In the cross hairs Sept. 16, 2012

 


The question is no longer “if” she is going after the mayor from the neighboring down, but “why” and on whose behalf.

Or is this personal? Some falling out with the neighboring mayor that has nothing to do with deadlines or insurance benefits.

One of the mayor’s former press people told me the mayor has a hierarchy of very protective and very jealous around him, who limit access to him, unlike the mayor of the town she covers elsewhere in the county – who seems accessible to anyone, and who she claims hit on her a few times during interviews as the local diner.

Did she try to get on the inside track with the neighboring mayor only to get put off by his entourage?

Or is one of those who she is close to have a gripe with him and is using her to get his vengeance?

The congressman’s press person says she is “beautiful, brilliant but nuts.”

I’m not sure I agree. Brilliant yes, but also crafty. She doesn’t do things by accident.

Although she’s now deeply into a world she’s never had to deal with before, a political mine field where even the savviest can get blown up and sometimes do.

While she has navigated social and emotional mazes in the past, this is different, she is a guppy swimming in a fish tank full of sharks, and the best way to survive is to find a friendly shark to serve as mentor and protector.

But she’s not stupid, and anyone who uses her might find themselves used instead. She learns quickly to adapt, and while not quite a shark yet, she might be a barracuda.

This is the takeaway on her poem about trickling up, she knows how to climb the power grid, switching ladders when she tops out on one. Since there is no place left to go in our office, she no doubt is looking in those towns she covers for future opportunities.

Did she see an opportunity of some kind with the neighboring mayor only to get shut out?

She’s not powerless to get even, although I suspect she hasn’t fully realized just how powerful our company makes her, and how terrible a wrath she can bring down on any political figure if one should piss her off.

And there are players in this game who see more clearly just how powerful she is and may want to make use of her for their own ends, and it is possible one of the neighboring mayor’s enemies have gotten her ear, filling her head with ideas that would make the mayor angry.

Our boss is also using her, perhaps having her own vendetta to settle with the mayor.

Regardless of who is behind all this, she (the writer) is caught in the mayor’s crosshairs, and perhaps she is right when she believes he would like to get her fired.

 

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