We’re in the middle of a city council election cycle in Iowa City. Plenty of people are getting worked up about it.
In some ways that’s a good thing.
It means we live in a politically engaged city. And there are lots of issues for us to tackle. On top of this, the previous election – a special election between Ross Nusser and Oliver Weilein – offered deep, meaningful differences on how to run a city in a revanchist era. Its results emerged from a realignment of our local politics.
But this election strikes me in a different way.
At least four (and possibly five or six) of the six candidates aren’t very different from one another. They practice broadly similar politics. However, people think they’re different. This calls for a closer examination of the forces that push people to over-invest in local electoral politics.
Let’s do that.
