I’d like to take the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the political campaign of my lodge brother Timothy Maguire and his wife Allison. Both Tim and Allison ran for two of the Indianapolis City Council ‘at large’ seats on the Libertarian ticket in this year’s November election. No, they didn’t win. Even in politically turbulent elections like this one, Libertarians don’t generally do well. I’m not hawking for the Libertarians here, nor am I trying to make political hay against those whose favorite horse lost yesterday. But a close look at the final results tell a lot about the message that Tim was able to articulate to the public with no money and a campaign that didn’t begin until summer. He and Allison each drew more than 12,000 votes apiece out of the 164,000 ballots cast in a 12-way race. They each drew 25% more votes than the other two Libertarians in the same City Council race, and three times what the Libertarian running for Mayor received. That’s impressive, and they should be proud. More important, Tim and Allison stood up out of a sense of duty, with a desire to make a difference in a city where the overwhelming majority of its citizens fail to act day in and day out.
No, they didn’t win. But they tried, and they tried very hard. And more important, specifically because of Tim’s many appearances and hammering away over the city budget, he helped to keep the issue alive in so many citizens that the election was a shocking upset to a well-funded list of incumbents who never saw it coming. When folks talk abstractly about people making a difference in their government, they are talking about people like Tim and Allison who didn’t just sit in a bar and shake their fists and shout “Ya know what’s wrong in this city?!”
Anybody can do that. They did more. And they deserve our thanks and gratitude. They certainly have mine.
Mine too. They had my vote as well; I split my ticket to include them.
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