Advertisement
| Don’t take your marbles and go home |
 |
 |
 |
View Comments
| Opinion Headlines |
| Written by Chris Mosley |
| Thursday, 04 February 2010 10:42 |
|
I am forty-one years old now, but I still remember like it was yesterday the day William Bell lost to Bernard Kincaid. All of us who were William’s supporters were stunned by the outcome because we felt as though we had a better candidate, a better organization, and more money to spend to beat Kincaid. The results, however, were much different and not only did Bernard, as many of us knew him, go on to win that night but he won another two times. I can’t tell you the exact emotions I felt the night Bernard Kincaid won other than utter disbelief. It was 10 years ago, and those raw emotions don’t readily come to the surface. I do, however, know that time has a way of healing all wounds, and since then I have had the chance to work on many elections, from Attorney Lee Loder’s ascension to the Birmingham City Council to Senator Barack Obama becoming President Barack Obama. From these experiences, I have learned 1) politics is a zero sum game where you understand clearly there will be a winner and a loser and 2) congratulating your opponent and your supporters is always proper and in order and then you move on. Fast forward until today, from all I have heard from my many, many friends, is they felt as though my candidate in this past Mayoral election ran a good race. He was a good man, but overwhelmingly the group said he had to overcome many obstacles to prove himself sincere to the community. They believed he could do a good job for Birmingham, but he should start by being a neighborhood association officer, a City councilperson, or maybe he should run for the County Commission first. I totally disagreed with their assessment; however, with those of my friends who expressed such sentiments, we agreed to be disagreeable. We did not get into shouting matches and I did not take my marbles and go home. I believed he represented the change in Birmingham we needed at this moment in time; however, the voters thought differently. The voters felt a great sense of leadership anxiety with Patrick Cooper and wanted William Bell. I accept the voters’ decision. What happened on January 19th is water under the bridge as far as I am concerned. William Bell won and Patrick Cooper lost. Politics is just that way, and there was bound to be a winner and a loser. I have been on both sides, and can only say winning feels much better than losing. Yet, I learned a lesson from Dr. Richard Arrington a long-time ago when I first entered into politics. He would quote, at those church-like meetings of the Jefferson County Citizens, Teddy Roosevelt’s, “Man In The Arena Speech,” where he would say, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” William Bell learned this lesson well. I have been fortunate to learn this political message the hard way – by being intimately involved in campaigning for many candidates. Yes, it hurts that Patrick Cooper lost; yet this is a participatory democracy and I ain’t going no where fast. I just hope to see you somewhere, at sometime, in the process because we have a lot of very important elections happening in 2010, which mean just as much, if not more, than the election of one individual to one seat in the Democratic process. |
17.77% 