Thank You, Again, Mayor Johnson

Johnson for Mayor
    -- Mustard Street, December 23, 2010

Former Mayor Johnson Considers Mayoral Run
    -- WHAM-TV, January 10, 2011

We know better than to think there's any cause and effect here.   We're just pleased that there was someone out there who regarded the idea as highly as we do -- and that the person was Mayor Johnson!

Life, of course, is very different from the movies, where Gary Cooper rides into town and cleans things up by himself.   Yet every now and again there comes a person of high character and the ability to make a difference, who stands up to people trying to do wrong.   Such a moment is now and Bill Johnson is the man.

---

By the way, in our recent piece on the mayoral succession, we neglected a telltale sign.   It's yet another signal that Mr. Richards ands his aides have been acutely aware that he's on the wrong side of a Hatch Act problem that turns on his formal status at the moment:   whether he's Deputy Mayor, or Mayor in his own right.

It's his declining to appoint a Deputy Mayor.

Of course Mr. Richards won't appoint a Deputy Mayor just now.   He can't.

That's because until he's elected Mayor in a Special Election, or is appointed Mayor by City Counsel, the office of Deputy Mayor is already occupied -- by Mr. Richards himself, posturing to the contrary notwithstanding.

The big show made over not appointing anyone -- spun as an example of civic-minded frugality -- is what's known to those in the business as "making a virtue of necessity."