MR. CORNBROOKS: OPEN YOUR EYES!

The Daily Times recently published commentary by Salisbury attorney Ernest Cornbrooks on the quality of candidates running for local office this year. He finds them to be a pitiful lot of “career politicians,” which he apparently considers lower in esteem than even lawyers, and “those who want power and control.” He claims that there are few exceptions, but does not identify anyone by name.

Perhaps he is not aware of the candidacy of Michael James, Joseph Ollinger, Matt Maciarello, the late Sam Vincent, Bob Culver, Matt Holloway, David Goslee, John Baker, Tom Taylor, David Cowall, Seth Mitchell and John Phoebus, to name some of those seeking office who have never held one. And there are those who have but hardly are “career politicians”, such as John Cannon, Bob Caldwell, Mike Lewis, Joe Holloway, Gail Bartkovich, and Stevie Prettyman, among others.

Mr. Cornbrooks reiterates, as “best advice”, old and trite put downs of the citizens who run for and serve in public office, which he attributes to local luminaries now deceased, but which have been in the public domain for decades if not a century or longer. Those are followed by his sly assertion that candidates who prevail in the election process “probably have character flaws which disqualify them from holding the offices they seek.”

He concludes by suggesting several reasons why “we don’t have higher quality candidates” without mentioning the character assassination that they get from persons such as Mr. Cornbrooks himself, who seems to relish in trashing those who run for or hold a local office by his rhetorical invective and innuendo that the Daily Times also appears to relish.

We have recently interviewed many of the local candidates and find them to be public-spirited and motivated to serve the public interest. We invite Mr. Cornbrooks to watch those proceedings, which are and will continue to be posted on this blog. If he is too busy writing rants and tirades about the current candidates to do that, perhaps he could discuss in the Daily Times the faults or “character flaws” that he finds in those candidates named above, for starters, and tell the public which of them wants or craves “power and control”.