In which I lead a round of cheers for......Wyatt Bunker?????

I am just as shocked as you, my friends.  I have been opposed to this person holding office, well, ever since he has HELD office.  I now admit freely that I took pictures used in a TV spot for EC Jones when Mr. Bunker ran for a City Council position from a storage space on Highway 64.  Mr. Bunker lost that race, but was elected to other offices, including the one he is vacating on the County Commission and the one he is moving to as the newly-elected Mayor of Lakeland.

So, why, pray tell, am I leading hosannas for someone whose politics I find abhorrent 99.9% of the time?  Because only he, among all elected Republicans in Shelby County, realizes the damage that Shelby County Elections Administrator Richard Holden is doing to the elective process, and secondarily, to the image of the Shelby County Republican Party.  On his way out the County Commission door to Lakeland, Mr. Bunker is trying to get a VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE from the Commission in the abilities of Mr. Holden as Administrator.

One can speculate at will as to Commissioner/Mayor Bunker's motives all you want, but I salute him for doing what no other Republican has had the guts to do: recognize the absolute mess that Holden has made of the Election Commission, resulting in a lack of confidence that they can hold an election free of doubt and controversy.

Of course, getting the SCEC to do something about Holden is another matter entirely.  Election Commissioner Dee Nollner, per the linked Jackson Baker article above, has attacked Bunker and defended the indefensible Holden, leading Bunker to suggest that Nollner has "drunk the Kool-Aid".  One expects in an Election Commission populated by three Republicans and two Democrats that the GOP will receive the benefit of the doubt.  However, when the Commission has been shown to be downright incompetent and inept, and the SCEC ignores its Democratic members and does what it wants, that does NOT provide confidence to the public that they know what they are doing or that we will have safe, secure and accurate elections.

For whatever reason Commissioner/Mayor Bunker is doing this, I still salute him for his actions, because this needs to happen, and YESTERDAY, if possible.