Jackie May
Last week’s primary elections were standard. People voted. Some candidates made it to the next round, and others drank heavily at their campaign headquarters. And while it would have been a wonderful thing to have the mind behind Rocky the Raccoon in charge of our city, I think all in all the elections turned out well.
For instance, we can now spend the weeks up to the general election following the excellent lead of ousted candidate Will Sandstrom by addressing Paul Soglin as “Soggy Sog.” Which sounds like a B-list early-’90s rapper, and I think we can all agree that city government would benefit from the addition of synthesizers, skanky hos and bling.
That aside, one set of results from the city primaries has me slightly mystified. People of District 5, I’d really like to know: Which of you voted for Tim Corver, and why? Are you his siblings or fellow cult members or what?
Tim Corver, as you may recall, is the guy who registered as a candidate for District 5 alder, then fell down a rabbit hole. He didn’t campaign. He didn’t attend debates. He didn’t return phone calls or consent to interviews. It’s quite possible he never actually existed and is the anagram alter ego of some wacky jokester. (Good one, Rev. Cromit!)
Despite being fictional, Tim Corver got 10.4 percent of the vote. In comparison, incumbent mayor Sue Bauman — who maybe didn’t do the best job of leading Madison but didn’t crash it into the sun or anything — got 11.5 percent.
Better the devil you don’t know than the devil you know, I guess. Well, almost as good the devil you don’t know. And I guess Madison could have had both devils at once. So, uh, never mind the aphorism.
I do have a theory about Corver supporters. I think they’re the kind of people who, when faced with a choice between the washer-dryer set and whatever’s behind Door No. 3, yell, “Door! Door! Woo-hoo!” At the carnival, they deliberately aim for the duck that will win them the mystery grab bag — which generally turns out to be a lunch bag with an assortment of stickers and a shiny pencil — even if they have a good chance at a teddy bear the size of Warwick Davis. They like blind dates better than regular ones.
In short, I think the people who voted for Corver, all 112 of them (minus his roommates, siblings and fellow cult members) are the kind of people who believe something wonderful is always hovering just out of sight, that the next day will be the day when everything changes, that Door No. 3 conceals a lifetime supply of chocolate truffles and a really kick-ass sailboat. “Maybe they fold up the grand piano really small so it fits in the bag,” Corver supporters say.
Possibly, if elected, Corver was supposed to burst into the City-County Building in full armor and boom, “From now on, things are going to be different around here.” He would then legalize marijuana, set up affordable light-rail transit, slash the budget and arrange for the addition of a unicorn preserve to the Vilas Zoo.
Oh yeah, and stop the war in Iraq, since the previous City Council simply wasn’t able to get the job done. I must say I’m disappointed; I fully expected this:
Announcer: “We now interrupt this program for a statement from the president of the United States.”
Bush: “Due to the efforts of the City Council of the small capital of one of those big flat states, I have decidulated to haltize the warification in Iraq. France and Germany couldn’t change my mind, but Madison, Wisconsin, did.”
But that’s another column entirely (actually many columns, none of them mine). Perhaps Corver should have been elected. I would have liked to see him make it through the primaries, if nothing else so he could tell us why he registered as a candidate.
Come to think of it, if I lived in District 5, sheer curiosity just might have led me to become Corver supporter No. 113.
Maybe the Mystery Grab Bag platform isn’t such a bad idea after all.
Jackie May ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in English.
