SIMPLY INCREDIBLE, NO?

UPDATE:  Sunday, April 26th at 5:54 p.m.

A reader comment: (an extract)

Dear Martin, 

[E]njoyed your piece on the Mayors race in Canton this past Friday.  

The people are really between a rock and a hard place when it comes to making a choice.  

Do you vote for a ... whose only interest is his own or do you vote for a janitor who wants to be the Chief Executive Officer.

I have faced bad choices before but nothing this daunting.  

If you'll excuse the vernacular, it doesn't matter who is elected Mayor of the city of Canton, the people are SCREWED. 

... .

ORIGINAL BLOG

Yours truly is old enough to have watched the Dukakis for President ad in which Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was seeming pictured "joyriding" a tank.

Here a LINK to History.com which features the Dukakis ad.

Even Democrats laughed, laughed and laughed some more on viewing the ad.

The narrative on History.com claims that the ad destroyed the Dukakis campaign.

Perhaps a more descriptor is that the ad was viewed by many of us as silly and to say it again laughable.

Just like the series of photos of Canton mayoral candidate Kim Perez manning a brush clearing machine which his campaign as posted on the campaign Facebook site.

Who thinks that Perez if elected mayor is going to be clearing brush, filling potholes, demolishing abandoned housing and chasing down criminals?

Last week he was pictured on a backhoe clearing brush.

What will be in the week leading up to the May 5th primary election?

How about Candidate Perez pictured filling pot holes?

Why potholes?

Because if he can convince Cantonians that he will be "Pothole Perez" he just might become mayor. That's how frustrated Cantonians are with the condition of their streets and roads.

Kim Perez does have a history many, many, years ago (in fact, in the era of the Dukakis ad) of being a factory worker.

But after he got elected as a Canton councilman, it appears that he knew he had discovered "the gravy train" as he in short order became a career politician beginning with his election as a Canton councilman in 1988 which became solidified when elected Canton auditor in 1994.

He went on to become Stark County's auditor (2004) and when hard "political" times - perhaps undeserved - intervened with his defeat as county auditor by Republican Alan Harold is 2010, he found "a soft landing place" as Canton's treasurer in the 2013 general election.

And now he wants to be mayor.

For in his own mind being treasurer is just not big enough a job for a man of Perez's talents.

Mayor William J. Healy, Jr. in a hardhat?

You've got to be kidding, no?

But there he is "bigger than life" on his website playing the role of someone who relates to the average "working with their hands" Cantonians.

This New York University Stern School of Business graduate is much too talented in his own mind as "a first rate mind" directing corporations (he says he was a successful businessman in the New York area in his former life), setting policy for Ohioans (as a state representative in the Ohio General Assembly) and as mayor of Canton (first elected in 2007) to be doing manual labor.

But he has had his own Dukakis and Perez moments.

Who can forget the story about his chasing down a motorist as if he was the equivalent of a hard working day-in, day-out Canton policeman.

All of this stuff in incredible, silly and laughable.

But it is what politicians do.

And as long as Canton has the likes of Healy and Perez as the candidates for mayor, it will continue to be a failing city.

While the SCPR would not count Perez out, the odds are against him defeating incumbent Healy.

However, The Report is of the mind that should Perez defeat Healy,  Cantonians will not notice a betterment of the city.

These two are really made of the same cloth (i.e. career politicians looking after their personal political welfare) and so Cantonians' choice is one of "tweedle dee" and "tweedle dum" and - to repeat - no matter whom gets elected, Canton is in for more despair and tough times.

Only when a new generation of leaders are contesting for the mayoralty of Canton will Cantonians have reason for hope of a better future.