TESTIFY!!

It occurred to me, perhaps much too late, that this upcoming Hamilton municipal election is unlike any other in which I have participated.  There is actually a candidate that I believe should have the job.  Not just a candidate I think is better than the rest, or is the one whom I can tolerate the most, or is the one whom I am least repulsed by.  No.  I actually think that Brian McHattie would make a good mayor.  Everything I’ve heard, witnessed, or read about the guy suggests to me that he is hard working, ethical, consensus building, and is not driven by his ego; he also has some grip on what I believe is the emerging new identity of this city.  

I can’t remember actually wanting someone to be mayor before.

What do you do with such a feeling?  Up until now, I have maintained my habit of being both silent and modest with my political beliefs, and have let this campaign drift along, fretting when I hear the polls, comforting myself when I see the lawn signs, but that’s about it.  It’s wrong.  I should be more alert to how rare it is to actually have faith in a political candidate.  It’s an event like a junebug emerging from its seventeen-year underground gestation, or a solar eclipse.   So unusual it needs special attention.

I also have this growing suspicion that there are lots of people in this city who harbour similar feelings.  Good, modest people who are bound by similar discretion and entrenched habits of remaining clear of the political fray.  People who right now wrestle uncomfortably, like a pubescent teen, terrified and aroused with strange new municipal convictions they’ve neither invited nor experienced, hesitant to do anything because they know it will only come out awkward.  Lord knows that's how it is with me.

I know there is just shy of two weeks before the vote; so yeah, I know I've left it too late.  But I can’t help wondering what would happen if all us people who normally clamp down on their municipal passions, just started talking, or posting, and making public their opinions.   What if there was big messy surge of political fervour these last two weeks?  How awesomely would that put a charge in Hamilton’s psychic cosmos?  

To ease my conscience therefore, to make one slight step towards citizenship, I will now awkwardly attempt to go beyond the work currently being done by my lawn sign.  I will now testify:

Go McHattie! Go Strong into the Fray! I am still too timid to be an official part of your campaign, but that is beside the point!  I believe in you!

Who’s with me?