Old timers may remember some years back when John Hammer of the Rhino Times announced his write-in candidacy for mayor of Greensboro in his weekly column just 3 weeks before the election and nearly won the election. It was apparent to everyone that an announcement just one or two weeks earlier would have pushed John well over the top and toppled Greensboro's elite political structure. To this day, every mayoral race that comes about there are still write-in votes for John Hammer.
John never ran again because he never really wanted to become Mayor of Greensboro. John wanted to run a newspaper instead.
But what if John had run again? Greensboro might or might not be a very different city than it is today. Either way, corrupt empires would have been toppled.
Since that year Greensboro's elites have always lived with the fear that someone from outside their closed ranks with the name recognition of say, a John Hammer, might run for Mayor or some other seat on Greensboro City Council. For you see, it has long been known that name recognition is the #1 means by which candidates get elected to local office. As I have said so many times before, "He with the most yard signs wins."
But there is something bigger than yard signs, something bigger than endorsements in blogs and local newspapers, bigger than interviews on television. John Hammer hit on it years ago and yesterday George Hartzman hit on it too with his first weekly column in Yes-Weekly entitled, On Greensboro’s Civil Rights Museum.
If George Hartzman decides to run for mayor again the elites will fall.
