Knight and Day

Yesterday Liberty Dispatch was disappointed to read Jay Knight started his bid for 2014’s county judge race by cozying up to one of the two most infamous critics of Republicans in this county. We, however, are NOT disappointed in Mr. Knight exercising his right to run again on the Republican ticket. This article seeks to determine whether Mr. Knight has no beef with the way Craig McNair is doing the job as Knight has said, or whether he is open about an entirely different agenda than the incumbent.

Rather than focus on Jay Knight choosing “a conversation” with the most liberal, anti-Republican blogger in Liberty County history to try and ascertain what his candidacy adds to the voters’ choices in the 2014 county judge race, Liberty Dispatch has chosen one paragraph from what appears to be a press release rather than a conversation in reality.

Here is the sentence/evidence we will focus on today from Knight’s press release: “This lingering revenue problem didn’t occur overnight and it’s not going away overnight. You will never hear me say that I inherited this problem. What you will hear me say is: Let’s work together to fix it.”

The first thing someone reading this sentence who is trying to decide whether they should stick with incumbent County Judge Craig McNair or not, is that Knight correctly points out that the problems with the budget were there before Judge McNair was elected. That is a nice thing to admit and should make the reader want to continue reading to see why Knight is running. But the next sentence reminds us all of what we do not like about politicians. After admitting his opponent was not responsible for the problem, Knight writes that he would “never” say he “inherited the problem”. Of course what he said he would NEVER do is exactly what he did in the sentence just before his declaration. This is not clever and we may all be country folks around here but we are far from illiterate. Knight is now on record saying the problem was there before … or that the problem was inherited.

Nevertheless, after getting past a lapse in common sense and a weak effort at political spin, we are still hunting for what a Knight candidacy offers that should make conservatives vote for someone other than the first Republican county judge in a century that they just elected.  The next sentence seems to be the key to what Knight’s press release identifies as the problem with Judge McNair and what Knight would do different. Knight is saying he will “work together” or in a different place in the press release he uses the word “teamwork”.

These are the kinds of words that polled well when President Obama ran for President. The President’s experience was “community organizing” and he indicated he was an expert in bringing people together to solve problems. He said he was a uniter not a divider. He said he would do a better job of “working together” or “teamwork”.

There are some politicians who wish they were the county judge and that Craig McNair would spend a great deal of time consulting with them and what they mean by whispering he does not work with anyone is: “I want a bigger budget and he refuses to spend more money in my department.” To these people, I would sincerely hope that though they may be Knight’s key supporters, he would deny their request if he was elected.

As for working as a team, the commissioners and the county judge have talked about everything from sharing equipment to sharing ideas. Like these commissioners and this county judge or not, they are working more like a team than any group we have seen in twenty-five tears of observing.

Note: With no money to spend and already good relations between leaders, Liberty Dispatch will continue to search Knight’s press release in search of why he is running.