{"id":584,"date":"2013-09-21T09:08:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T13:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.townehouse.net\/phoenix\/?p=584"},"modified":"2013-09-21T09:08:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-21T13:08:34","slug":"silly-season-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=584","title":{"rendered":"Silly Season Is Here!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/political-horse-race-1-869562.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"585\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?attachment_id=585\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/political-horse-race-1-869562.jpg?fit=1300%2C1390&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1300,1390\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;(c) Cameronc | Dreamstime.com&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"http:\/\/www.dreamstime.com\/stock-photography-political-horse-race-1-image869562\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/political-horse-race-1-869562.jpg?fit=958%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-585\" style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;\" alt=\"Political Race\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/political-horse-race-1-869562-150x150.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/political-horse-race-1-869562.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/political-horse-race-1-869562.jpg?zoom=2&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/political-horse-race-1-869562.jpg?zoom=3&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>This November there will be both a mayoral and a council election. A few weeks back I saw my first political ad for the season. It was an ad for John Cranley and the entire add was dedicated to bashing his opponent, Roxanne Qualls. I hope this does not set the tone for the entire campaign. C&#8217;mom John. If you come out of the gate negative, the entire campaign is going to be negative. That gives Roxanne a leg up. Now she has the choice of either coming back at you with a negative ad, or she can take the high road. Of course, she did not. She retaliated with a message about Cranley&#8217;s ethics. In all fairness I have to admit, my research my be flawed. I do not know for sure which candidate drew first blood. But it does not really matter. They both jumped in with both feet to the political muck and mire.<\/span>\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Since we are in &#8220;silly season&#8221;, I decided to conduct an experiment to judge the social media acumen of the politicians. I went to each council member&#8217;s facebook page and submitted a friend request. Here are the results:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/council\/council-members\/council-member-charlie-winburn\/\" target=\"_blank\">Charlie Winburn<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/council\/council-members\/council-member-pamula-thomas\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pamela Thomas,<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/young\/\" target=\"_blank\">Wendell Young<\/a> all accepted my friend request within several days of my request.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/sittenfeld\/\" target=\"_blank\">P.G. Sittenfeld<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/seelbach\/\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Seelbach<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/simpson\/\" target=\"_blank\">Yvette Simpson<\/a>, \u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/quinlivan\/\" target=\"_blank\">Laure Quinlavn<\/a> have ignored my request. Laure was requested over four months ago. Since she was subject of a <a title=\"Budget Bludgeoning\" href=\"http:\/\/www.townehouse.net\/phoenix\/budget-bludgeoning\/\" target=\"_blank\">former blog<\/a> I felt it was only fair she be given adequate opportunity to see the blog and respond, should she so desire. I do not know if she saw the blog, but I do know she did not respond to either the content of the article nor to my friend request.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/council\/council-members\/council-member-christopher-smitherman\/\" target=\"_blank\">Christopher Smitherman<\/a> must be a real popular guy. When I attempted to friend him Face Book notified me that he had reached his 5,000 friend limit. I sent him a Face Book message notifying him that I made the attempt, but that was not responded to. I also sent him an email letting him know I could not friend him, and that he had not responded to my Face Book message, and that too was ignored. He may be popular but obviously not interested in what people have to say to him.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><a style=\"font-size: 13px;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cincinnati-oh.gov\/qualls\/\" target=\"_blank\">Roxanne Qualls<\/a><span style=\"font-size: small;\"> does not have a personal\u00a0<\/span>Facebook<span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u00a0page so it is not possible to submit a friend request. All you can do is &#8220;like&#8221; the page. The result of this is that if you &#8220;like&#8221; the page, anything she posts on her wall will show in your news feed, but anything you post on your wall will not appear in her page news feed. Kind of one way, don&#8217;t you think?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/johncranley.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">John Cranley<\/a>, though not a council member, is running for mayor so I submitted a friend request to him, and it was responded to in a few days.<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 13px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In all honesty, I do not have a dog in this fight. Only city residents can vote for mayor or council. That seems a little lopsided as the bulk of the people in the city are transient. That is, they come to the city to work, they come to the city to play, but they have no say in how the city is run. But that does not mean the transient population cannot express themselves. And I think we all should Tell the mayor and council members what you want for the city. You do not need to be a resident to express your opinion. To facilitate this, I have linked each council persons name to their home page on the City of Cincinnati Website. There you will find their email addresses and office phone numbers. Give them a call or send them an email and tell them what you think. Particularly Christopher Smithermen. See if he will respond to you.<\/p>\n<p>Those are my thoughts, what are yours?<\/p>\n<p>While you are here, please click on the Phoenix Like Icon on the right side of your screen and feel free to comment in the space provided below, or click on an icon to share with your favorite social media site. Please consider subscribing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This November there will be both a mayoral and a council election. A few weeks back I saw my first political ad for the season. It was an ad for John Cranley and the entire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_daextrevo_audio_file_creation_date":"","_daextrevo_text_to_speech":"","_daextrevo_document_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,21,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-opinion","category-political"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/THFI.png?fit=214%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":765,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=765","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":0},"title":"The People Have Spoken!","author":"Tom Lind","date":"November 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Tuesday was election day. The votes were all counted, the results are in. The people have spoken. What remains to be seen is, what are the people saying, and is anyone listening? The election this article is referring to is the Cincinnati Mayor, Council, and Issue 4 results. For\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Commentary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"ThePeopleHaveSpoken_WebImage","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/ThePeopleHaveSpoken_WebImage-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14451,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=14451","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":1},"title":"A State of Confusion","author":"Tom Lind","date":"March 3, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I am utterly perplexed by the current situation in our great nation. I fail to comprehend how it is possible that when a vast majority of citizens elect an individual and entrust them with office based on the promises made, it is acceptable for a minority to actively oppose the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=21"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/TH-03-03-25.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12203,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=12203","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":2},"title":"Inauguration Day &#8211; 2017","author":"Tom Lind","date":"January 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Today Mr. Donald Trump transits from being President Elect to President. \u00a0Inauguration Day is always a historical event in this country, and today is no different. \u00a0Unfortunately there are too many people who are simply sore losers. \u00a0There are too many people who are incapable of putting partisanship aside and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Opinion","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=21"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/washington1.jpg?fit=500%2C332&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12893,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=12893","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":3},"title":"Merry Every Day!","author":"Tom Lind","date":"December 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Christmas for 2019 has come and gone.\u00a0 Wow, that was quick.\u00a0 I know that some folks enjoy an extended Christmas season.\u00a0 Some based on their religious preferences enjoy the Christmas season on into the first week of January.\u00a0 But not at our house.\u00a0 The boss lady, who loves Christmas and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Commentary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/ChristmasTreeDown.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":745,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=745","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":4},"title":"Facebook and Politicians","author":"Tom Lind","date":"November 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"About a month ago I reported in this blog on the social media acumen of the currently seated City of Cincinnati Council members and the two mayoral candidates. The point was to demonstrate if those politicians were aware of the reach of social media, and were they inclined to use\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Commentary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"WebPolitics","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/WebPolitics-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":782,"url":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?p=782","url_meta":{"origin":584,"position":5},"title":"Traditions Lost","author":"Tom Lind","date":"November 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I for one am greatly disturbed by the way we as a society have turned the Christmas holiday season into a two month (or longer) buying and selling marathon. It seems that each year the Christmas ads appear earlier and earlier. This year it started before Halloween. That means two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Commentary&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/?cat=13"},"img":{"alt_text":"Christmas shopping","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/townehouse.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Christmas-Shopping-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p38YRh-9q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townehouse.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}