NONPARTISAN --- THE WORD'S JUST A BIG LIE

The Orlando Sentinel's resident liberal columnist Myriam Marquez --- one of the best in Central Florida, if you ask me --- made note of a political catfight recently settled between two so-called nonpartisan officials, Orange County Chairman Rich Crotty (Republican) and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer (Democrat) over the city's attempt to annex valuable property near the Orlando County Convention Centre. It's an old fashioned "who's the boss" syndrome at work, and Ms. Marquez ended her piece today with this:

Overlay all those dreams with the political battle over who's the boss and here we are, living the big lie. It's time to do away with nonpartisan local elections and let the Republicans and Democrats come out of the potholes.

She's perfectly right. Most of Polk County's constitutional offices have been nonpartisan for several years now, as are the School Board positions. And that's a big lie. Once again from her column:

Back in March 2003 I had high hopes for a stable marriage of the minds. I wrote that Crotty and Dyer, with their experience as state legislators who each served at times as part of the minority party -- the "Out Guys" in Tallahassee -- and had learned to compromise with the opposition, would work together for the greater good. But I also warned that the "nonpartisan" posts that each man held at the local level were more partisan and parochial than many people may realize.

It's so true, and a drum that I've been beating here for a long time. And besides, everyone gets to know who is the Republican, who is the Democrat, and who is independent. Not only that, but the political parties and their activists work hard (or as much as is permitted legally) to help their partisans get elected, even for positions that are actually "nonpartisan".

There is no way to really keep politics out of many of those offices; just the fact that they are elected make them political...that's the nature of the beast. So let's take the untrue veil of nonpartisanship from those offices.