06/10/2023
Polls will be opening next week. Some of you who supported me this past spring have jumped back into the political fray, doing what you can to help Brandon Sakbun and other democrats win their fall contests. Others of you have chosen not to get involved in the fall political campaigns, but will still make it to the polls to cast your vote. A few of you have decided not to vote for Mayor at all this fall, for reasons of spite or despair.
If you wish to honor the cause we were committed to in the spring, please do me one favor: Go to the polls and vote for Brandon Sakbun. If you want to look at it as a vote against Duke Bennett, that’s fine with me. But please, don’t stay home. That is what the people who resorted to dirty, illegal campaigning against me in the spring are hoping for. They know they can only continue to be in control in this community if there is an atmosphere of apathy and hopelessness. As we expected, those people who attacked me in the spring suddenly went quiet when it was time to support Candidate Sakbun in the fall. In fact, many of them are now openly supporting Duke Bennett.
I will grant you that we can’t be sure whether Brandon Sakbun will do a good job. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity, but we have no track record to judge. What we can be 100% certain of is that if Duke Bennett wins, he will continue to fail our community. We know for sure that once the election is over, he will quickly drop any effort to achieve the promises he is making right now. All we have to do is look at the last three campaign cycles for proof. How many times can he promise a new pool? How many more years can the next overpass project be 2 years away? How many more parks, trails, and transportation plans will he ignore once the election season is over? How many more years will he claim balanced budgets, and then come back to the Council before the year is over begging for more money after overspending his budget?
For those who are still angry about the tactics used in the spring election, I understand. I’ve struggled with that myself. In the end I believe those attacks came from people who were committed to maintaining the status quo in Terre Haute. If you want justice, then those people need to be driven out of power. For that process to begin, Duke Bennett has to go.
