Good Ol' Boys

GOBGB : LeRoy - The Alternative Candidate

id you ever decide which commissioner’s seat you were gonna file for?” asked Bubba.

     “I never really gave it a thought beyond our first conversation”, LeRoy answered.

     LeRoy continued, “the way I understand it, if you file for one of the township seats, you have to live in that township. You can live anywhere in the county and file for what they call the ‘At Large’ seat.”

     Bubba laughed. “You are kiddin’ with me, right?”

     “Why do you ask that?” asked LeRoy.

     “Shoot, everybody knows that’s just a formality.” Bubba continued, “All you have to do is get yourself a post office box in the township you want to run in and claim that ya live there.”

     “Why would I want to claim I live in a Post office box?” asked LeRoy.

     “You see, HYPO-thetically speaking, we could have a commissioner who keeps a mailing address in this county but he may rest his head in Elizabeth City,” explained Bubba with a smile and a wink.

     “Don’t they check on where ya live?” asked a wide-eyed LeRoy.

     LeRoy piped up, “Well that ain’t right, that commissioner may as well be representin’ the old River City if he wants to live over there.”

     “Shoot, those ladies with the Election Board ain’t got no way of knowing. Do you think they have time to follow them fellas around?”

     LeRoy continued, “well I’m not sure about all of this, it sounds pretty darn deceptive. Do you know all this for a fact?”

     “Awe come on, you know I ain’t naming no names, you never know who may be listening in on us”, said Bubba while looking around quickly.

     Leroy had considered running for commissioner for a while, but then he shuffled the idea to the back of the stack and lost himself in the daily routine of hunting with his old pal Bubba.

     He thought to himself, perhaps he spent too much time with Bubba. He knew that if anyone would have been bothered by it, it would have been his wife, LaVerne. But nope, she hadn’t said a word, so LeRoy was content that he was balancing his busy social schedule pretty darn well.

     “I’ve got it!” exclaimed Bubba.

     Startled by the sudden commotion, LeRoy jumped, “What have you GOT?” he asked.

     “I know how you can win this election. And no one will ever see it comin’”, replied Bubba.

     “OK, tell me how you’re gonna get me elected.”

     “It’s easy”, replied Bubba, “we’ll run you right up the middle.”

     LeRoy scratched his head. “OK so when do I have to file?” Leroy had been reading the paper, and knew that most of the incumbents had already filed, and most of ‘em had somebody running against them, either in the primary election or later on in the big race.

     “That’s the beauty of it, you don’t have to file. We just need to get enough signatures to get you on the ballot in November as what Miss Kitty called an unaffiliated candidate’” said Bubba.

     LeRoy thought to himself, Bubba sure has done his research on this one. Leroy wondered how many phone calls he had made to Miss Kitty at the Election Board, pestering her for information on this rule or that rule.

     “Now Bubba, you know that we are both registered Democrats. How can we run as an Independent candidate with no party affiliation?” asked LeRoy.

     “No, No, No!” exclaimed Bubba, “It’s unaffiliated, not Independent.” Bubba continued, “there’s a big difference between unaffiliated and Independent.”
 LeRoy nodded and continued listening.

     “You see, the way I have it figured, you’ll run in the At Large race. You know the West Virginia Kid is gonna want to get back in there, as many times as he tried before and finally won. And ol’ Gene Gregory has been running since the Senator from Shawboro knocked him out in the last election. What we need is to get you on the ballot and run ya right up the middle! Split the vote like the old timers used to say.”

     Leroy humored Bubba, “ok so tell me how it works.”

     “How I see it, half the people in this county don’t care for that Martin fellow and the other half don’t want anything to do with good ol’ Gene. All we have to do is get them two halves together and we have us a whole! A great big pile of voters who want someone else - anyone else, for that matter. Two halves do make a whole, right?”

     LeRoy laughed, he didn’t have the heart or the time to explain the electoral math of that situation to his good friend.

     He patted Bubba on the back, “We’ll think about that, in the meantime let’s head over to Camden and see if we can’t round us up a Black Bear.”

     Bubba smiled big, the only thing he liked better than duck and small game hunting was bear hunting.

     “You get the truck and I’ll get the guns’, shouted Bubba while running off to the shed.

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