A Welcome Addition

The Memphis Flyer -- APRIL 26, 2006

This being an election season, the same old power brokers are out in force.

As always, there is this or that slate of candidates sponsored by this or that self-interested individual or political organization preoccupied more with their own power or prerogatives than with the greater social good.

Well, help is on the way. A new group, the Coalition for a Better Memphis, came into being last year under the organizational aegis of Calvin Anderson of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Tennessee and Dean Deyo of the Leadership Academy.

Comprising an impressive variety of local civic organizations, the coalition undertook through a series of questionnaires and interviews to rate candidates in the following categories: Vision; Qualifications and Experience; Ability to Implement Initiatives; Integrity and Ethics in Government; the County Debt; and Education Finance.

Without attempting to evaluate the evaluators and making allowances for the fact that not all candidates cooperated with the process, we suggest that potential voters in the May 2nd countywide primaries could do worse than consult the coalition's numerical ratings of candidates at BetterMemphis.org.

There are no endorsements, but the coalition's rankings are in-depth, apparently conscientiously determined, and therefore helpful to any voter willing to make up his own mind.

At a time when the trend in local elections is for lower and lower turnouts, partly because of voter cynicism about politics as usual, the coalition and its efforts constitute a welcome addition.