Elections are supposed to be about choices, and in 2008 voters have the opportunity to exercise their preferences in all of the thorniest issues of choice – race, gender, religion, abortion, governing experience, socialism, national security and economic security. We can elect our first black president or our first female president.
We can choose from five candidates with absolutely no executive experience. We can decide whether we want a president or a preacher. We can decide whether Mormonism is a Christian religion or a cult. We can decide that honesty is no longer important and elect a candidate whose campaign team includes two convicted criminals.
We can vote for a candidate whose ideas seem completely nutty but who has been supported hundreds of times by our own U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. We have never had such freedom of choice.
On the local scene, only one of the critical school board seats is being contested – that for the 5th District. Karen Carson seeks re-election based on her leadership as chairwoman of the school board. After ousting former superintendent Charles Lindsey without good reason and at a cost of $400,000 in February 2007, Carson said a change in leadership was required and that Lindsey’s replacement would have to help the school board define its goals, measure them and help achieve them.
In other words, she wanted someone who could show the school board how to do its job. Her concern for the schools was so great that a search for a new superintendent did not even begin until almost the end of the year.
She did, however, lead a trip to China at taxpayer expense, ostensibly to decide whether Chinese should be taught in Knoxville schools. That is not leadership; that is self-indulgence. Carson has not earned the re-election she is seeking.
Vote for Laurie Alford for the school board and hope for better results.
John P. Shanley
Knoxville
