A Worthwhile Read

Below is a letter to the editor that appeared in yesterday's Journal-Inquirer. It requires no additional commentary from me.

Grand Old Parallelism

I cannot help but notice the strong resemblance between local and national Republican politicians. Both groups have reinvented the English language by consistently distorting the truth.

Our minority party in Manchester tells us how, if elected, it will reduce taxes. It is difficult to determine how because our Republicans so often "flip-flop." They learned this from George W. Bush, who often has promised to reduce taxes and has created the largest deficit in U.S. history, standing monumental at $9.8 trillion.

Increasing local taxes is a serious concern of the Democrats, who have prudently agreed to increase taxes only to meet the ever-growing needs of our changing community.

Local Republicans invited the Democrats to run a "clean campaign" - only after smearing Democratic directors on their honesty, competency, and integrity for years.

Several years ago they established their "Contract with Manchester," like Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America." Republicans wanted to fire our town's top administrators and replace our local government with some form of a strong mayor government.

Our Republican directors now wish to establish a "Covenant with Manchester." This covenant includes a strong mayor, so loosely defined that the mayor could end up appointing department heads and doing the same firing of administrators Republicans pledged to do several years ago.

A "Covenant with Manchester" is a prescription for failure for our government. Every two years voters determine if the Board of Directors and Board of Education have been accountable. To replace this two-party system with a nonpartisan election destroys the accountability they seek.

Manchester's Democratic Party is far from perfect, and needs to continue to improve on its hard work and straight talk. I urge Democrats and independents to vote on behalf of Democrats for the Board of Directors and Board of Education. Our voters are intelligent, capable people who do not need more distortions, lies, and flip-flopping.

Richard A. Cormier
Manchester
(Posted with the permission of the author)