Watchdog’s Voting Algorithm For Selecting City Council Members

April 4th is the big voting day in Naperville for electing city council candidates. It’s not that difficult to do, if you create a process or set of rules to follow in mathematically calculating those best suited to sit at the dais.

Over the years, Watchdog has refined the process, because frankly, Watchdog got tired of picking losers. It started before I was old enough to vote, while watching presidential conventions on TV;  I wanted Adlai Stevenson to defeat ‘I Like Ike’ (Dwight Eisenhower). My guy lost, as did every other Presidential candidate I chose for the next quarter of a century. Then bingo, I finally picked a winner with Reagan. It was at that moment that I finally perfected the perfect algorithm for picking the preferred candidate, though not politically correct.

Assign one point for each variable to each qualifying candidate, while others get zero points. Total the points at the end, and bingo, the preferred candidate is known.

With that in mind, here we go:

Incumbent vs non-incumbent, always go with the non-incumbent. With incumbents you know what to expect, which typically is not good. Hence go with the unknown.

Male vs female, go with female (OK, not PC but it works). When physical fights erupt in meetings, and politicians enter the Graybar Hotel, we know which group are defendants.

If you can pronounce or spell the candidate’s name, go with that candidate. (Again I said it was not PC)

Does the candidate have my first name? If so give him one point. If not, then a big zero goes in that column.

Yard signs. One point for placement and one point for creativity. Has any candidate found a public place where only his or her sign is located, or are they all jammed a street corner like tombstones in a cemetery. Brodhead gets a point, and an extra point for having one in a tree. Coyne garnered a point and extra point for having one floating in Whalen Lake off of Royce Road.

Mailers. A point each for creativity, size, color scheme, and keeping it easy-to-read. Some candidates lost points for size, much too big (Coyne and Strick), some lost points for being too busy (too wordy), some lost points for too many mailers, some received points for Watchdog not getting a mailer (Brodhead and Gallaher). Candidate Krummen was outed for using pictures from his 2015 campaign on his 2017 mailer. However he gets a point for trying to trick the voter for the same reason.

Picture of candidate. Krummen and Brodhead get a point because their pictures almost look like them. Others lost a point including the ‘undertaker’ (my apology to funeral home directors), the bad-debt collector, and the used-car salesman. (Again not PC, I get it.) Benny White gets a point for including “Dr.” on his mailer. Who knows if it’s true; it’s impressive and that’s what counts. Seuss was a doctor too.

Websites. Forget it, too much information. No time to waste. Baseball season is starting, the Final Four coming down to one, and Dancing With The Stars in season.

Plug the numbers in, add them up, and the four winners are Isaac, Coyne, Krummen, and Brodhead. But wait, there’s one more rule, arbitrarily replace two with two others, hence replace Krummen and Brodhead with White and Berkowicz, and bingo, you have Watchdog’s Final Four; Isaac, Coyne, White, and Berkowicz.

This posting was published April 1st.   April Fool’s Day.