Even I ask myself why I post my column in the Chatham Community Board. After all, no one likes me, just ask Mr. Kleinbaum. Now not to put too fine a point on it, but as Chatham is a town of some four thousand people, Mr. Kleinbaum’s assertion — speaking as a trained data scientist — is statistically courageous. Data, evidence…not sure about the rest of you, but I’d want a lawyer who had a handle on the concept. Apparently the bar is lower here.
Of course, no one reads me either, which makes me kind of foolish. What is puzzling to me is how I am so often corrected by those who don’t read this column. Could it be that these naysayers are fibbing? Or is the fibbing more of a culture? In Chatham, I’m beginning to think it’s infrastructure.
Ms. Bowerman logged on to Facebook the other day. She tossed me a sort of odd compliment: appreciates my writing chops, but my facts are…what? Alternative ones? Kelly Conwayesque? From a woman defending Donal Collins, the irony has a certain perfume to it.
She claimed to have logged on because I invoked her name. Sounds spooky. I did say it three times in front of a mirror. Nothing happened. She claimed to be flattered that I compared her to Margaret Fuller. I’m not sure she saw the “lite” attached to it. I’m increasingly not sure she sees a lot of things. Please note I did offer to talk with her about her claims. She did not respond. Not surprised.
In any event, what she did share with me that stopped me in my tracks was just how wrong I was saying Donal became a Republican because it was convenient for him. No, it wasn’t an issue of convenience, nor was it personal gain. According to Ms. Bowerman, who openly says she is friends with Collins, he is a Democrat. You read that right. Donal Collins, that honest injun himself. The man who ran as a Republican, not once but twice, and won as such, is not such.
The man who lives with Abi Mesick, who constantly slams Democrats, is, it turns out, not what he claims to be. Does it matter that Donal Collins, the Democrat, was not chosen by the Democrats, yet claims via one of his proxies to be one? Is it honest to parade around town as a Republican to Republicans, asking for their votes, when in fact you are not what you claim to be? In most places this would be called something. In Chatham it is apparently called governance.
The rag-tag team of his supporters offers up his obsequiousness as a defense. The man is pleasant. He waves. He smiles. So does everyone who wants something from you. It doesn’t get much stranger, or much thinner.
Parties stand for something. No matter what side, there are tenets that matter to both groups. To team up with the other side to get into office is a symptom of the rot that the Wine Wars exposed. It is not about the people of Chatham. It is about one person: Collins. The rest of you all are just the backdrop for his ambitions.
It makes a person wonder: is the plummeting popularity of Trump and tribal politics informing Mr. Collins to once again switch sides? A man who has been a Republican when it suited him and a Democrat when it didn’t is not a man of conviction. He is a man of weather vanes.
So back to the question, why post my articles on the Chatham Community Board? Well, in part so we can all learn, not from me and my missives, but from Collins’ support group. He is, as Ms. Bowerman schooled me, not who he claims to be.
That’s some news, folks.
You can read the entire saga of the Wine Wars for free here
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