To the Editor:
It is hard to fathom the differences between the candidates in the Gazette's account of the recent debate between mayoral candidates William Euille, Kerry Donley and Allison Silberberg (Gazette Packet, April 30, 2015, p. 1). What this appeared to be was not a debate over real political differences or alternative visions for the city, but rather
something akin to the political "differences" Gulliver discovered in Lilliput. In the famous Jonathan Swift novel, “Gulliver's Travels,” Gulliver is shipwrecked and finds himself on the island of Lilliput.
Among the many strange things he learns (all the people are about six inches tall, for example) is that the Lilliputians have a major internal dispute surrounding the correct end to crack a hard boiled egg. The quarrel led to six rebellions and the death of an Emperor. Swift's story drips with satire about the politics of his time. But are the differences between our three mayoral candidates any more weighty than that between the Big-Endians (those who broke the egg on the large end) and Little-Endians? It does not seem so.
William Euille and Kerry Donley can't decide who is more to blame for the BRAC-133 fiasco, which of course they both enthusiastically endorsed at the time and we citizens now get to live with. All three claim the others don't have a solution for parking and they try to outdo one another on who is most opposed to selling City Hall. If you can find a
substantive difference between these three, you are probably someone who worries too much about the right way to break your hard boiled egg.
The only way there will ever be a clarifying debate about any issue in our city is when one party rule is broken in Alexandria. Until then, we'll have Lilliputian-size controversies where the same Democratic party standard bearer shadowbox in debates and govern as they please.
Jeffrey Salmon
Alexandria