Who's supporting who?

In two weeks we will wake up knowing who will lead Bessemer into the "teens," the second decade of the 21st century.

The case has been made with certainty for Ken Gulley, (here and here), but a lot will be said and every effort will be made to de-rail his campaign before the runoff election on October 5.

Take for instance that silly lawsuit that was dismissed last week. All that did was make the Bessemer Progressives realize that maybe there is someone worse than Sarah Belcher in District 3. Unfortunately, we supported that person, pretty much only because she was the only person running against Belcher. But I've seen a glimmer of hope that Ms. Belcher will work with Gulley if he is elected. It never hurts to be an optimist.

I have copies of Ken Gulley's and Ed May's campaign finance reports.

There are no big surprises, but it is obvious where the support for each candidate is coming from.

Ken Gulley has the bulk of his money coming from individuals, with over 40 people donating to his campaign. This does not count the numerous people who donated at three fund raising events that raised a total of over $800. His other donors are primarily local small businesses. His total contributions were $21,109.

Ed May, on the other hand, had only one individual contribute and the bulk of his money came from PACS and Corporations. At least 56% ($25,240) of his contributions are from PACS associated with city attorneys, and it's probable ,that another $14,500 did also, as it was funnelled through PACs that one of those attorneys used during the 2006 campaign. His total contributions are $44,540.

I guess what it boils down to is that the people who live in Bessemer and the people who own small businesses want a change in the leadership of our city. And those who are embedded in the city's affairs and their special interest groups like the status quo.

Speaking of the people of Bessemer they were recently asked to voice their opinion on a poll on the mayor's campaign web site. The Mayor asked, "Are you happy with the current growth of Bessemer?" A simple question.

The poll is no longer on the site.

But before it was removed a week ago, here were the results. 76.5% of respondents chose "No," and only 23.5% chose "Yes."

(You can click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Individuals, not PACS, vote in online polls. Individuals are funding and supporting the Gulley campaign, because they are not happy with the growth of Bessemer, according to the mayor's own polling, and do not think he has addressed the issues of importance to the city, according to a poll on Bessemer Opinions that was posted just after the election in August.

While on the mayor's campaign web site I noticed a couple of things that he or his campaign manager or web site manager should have caught. I am not the best speller, or typist, and often I hit the wrong keys and I may misspell words on this blog. But I use spell check and I have readers who alert me if something slips by, and I correct it. But May's campaign site has been up for 6 weeks or so, and this is how the home page appears. I circled a couple of misspelled words.

If you want people to be impressed with you, you can't have little errors and if you do you must correct them when they are found. (I had one in my book and when I found out about it, I corrected it. Some of you have "rare and valuable" imperfect early copies of Those Others.)

There are actually other errors but I don't want to post all of his pages on here.

My annual flowers (and some of my perennials) are just drying up. It's fall, it's unusually hot and dry, so the changes in our gardens are inevitable. Here are a couple of zinnia flowers that were hanging on last week, but even those are gone now. This purple one has a little spider creature on it that I didn't notice when I was taking the photograph.

This orange flower looks as if it has no stem. It just seems to be floating, like something we might see on Pandora.