Kumbaya? That Paul Harvey...

Our Village special Commission election is the week after next, and Rafael Ciordia has made a suggestion to me.  Perhaps it was a request.  Rafael said he "hope[d] to catch [me] doing a random act of kindness come 1/4/20."  I'm making two assumptions here.  One assumption is that he meant 1/7/20, and the other is that the "random act of kindness" he had in mind is that I vote for him.

On the surface of it, Rafael's suggestion seems as if it could be friendly and inclusive, and meant to forge a nice connection between me and him.  He's running for Commission, and I'm welcome to get right on the Rafael Ciordia bandwagon.  If that's not Kumbaya...

But here's the problem.  Three people are running for two seats, and Village voters are only allowed to vote for two candidates.  For one thing, and most conspicuously, I've already chosen two candidates whom I support.  Their campaign signs are in the swale in front of my house, and Rafael's isn't one of them.  So, if Rafael has in his mind that I would change my own mind, and vote for him, then he's advocating that I withdraw my support from at least one of the candidates I already support.  What Rafael sees as an "act of kindness" toward him is an act of marked unkindness, and even betrayal, toward someone else.

And further, I didn't have to support the two candidates whose signs are in my yard.  I chose them.  And I chose them, because I decided they would be better Commissioners, and be better for the Village, than would Rafael.  It's my prerogative to make judgments and conclusions like that, and I made them.  So again, if I do the "act of kindness" toward Rafael that he suggests I might do, then I vote for someone who I think will represent the Village, and me, and all the rest of us, worse than the people I already chose.  The "act of kindness" Rafael suggests I do for him is an act of unkindness, and even sabotage, to the Village.

Is this what Rafael had in mind when he made his suggestion?  Is this seemingly friendly and inclusive idea of his really disruptive, destructive, and divisive?

The point is that everything in the world has various ways of looking at it.  Everything has pros and cons.  Rafael makes a big mistake if he thinks a good-natured suggestion like that I should vote for him is uncomplicated, or even, in any sense at all, the right thing to do.  I suppose that on the other hand, Rafael might have been sending me a subtle message, or even a threat.  He could have been telling me that I vote for him, and support him, and don't criticize him, or else.  If he wins a seat on the Commission, he won't be the only Commissioner who relates to me, and many of us, that way.

I've already said, repeatedly, that I like Rafael.  He's a nice, friendly, seemingly intelligent guy.  I'm less impressed with his judgment.  He makes a decision to run for Commission, on whatever basis he made that decision, without critically important local background (or any prior manifestation at all even of interest).  And he adopts understandings that are peculiar and not reality-based, like his conclusion that any Commissioners were ever threatened, or that a Commissioner would need extensive legal counsel on the basis of being criticized.  I've witnessed a number of Commissions, and I was on one.  Every Commission, and every Commissioner, gets criticized.  No one ever gets threatened.  And no one suddenly can't make a move without extensive consultation with whoever is the Village attorney.  This is all invented.  And Rafael swallows it, hook, line, and sinker.

Rafael is told a story, and it's a very quirky and unsupported one, which is not remotely true, and he doesn't fact check it.  He never learns what Paul Harvey called "the rest of the story."  He has no perspective, and he's not looking for one.  Rafael has told us repeatedly that he will compensate for his areas of knowledge deficiency by learning quickly.  Is this what he means?  He'll ask Tracy Truppman and Krishan Manners, and consider himself well-informed?  Yikes, Rafael!