Sheriff Evicts Insiders - The First Victory in the Cleansing of Jackson County Legislature

First, big kudos to Sheriff Mike Sharp, who has taken a stand against the literal insiders who have used courthouse access to unfairly gain early access to getting their name first on the ballots. In prior years, incumbents would use their courthouse passes to get in and file for themselves and friends while the hopes for reform sat outside in the cold.

Finally, Mike Sharp has put an end to that odious and unfair practice. Using his role as chief of security for the courthouse, he decided to take names at the courthouse door starting at 5:00 yesterday.

I had written about the unfairness of the prior system before, when Theresa Garza Ruiz proposed a simple and fair fix to the insider game. Greg Grounds joined her in seeking to eliminate cronyism.

Heny Rizzo voted for special insider privileges.

Dan Tarwater voted for special insider privileges.

James Tindall voted for special insider privileges.

Scott Burnett voted for special insider privileges.

Dennis Waits voted for special insider privileges.

Fred Arbanas voted for special insider privileges.

Bob Spence voted for special insider privileges.

Not surprisingly, even under the new system, Henry Rizzo managed to find a way to use his position to engage in petty cheating. He loathes Theresa Garza Ruiz because she has consistently sought to bring openness and reform to the Jackson County legislature. With that in mind, he let Ruiz's opponent cut in line to get his name on the ballot before her.

Can you believe that? Most people grow out of that kind of behavior in 1st grade, but Henry Rizzo and his friend apparently did not.

The Star's Sloppy Endorsements

I was early to make my endorsements during this cycle because. as I wrote then, "I'd hate for anyone to think that the Star's analysis influences me . . ." At the time I wrote that, though, I had no idea how sloppy the Star would be.

I'm not complaining about endorsing candidates other than the ones I support. I'm complaining of my disappointment with their ability to get facts straight and arguments lined up correctly. This season, the Star has erased its own credibility.

In the Sheriff's race, the Star had nice things to say about my favorite candidate, John Bullard, but wound up endorsing Mike Sharp. That's fine with me - reasonable minds can differ as to who is the superior candidate. But what made their endorsement laughable was their mistaken reasoning - the headline of their endorsement noted "Sheriff jobs require experience, solid administrative skills" and the text of their endorsement claimed "Mike Sharp has impressive credentials for the sheriff’s job, given his combination of service with the Kansas City Police Department and years of experience as a businessman". That all sounds pretty reasonable, but Mike Sharp has hardly any relevant experience! What happened was that the Star took at face value Sharp's claim that he has twenty something years of experience as a reserve officer, but, in fact, that's apples compared to oranges. That's like claiming that a kid who received a pair of pilot's wings on his or her first plane trip a dozen years ago has 12 years of experience as a pilot. It's absolutely fine to endorse Mike Sharp if you like him personally, or you think he will bring fresh perspective, or whatever, but it's just plain sloppy and embarrassing to endorse him because he has experience. He doesn't, and the Star should have realized that.

As sloppy as that endorsement was, though, they really shocked me with their endorsement of Jeff Harris - even when we agree that Jeff Harris is the best candidate! Clearly they reached the right result, but they gave him an edge "based on his leadership role [in the General Assembly] and prosecutorial experience". There are two things wrong with that statement - in an Attorney General race, prosecutorial experience is only important for those who do not know what the AG's office really does, and, second, Jeff Harris doesn't really have much irrelevant prosecutorial experience. Instead, Jeff Harris has experience as a division leader in the Attorney General's office itself - much better, and much more relevant!

Over the past several years, political insiders have been chattering about how fewer and fewer people pay attention to the Star's endorsements. Is it because of the rise of blogs, is it because of declining circulation, or some other reason?

I suspect the reason fewer people are paying attention to the Star's endorsements is because the Star is not paying attention when they are making them.