"Records Deeds faster than a speeding bullet. Collects fines with more power than a locomotive. Able to leap tall bookshelves in a single bound --- 'Look, up in the sky,' 'It's a bird,' 'It's a plane,' 'It's Superclerk....' "Last November, Lehigh County voters were conned into consolidating the Clerk of Courts, Recorder of Deeds and Register of Wills into a single office known as Clerk of Judicial Records. Superclerk!
The politically ambitious sponsors of this measure? County exec Don Cunningham. He'd like to be governor. Andy Roman. He'd like to be exec. Glenn Eckhart. He'd like to be Superclerk. Nothing was broken, but they just had to fix it. They successfully argued Superclerk would both save money and "modernize" row offices. In truth, this idea saves no money and is actually a throwback to our colonial period.
Not surprisingly, Clerk of Courts Andrea Naugle and Recorder of Deeds Marie Dean, both of whom opposed this Superclerk crock, won the Democratic and Republican nominations. I know and like them both. Whoever wins will insure row offices run smoothly.
Lehigh County Commissioner Glenn Eckhart, Young Dude, tried his best to beat Marie Dean. He was going to come up with a "plan" to save money in 100 days. And let me tell you about Mr. Young Dude's campaign strategy.
Young Dude is just 40, while Marie is 77 years young! His plan of attack - exploit this obvious age difference to his advantage. Experts picked Eckhart to win.
In the final week of the campaign, Young Dude sent out a flier to convince voters to get rid of that old bat.
“IN WITH THE NEW” – GLENN ECKHART (on left) “I have the energy and real world experience to streamline and modernize county government.”
“OUT WITH THE OLD” – MARIE DEAN (on right) “We’ve been doing business like this for 80 years.”
Young Dude uses a PDA, an SUV and a computer to show how fresh and with it he is.
Poor, Marie Dean gets an old rotary phone, a classic old car and a stack of papers.
But guess what? Septuagenarian Dean easily beat whippersnapper Eckhart at the polls with 58% of the vote.
Oopsie. Just about the only people who turn out regularly to vote in off-year primary elections are seniors! In one fell swoop, Young Dude alienated an entire major demographic. This serves as a classic example of how an idea often sounds great on paper but can actually damage you when other commonsense factors are not taken into account. You must always know with whom you are communicating.
