LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE CITY-COUNTY OBSERVER FROM LAURA BLACKBURN

1. LKB—There are more than 97,000 (Thousand) Registered Voters, only 20.70% got off the couch to vote, and Winnecke won with a vote total of 12,309, —Representing less than 14% of those eligible to vote.
   Apathy won the Election for Winnecke, –and the Couch Potatoes are reaping what they deserve.
   A 14% total of Eligible Voters win locally , does not exactly portray Winnecke as a force in State-wide Politics.

   • Would a higher voter turn out resulted in a different result? I doubt it. Would a Reiken win have fixed our problems? I doubt that also. It’s time for the parties to own that they need to field candidates that need to field candidates that inspire voters rather than cause electile disfunction.

     I made a thoughtful choice to sit out this election. There are people from both parties that would have inspired me get out and vote, but the choices we were given would have left me feeling like I needed a bath, and it was just to cold on election day night for me to want one.

     • IE, –I agree the low voter turnout reflected the poor quality of the candidates the local “Political Gangs” offered up more than anything. Evansville Politics is little more than a cesspool, so I can relate to a cold beer, and letting the world go by, rather than the weary some— voting for the lesser.
       I respect your choice.

2. Laura, Mayor Winnecke did not destroy the Vanderburgh County Democrat Party. They destroyed themselves by rejecting Rick Davis in 2011 in favor of trying to keep the machine alive by supporting The Winnecke campaign. Winnecke simply put himself in the right place to capitalize on the self inflicted implosion of the local Democrat machine. From a political perspective he played his cards perfectly.

   • Totally correct, Joe. Laura blames the mayor for the demise of his opposition party while not facing the reality of her party’s corruption that started with the 2010 election. When the Democrat Machine chose so many candidates for the general election without any primary input from it’s rank and file voters and followed up with the 2011 treason against Davis, they threw away the support of the body of Democrat voters. As you said, Winnecke simply had the luck of timing and position to be the recipient of the Democrat Party meltdown. To blame him is not admitting the truth.

   • I have some doubt about Winnecke’s card playing ability. I think his hand was picked for him and all he had to do was play it. I think he is still being fed cards by the same people. There seems to be a redistribution of wealth going on locally, but it is not from those who have, to those who have less. It is from those who have, to those who have more.

     • I am new here. I thought I was a republican. I should be happy. For two years I have seen no sign of the existence of a Democrat Party Organization. I question if there really ever was one.

     • I have observed that those in the dependent class seem to have one twenty dollar bill which they passaround among each other. One borrows twenty from another who borrowed it from another who borrowed it from another until it returns to the original owner, than the process starts over.

       That seems to be the methodology of the GOB network with favors and the city’s finances. Just keep moving the favors and money from one account to another. It must be some keynesian theory of the velocity of money. As long as there is flux, we have money to spend.

     • We’ll get a better look at his political skills if he tries to jump up in class. As long as he operates spoon fed in a protected venue it’s easy to look good. The local Democratic party did indeed give him the springboard he needed to escape a life of frontmanism. Can’t really blame him for letting that opportunism that had been roiling just under the façade bubble up. I’d say his rise, so far, has been Machiavellian but the circumstances of him winning his first term were very unique and not easily repeatable. Machiavelli spoke of broader political truths. After that, keeping your department heads happy, keeping influential Democrats pocketed, getting a favorable council elected and co-opting the only local print paper, while not always easy, isn’t rocket. The powers of incumbency are great and not all written down.

       I think he is fortunate to be where he is, maybe we’ll see otherwise if he hitches up to Pence and succeeds at another level. Maybe it was great political skill all along and in a few years we could be musing about his State of the Union Address. A valid question at that point would be why he continued to allow Haney’s plane to buzz the White House.

   • I really didn’t mean to dismiss the local Dems from blame for the situation they are now in. The people I named in the letter are all party to a special kind of corruption, cronyism, and nepotism. My point is that the Republican mayor is so openly keeping the Democratic Party on its back. In the past there was at least a thin veneer of each party being in control of itself.

     • The democrat party is exactly where it wants to be. Sure there are some loyal democrats who don’t like what is happening, but as I said, they have a republican mayor and for the matter the local republican party behaving like liberal tax and spend democrats. LKB, I appreciate your efforts, but you have been used.

   • I believe you can trace the woes of the City of Evansville further back:

     McDonald II, following a reasonably benign 3 term mayoral reign, decides to not stand for re-election. (Didn’the want to surpass his father.)

     This paves the way for His Ineptness, Russ “Cher” Lloyd, Jr. (Enough said although the City is still suffering from his antics.)

     Next up, the Dude (or Dud) from St. Phillips , IN,, “Let’s go deeper in debt and ignore the City’s infrastructure problems” Weinzapfel.

     This of course was followed by the current Commander-in-Chief, Lord Carol and his wife Lloyd W.

     Kind makes you wonder if McDonald II knew what was coming down the pike and why he bought that big condo in downtown Indy.

3. “Needless to say, the gentrification of the Fourth Ward is a priority of the Winnecke administration, regardless of what he and his wife, Realtor Carol McClintock, tell us. Home is where the money is, after all.”
   As a lifelong resident and forty year home owner in the Fourth Ward I do not think gentrification means the same to me as it does to you. The south side of the Fourth is a mess. It is Evansville’s little ghetto. I hear gunshots nightly. My home is worth a fraction of other homes in our town. I have been hearing about this come back gentrification since the eighties. You can not be the designated “affordable housing area” and be gentrified.

   • Stonedreamer,

     I question this term “gentrification”. I see it “My definition” in the fourth ward. The process takes the funding that is designated to help many in a “focus area” of many blocks and then further focuses it like a magnifying glass in the sunlight to stimulate and warm a small spot. In this case the small spot is Haney’s corner and you are under the magnifying glass but the normal sunlight that should hit you is directed to the High rent apartment complex, Dapper Pig, Local Barr, Starving artist etc. in the focused spot in the “focus area” As this spot warms up while freezing you out the magnifying glass is slowly raised to gentrify the entire area.

4. “On paper, we have a Republican Mayor and a City Council that has a 5 to 4 Democratic majority. It appears that we have a bipartisan balance among our elected leaders that should bode well for the public, but in reality we have a heavily Republican “rubber stamp” Council that will approve whatever the Mayor asks for.” (LKB)

   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

   Laura:

   What did we have when Weinzapfel was mayor? A democrat for mayor and an 8 to 1 democrat majority on the city council, or as you say, a “rubber stamp” council.

   So what is the constant in the two equations? Simple, the people who REALLY run things are the constant. How many times have I said that there are only two questions to ask about government proceedings:

   1. Who gets?

   2. Who pays?

   Follow number 1 if you want to find out who is running things in Evansville.

   • Perfect definition of Evansville politics, Press.

   • Nobody has studied this stuff, watchdogged local government or walked the walk longer than you. When you can distill it down to a couple of easily understood, albeit obvious, 2 word questions it deserves attention. In deference to being crisp and economical with words you needn’t have bothered to ask the answer to the second question, and didn’t. Very well and succinctly put.

   • Press,
     Exactly! And we all know who pays it!

5. If there is any error in your letter, it is that you assume there are political parties in Evansville. There is a Good Old Boy party of political elites who covey together and pass If anything we do not have a CC acting like republicans, but a mayor acting like tax and spend democrats. What would change if we had a stronger democrat party? If there is any “you got what you asked for” it is that liberals keep saying republicans should become more moderate. Well, how do you like your moderate republicans?

   The democrats lost their chance with people like me when they ran the one person I could not support more than Winnecke. The plea that we needed a woman as mayor falls short when it’s the wrong woman jus tlike it does with Hillary for president.

6. Kudos to Laura Blackburn for reaching to grab the bull by the horns.

   This is about CONNIE ROBINSON and Rick Davis. Little else.
   Nonetheless, that starts at #2.

   1. Maybe none of this is Faulkner’s fault. But I can’t figure out why he’s Chair, or involved at all. Clearly, failure resulted under his watch. This is not personal. If different results are an ambition, a new Chair, and a new direction, is in order.
   2. The curtain was torn down, entirely, when Connie Robinson endorsed the Republican Mayoral Candidate Lloyd Winnecke. Connie is responsible, and there is no one more responsible for the implosion. She may not have started it, but Connie validated it and made it apparently permanent. This, as much as ANYTHING else, is and will be Connie Robinson’s primary political legacy.
   3. I can’t figure out why LKB is hesitant to acknowledge #2 written above. (She’s likely to insist she IS doing that, but IF she is, LKB is poo-poo’ing that, big time.) LKB is too close, personally, to this situation to fully grab the bull by the horns and help here. LKB is reaching for the bulls horns, but her reluctance to acknowledge the centrality of Connie Robinson being the primary driver for the apparent permanent division of the Evansville Democrat Party means LKB can’t help here.
   4. Democrat for Mayor Rick Davis. Sit on the sidelines Ms. Robinson? Nope. Endorse the Republican? Really? Gonna do that? YES. Connie went to the crossroads and made a deal with the devil, and the legacy of that move is forever linked to this problem.
   5. There were others who also made that deal with the devil. Their doing so was a drop in the bucket to the significance of Connie Robinson doing it. When Connie did it…..it was over. This cannot be understated. It was over right then and there.

   I respect Evansville’s Connie Robinson’s right to do what she thinks is best for herself personally. No one person can deny someone else that right.
   But let’s be clear. THE standard bearer, THE authentic Democrat in the city, Connie Robinson, showed everyone else in the Democratic Party your legacy, your authenticity and your soul can be negotiated away.

Comments are closed.