One of the reasons I have never run for public office (besides having little chance of winning because I'm too conservative for most liberals and too liberal for most conservatives) is because I don't want to have to walk around all the time dressed like a lawyer.
How come you can't wear a t-shirt and jeans in the state legislature?
Dan Melick is running for State Representative in an attempt to unseat incumbent Ellen Story of Amherst. However, to have a serious chance to do so he had to make the ultimate political fashion sacrifice by making his counterculture persona more mainstream. Here is Melick as he appeared in his last joyous moments of freakdom.
Here he is afterwards.
His braids however did not go to waste - they were donated to a charity called Wigs for Kids.
The candidate as he looks today, with an appearance even Rush Limbaugh could approve of.
Does Melick have a chance, even with his new cleancut image? Melick is running as an independent and there is also a Republican in the race, Amherst lawyer Dan Sandell. Incumbent Story is a Democrat. A lot will depend on how much the national "Throw the Bums Out" mood manifests itself in Amherst.
Voters may be in an anti-incumbent mood, but it is hard to see the Amherst electorate voting for a Republican. However, since Melick is a libertarian drug war critic who is otherwise pretty much a traditional liberal, they might find in Melick a suitable candidate to express their anti-establishment sentiments. If Melick gets enough such protest votes then who knows?
Despite the conventional wisdom that Ellen Story is unbeatable, Melick may win, ahem, by a hair!
In other political news, Tom Wesley, who is running to retire entrenched South Valley congressman Richard Neal, has some interesting new lawn signs dotting the region which focus more attention on Neal than himself!
Meanwhile Victor Davila took this picture yesterday of Neal's other challenger, Dr. Jay Fleitman, being interviewed at the Western Mass Republican picnic in West Springfield.
Things were lively in Northampton last night. Here a fiddler plays for change.
An acrobat twirls for the crowd.
Among those in the audience was musician and Valley Advocate writer Tom Sturm, pushing a carriage containing... .
His brand new baby boy!
Greg Saulmon of Republican/Masslive took this picture of Andrew VanWyngarden and Matthew Asti of the band MGMT performing at Mountain Park the other night.
To see all of Saulmon's shots click here.
MGMT is one of the few bands to do anything really original with psychedelia since Jerry Garcia died, and their appearance in Holyoke is being praised as the primo concert event of the summer season. Here's some snippits of it that have surfaced on YouTube.
5 comments:
Having run against Ellen Story almost 20 years ago as an Independent (W-A-Y back when they called it Independent rather than the stupid Unenrolled) in her debut campaign for Representative and garnering about four times the votes of the Republican (but less than half Ellen's total) I can assure you Mr. Melick stands zero chance of unseating her.
He can change his looks all he wants, but his skills as a public speaker are far from adaequate.
While I wouldn't call the look that was presented of me in the first photograph as representative of my look before I cut my hair (they were simply put into those braids as per donation requirements) I do appreciate the mention.
And Mr. Kelley, when I decided to run, I knew I was going up against an 18-year incumbent and a practicing defense attorney and thus was not likely to handily defeat them by virtue of oration skills alone. While history has shown that people tend to vote for exceptional public speakers I'm hoping that voters in Amherst and Granby will, in the end, vote for what's being said and not how it's being said.
Braids or no braids I'd vote for him. Time for new faces, new ideas at the State House.
You know Tommy, in 'Hamp, the gay and 'in recovery' thing should get you more than enough votes to be elected to something: you just need to structure your platform correctly.
I bet you wouldn't even need to dress like a lawyer; Bill Dwight wasn't a 'suit' when he was on the City Council.
You could bring in Karl Mayfield to play your inauguration gala...
Hell, I’d work on your campaign and I disagree with you about 60% of the time…
On Tom Wesley's sign, I think it is very effective. It's not your ususl, "Here's my name, vote for me" sign.
I have talked with Wesley and like what he has to say, I think maybe it is time to "Repeal Neal"
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