The Tribune

By NICOLE BURROWS

Why is Branville McCartney answering back at Loretta Butler-Turner?

Mrs Butler-Turner has such negative appeal now that it doesn’t make sense to indulge her in any extended dialogue. By indulging her, you won’t get seen as responding honestly, you’ll get seen as lowering yourself to a political level - her political level - you will find it hard to rise above.

Bran, who on earth advised you to say anything in response to Mrs Butler-Turner?

Here’s a tip: Fire that person. Or at least demote them.

When Mrs Butler-Turner made the claim, via national news, that you threw her under the bus, your reaction should have been nothing. Her comments were petty and incendiary. And whether or not she herself believed them to be true, for whatever reason or reasons, you would have done better to avoid giving any retort to her comments.

Say nothing. Be utterly silent. Not everything requires a response.

You should have resisted the temptation to say anything, because the people you need to vote for the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) are watching closely to see how you handle her. They’re already uncertain about Mrs Butler-Turner making you Opposition Leader in the Senate, and they’re still trying to understand what it means. You know Bahamians will find meaning wherever they think it exists, regardless of what really is or what you say it is.

To not rise above Mrs Butler-Turner’s inflammatory remarks makes you look ridiculous and less than a leader. It also makes you seem just like the rest of the politicians who are scrambling for a vote, which is the last thing you need when people are already wanting to believe you are just like the rest.

If you couldn’t just get by with saying nothing at all in response to Mrs Butler-Turner’s statement, the most you ought to have said was something like “I’m uncertain as to what Mrs Butler-Turner is referring, so I have no comment at this time.” But to say as much and then run on about tendering your resignation as senator if Mrs Butler-Turner so wishes only makes you appear catty. Female-like. Petty. Trifling. Equivalent to Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) and Free National Movement (FNM) characters.

And the comment about the big green bus and not surviving getting thrown under that ...? Why? Oh God. Please stop. Rise above that foolishness. You’re barely a few months out from a general election and you’re supposed to be inspiring people to vote for you, especially those who want something other than PLP or FNM but have not yet made up their minds.

Even dodo head Minnis realised at a point that it might be better for him to stop talking or responding to every little comment the PLP or the media threw at him, albeit for a different reason. He didn’t know how to be sharp and answer back smartly. Being sharp and answering back smartly is not his forte. So he stopped trying to be sharp and answer back smartly. Well, he toned it down a bit anyway. But you see my point? You may be better at answering back smartly than Minnis is, but it’s not your forte either.

What’s more, people have been waiting for you to exhibit more of your true self and less of the fictitious politician persona to decide whether or not to support you. And others who don’t support you, or vehemently oppose you, have been waiting to pounce on you like a lion to diminish your credibility. You snapping back like the rest of the politicians only puts you in the same category as them and you become a part of that two-sided coin you keep referring to ... I don’t know ... not even a face of the coin but the edge of the coin. And you know you don’t win anything if the coin lands on its edge. For goodness sake, demonstrate you have nothing to do with that coin if you want to make inroads to governance.

If this latest exchange with Mrs Butler-Turner hasn’t already set you back a bit, which I believe it may have, particularly with those people on the fence who aren’t rabid political supporters of anybody right now, go on and pick up the little pieces and start again quickly, because I’m sure I’m not the only thinking, undecided person ... voter ... who thinks your entertaining Loretta Butler-Turner’s accusation of under-the-bus-throwing sucked away some of the DNA’s momentum and pushed people closer to voting independent or not at all.

And speaking of not voting ...

Spoilt ballot campaign

I’m no gravy-train jumper, no bandwagon-hopper. And educators Nicolette Bethel and Ian Strachan don’t need my endorsement for their idea of spoiling ballots instead of choosing between two evils, but I agree with them in part.

Forget the cartoonish FNM chairman Sidney Collie’s remarks, forget The Nassau Guardian’s editorial sometimes not written by the Editor, both Bethel and Strachan are entitled to their perspectives and anyone who finds what they’re saying to be “stupid” or “irresponsible” hasn’t bothered to think it through.

In fact, I believe an immediate response of “stupid” and “irresponsible” is a clear indication of those persons’ extreme party-alignment or their extreme lack of full intellectual capacity in spite of the fact that they believe themselves to be intelligent or fair-minded. If you are indeed fair-minded, consider what these two academic leaders are saying.

Rather than stay at home and be apathetic, non-participating citizens, go out and show your discontent and disapproval. Spoiling a ballot is like showing up at a protest march except the protest action is on paper.

No, I’m not saying you have to agree with the two professors, and yes it does at first sound a bit odd what they’re saying, but do you understand it?

I will admit - and even agree - that if you spoil your ballot you won’t actually be selecting the next government, but, unlike Collie believes, you will in fact be contributing to democracy, because you will be exercising your right to choose no party or person you find to be ineligible or unworthy of your vote, or exercising your right to not be forced to choose between two primary things you find grossly unacceptable.

My only question to the professors is this: will spoiling the ballot, in the end, mean anything to anyone other than intellectuals or activists? That is the challenge in convincing our people of their choices and spoilt ballots as a deliberate or viable voting choice.

What happens to spoilt ballots? They get counted, sure. They get reported, hopefully. And having had a large number of them cast will cause some alarm, yes. But, at the end of the day, the spoilt ballots don’t choose/determine the person who wins the popular vote and ultimately the constituency or seat in the House of Assembly. You might say the spoilt ballots are not supposed to help determine outright a winner, and I get that, but Bahamians are always preoccupied with ‘who win’ and ‘who lose’ and not an intellectual argument that bears some or any degree of merit.

The one possible benefit I can see in Bethel’s and Strachan’s ‘campaign’ is that, at the very least, it is a way to get people to register, and then, once registered, get them out to the polls where, once out there at the polls, they may be inspired to - or may be more likely to - vote for someone after all.