{"id":21233,"date":"2017-04-24T14:40:07","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T14:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21233"},"modified":"2017-04-24T14:40:07","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T14:40:07","slug":"negativity-rearing-its-head-down-the-stretch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=21233","title":{"rendered":"Negativity rearing its head down the stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Amarillo’s municipal election campaign never figured to be one conducted\u00a0entirely with sweetness and warm-and-fuzzy expressions of grand visions for the city’s future.<\/p>\n

There’s been some negativity\u00a0expressed of late.<\/p>\n

Moreover, I’ve heard a bit of grumbling from some residents who dislike what they’re hearing.<\/p>\n

Let’s hold on.<\/p>\n

What I’m hearing so far hasn’t been of a destructive<\/em> nature. It has challenged — in a couple of instances — assertions made by a couple of incumbents; both\u00a0councilmen, Elisha Demerson and Mark Nair, have responded to the challenges.<\/p>\n

Amarillo Matters enters the fray<\/a><\/p>\n

The political action committee formed to help shape the discussion has decided to weigh in. It has endorsed a slate of candidates, calling for an entirely new City Council to be elected on May 6.<\/p>\n

There’s been some push back against some of the recommended candidates. Again, it’s nothing to cause extreme angst and anxiety, although I’ve learned over the past two-plus decades living in Amarillo that the community often doesn’t respond well to any sort of negativity when it involves our friends, neighbors, fellow church attendees and parents of children who attend school together.<\/p>\n

My hope is that this election produces a voter turnout that far exceeds the norm for our municipal campaigns. The way I see it, voters respond to negativity. It’s not an indictment, per se, of this community; I merely am stating what I believe to be an obvious trait among red-blooded American voters.<\/p>\n

I still like the slate of candidates that Amarillo Matters recommends. I continue to endorse their general outlook and the approach they bring to City Hall governance.<\/p>\n

As for some of the negative stuff that’s starting to get a bit of traction, that’s, too, is the longstanding nature of American politics — even at the local level.<\/p>\n

Even in Amarillo, Texas.<\/p>\n

Early voting begins today. Per my usual practice, I intend to wait for Election Day to cast my ballot. One never knows what could erupt down the stretch.<\/p>\n\n

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Amarillo’s municipal election campaign never figured to be one conducted\u00a0entirely with sweetness and warm-and-fuzzy expressions of grand visions for the city’s future. There’s been some negativity\u00a0expressed of late. Moreover, I’ve heard a bit of grumbling from some residents who dislike what they’re hearing. Let’s hold on. What I’m hearing so far hasn’t been of a … Continue reading Negativity rearing its head down the stretch<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[288,290,6892,5583],"class_list":["post-21233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-amarillo-matters","tag-municipal-elections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21234,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21233\/revisions\/21234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}