Goldman Quotes Dylan... Has Our Vote!

So we have been watching the race for Richmond's next Mayor eagerly for the last few months. We even got the chance to show up at few of the Mayoral forums/debates. From the get go we quickly saw that there were three candidates that interested us; Jones, Pantele, and Goldman. The three have gone back in fourth in our minds as our choice, but it was not until Paul Goldman quoted Bob Dylan in his latest Blog Post that we knew who we wanted to support.

Admittedly Goldman quoting Dylan does not show up in many poll's as a desired qualification for a mayor, but we think it is pretty cool that an individual we support would up and quote one of our all time favorite Artists.

Before you go bananas telling us that we are shallow, calloused, yuppies who's since of irony is overpowering to the point of insanity let us state our process. We looked at the issues and pretty much everyone is saying the same things... better schools and less crime... great guys, W2G! So we had to dig deeper... Quickly we decided that Pantele was too much of a Dork to vote for... plus we get the sinking feeling that Pantele would do little to change the broken parts of the City Machine... I mean he has been in City Hall for a while now and we have not seen anything that says "Pantele worked hard to make things better for Richmond." We are sure he tired, but he has failed to this point so...thanks, but no thanks (however, if the run off comes down to Big P and someone other than Goldman we may revisit him as the lesser of two evils candidate.)

Dwight Jones has the smoothest, sexiest voice of any politician we have ever heard. It is not quite Barry White deep, but none the less we think we could put on a Dwight Jones sermon to get the ole' wives in their respective moods. On top of that, the man can preach! We got saved three times just listening to him speak during the South Side Forum. So we know that whatever he does he will sound good doing it, but we have to ask the question Mr. Jones; what are you doing to reach out to us? We heard you talk about better schools... we agree better schools are a good thing, but we don't have kids... just dogs. We heard you talk about Battery Park, but we don't live in Battery Park. We heard you talk about bringing the City together, but then our neighbors got visits from your team... they even got signs for their yards and everything, but we apparently were not home, because we have yet to see you or your team in person. Once again... thanks, but no thanks.

Paul Goldman may be crazy... we are not sure about that... and we will admit that the Yankee accent and bad haircut are not very appealing. But the guy blogs like a mad man... getting that much insight into a candidates thoughts is a plus... if not a little annoying. The man has some revolutionary ideas... shut down Carytown to car traffic (we have lived in Europe and have seen this very idea in action so it was not that crazy to us) Cutting the Business tax to bring in business and with them JOBS! (With Renyolds and Wachovia on the way out this seems like a better and better idea, no?) He certainly has been in the game for a long enough time to have the credentials, but he seems to dream big enough to move Richmond out of its current under performing rut. Plus, we see him everywhere we go; City Hall, Greek Festival, South of the James Farmers Market. Honestly, we are a little worried that he may have cloned himself, but we will deal with that issue when we come to it. Finally, if all of this was not enough to convince us Goldman quotes Dylan! Sure, sure, we know that middle aged men quoting Dylan sounds a little cliche reformed hippieish, but we grew up in homes with reformed hippies so we are okay with that as well. Plus, we love Dylan! So as far as we are concerned let's go Goldman... Richmond's next Mayor.