you and I think is fair.

It will take a lot of hard work by a lot of motivated people for a very long period of time just to level the playing field.

All that said.

I’d like to hear a few voices who can offer concrete practical ideas on how to change that status quo. We can not get to where we want to go by pouring our emotion through a computer terminal. We can not spend our time and energies dreaming up good ideas with no idea how to implement. In my opinion, you have to get to the streets. You have to engage the voters. You have to beg for money. You have to invest your time. You have to commit to governance.

How can we expect hundreds of Blount County residents to engage in this type of personal sacrifice if we're not willing to do the same ?

Wild Blue Sky