It's Time to Empty the Chamber Pot

What on earth is going on down there at the Chamber of Commerce? For the first time in its entire twenty years, they’ve voted to change their bylaws and endorse candidates in this upcoming local election. Why? If there’s one thing any businessperson knows, the bottom line doesn’t have a party affiliation. The last thing any business wants is to make things difficult with the very people you have to work with. And chances are that the next time you go to Town Hall, the person you’ll be talking to will be the one who didn’t get the endorsement. In fact, in a small town you can depend on it – there’s an election every two years, but a memory lasts a lifetime. Who wants to spend time apologizing and trying to make up for some misguided political intrigues?

And what’s going on here? It’s obvious who they’re going to endorse. A picture is worth a thousand words: look at the cover of the recent Chamber resource guide.  You know it – I’m sure it was by total coincidence that three weeks before the election it happened to get mailed to every single household in town. And just in case you didn’t get the point, guess whose campaign truck, plastered with ads, was the only one parked at the recent Chamber-sponsored Community Day?

So what’s going on? Why would they suddenly decide they have to jump into politics? And who exactly are “they”? It’s a twenty-one member Board, but from what I’ve heard, the President carried seventeen proxies in this vote. I wonder what the membership at large – who pay hundreds of dollars in annual dues – think about getting dragged into this quagmire.

They say they haven’t decided for sure. They’re going to wait until after the debate tonight. Maybe they won’t endorse at all. Yeah, right. But here’s a real problem: it would be way too obvious to do a party-line endorsement. Grace and Murphy are a given – after all, no one has been more relentlessly pro-development than Grace, with Murphy as dependable a second vote as Clarence Thomas is for Scalia. So that means they need to endorse a Dem for the other seat (sorry, Dorothy; the first time around, you’re expected to have to fall on your sword for the greater good). Forget Vishnu; he asks too many questions, knows too much about those pesky environmental issues that developers hate to have to deal with. That leaves Rich Campanaro.

As for highway, one of those who resigned in disgust at the whole idea of perverting the Chamber into a political organization was Dave Paganelli (so did Marie Klaus, who is the Republican Party treasurer. This crazy move has upset people across the spectrum). So Dave’s out. That leaves Tom Diana.

Perfect balance! Two from each party. Except it won’t work. Big surprise here: Campanaro and Diana wouldn’t stand for it for a minute. Endorsements work both ways, and no one of any real character would give their approval to this whole sordid adventure by accepting their seal of approval. Which at this point, frankly, would do more damage than good. Some handshakes you really just don’t need.