"The Devil You Know is Better Than the Devil You Don't."

Elections are essentially a version of what people call a "zero sum game."  A vote for one person is a vote not given to his or her opponent.  A vote for implies a vote against, and voting has the simultaneous result of creating both.  Someone's victory means someone else's loss.

Sometimes, voters are very clear about whom, and what, they want.  They may not have to think for one second about the vote they want to make.  It's as if one candidate was for them all good, and the other all bad.  And if the preferred candidate has any imperfections, or the candidate not preferred has any remotely redeeming qualities, it doesn't matter.  The imperfections of one and the slightly redeeming qualities of the other are extremely minor overall in the eyes of the voter.  The preference is stark, and overpowering.  Sometimes.

But sometimes, the consideration is not as stark.  Sometimes, each candidate has noteworthy captivating qualities, and each has noteworthy flaws.  It can be hard to decide.  Or at other times, both candidates seem very flawed, and the voter will "hold [his/her] nose, and vote for..."

In 2016, we had the following situation: The incumbent (I), whom a number of voters no longer favored, was running for re-election.  Also running were Tracy Truppman, Jenny Johnson-Sardella, Will Tudor, and Dan Samaria.  The incumbent, to the extent that a number of us no longer favored him, was the devil we knew.  And he was such a devil to some of us that we chose the devils we didn't know instead.  If we knew anything about Dan Samaria, because he's around and active, then we chose the devils about whom we knew the very least.

This is certainly a strategy, as long as voters "know what they don't know."  And sometimes, these strategies work out well.  The problem after 2016 was that voters, including some of those who very actively promoted the unknown devils, soon enough figured out what they somehow had managed not to know at the outset.  And they weren't happy about it.  A number of them were very vocal, and publicly so, about how disappointed they were in the new devils.  They went so far as to say they made a mistake, and they regretted the confidence they had and the support they gave.

But they never said if in retrospect, they would conclude that the devil they knew would have been better than the devils they hadn't known.  And this is important.  On the one hand, they might say that the devil they knew was so terrible that it didn't matter who replaced him, or how bad and disappointing those people turned out to be.  In effect, the voters might say that they were in a no win situation, that they were somehow victims of inadequate choice (even though they themselves could have been choices, if they had chosen to run), that as bad as the devils they didn't know turned out to be, they were better than the known devil, and that they were comparatively innocent.

On the other hand, they might look back on 2016, realize they made a mistake, and try to figure out how they made the mistake.  They might wonder what they overlooked, and if there were any clues, or even advice given to them, that they ignored.  If they think they made a mistake, then by definition (the definition of a "mistake"), they would not like to make it again.  And they might have an opportunity either to make another mistake, or avoid one, in about three months from now.

I have no idea who is going to run for Commission on November 3.  Ginny O'Halpin and Dan Samaria will not, because they will be half way through active terms.  Their seats are not available for voters' consideration unless either or both of them resign.  I strongly suspect -- because she publicly said so -- that Roxy Ross is not running for re-election.  She has given no indication that she might change her mind.  Mac Kennedy might or might not run for re-election.  He hasn't said, and I don't know.  Frankly, I hope he does.  But as far as I know, this is undecided.  I have no idea what Will Tudor is doing on the Commission, especially now that his original patrons have quit, and I don't know what he was ever doing on the Commission.  He has contributed nothing, and his only apparent accomplishment is personal, and has nothing to do with the Village: he has stalled off having to follow the Village's Codes.  Because I have no idea what Will is doing on the Commission, or what he was ever doing there, but he ran twice, then I have no idea if he plans to run again.  I hope not, because the Village of Biscayne Park Commission exists to benefit the Village of Biscayne Park, not to benefit Will Tudor, but I really don't know.

I have heard other very weird rumblings, but they are not public, and I have not heard them from the subjects of them.  Another person who comes to mind is Rafael Ciordia, whom the voters rejected as an unknown possible devil.  But they had other choices then, and their other choices were Ginny O'Halpin and Mac Kennedy, both of whom won.  To the extent that Rafael's handicap included that he was not known, he has done nothing to remedy that deficiency.  I advised him, during his campaign and after he lost, to join a board, and create a Village profile for himself, but he did not take my advice.  So, for the same reason he ran before, he might run again.  He remains an unknown devil.  But if only three people run, and he's one of them, then he'll win.

We have to be very careful whom we elect, especially now.  We have created for ourselves very substantial problems because of the decision we made in 2016, and it turns out the decision we made several months ago hasn't helped us.  We've gone from self-focused, autocratic, and vengeful to incompetent.  We seem to reject anyone who would get us going in a better direction.  Unless it would be fair to say that we did not realize Ginny was incompetent, and that Dan would lose his adaptive focus.  And it might be fair to say that.  Hey, we're entitled to guess wrong.  As long as we try to have as much information as is possible for us to get, then we're doing the best we can.

So, let's wish ourselves luck in November, with whoever comes forward to run, and, as the sergeant from Hill Street Blues used to say, "let's be careful out there."