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Stop the Place 3 Race, I Wanna Get Off! 

 Thu May 8, 3:30pm , 2008


Take a seat: I feel an outrage spell coming on!
I've been chiding myself for not writing anything up on the Jennifer Kim campaign's public safety conference/Randi Shade robocall counter-conference yesterday, despite my attendance. But it's the least I can do to muster any enthusiasm to riff on an increasingly ugly, petty race, characterized by ugly, petty issues.

The escalation of tension in Place 3 has been a thing to behold. I suppose it began with the dubious "Your Neighbor Lisa" robocall not exactly copped to, then admitted to, by the Kim campaign, accompanied by the mailer claiming Shade made promises to police and fire on executive pay and staffing increases, promising to "break the bank" or whatever. This in turn prompted a Monday press conference from the endorsing public safety unions, where Austin Police Association head George Vanederhule called the accusation "nothing short of an outright lie" – despite the APA's issuing a press release earlier citing Shade's support for "expanding the number of Austin patrol officers and EMS personnel" – which engendered yesterday's press conference by Kim campaign manager Elliott McFadden , who worked up the outrage, calling the remarks "intemperate, unprecedented, and uncalled for" – followed by another press conference, at which Shade campaign manager Mark Nathan trotted out the union heads to take umbrage with this yet again, and announce their own counter-complaint regarding the robocalls.

Personally, I've had enough of the outrage-o-rama for now, thank you very much.

 

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COMMENTS
2
 
Wells.. MN May 08, 2008 - 05:35 pm
I'm outraged by this blog post! It's not only outrageous, it's outrageously flabbergasting!


URIAH HEEP May 09, 2008 - 03:23 pm
Dirty politics in Austin? Impossible! An outrage!

It's all pretty tame softball, my old lady can beat up your old lady kind of playground antics.

It is hard as a journalist to get worked up over mud slinging among consultants. Now if it was candidate to candidate, scratching, hair pulling and slapping, then that would have been newsworthy. Austin needs a change at City Hall so I am voting for Randi Shade because she is the anti-Jennifer. At least she is more mature and better attuned to keeping Austin weird than J-Kim will ever be.





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