Murph Was Self Assured, Until Election Night

Murphy McShade was running for another reelection. Murph was a local guy, born and bred right here. Everybody knew his mom and dad, grandparents and even who owned his dog’s regal parents. If ever there was a fellow who was a shoe in, it was Murph, the nickname he got in high school, and it stuck.
As small town folks went, Murph was the kind of chap you’d bump into at the donut shop. He could rattle off last night’s baseball or football scores as well as who had won the loot in last night’s poker game at the firehouse.
Given the choice between being mayor of this tiny chunk of paradise and being, say president of Ford Motor Company, Murph would choose the former.
Why wouldn’t he? Everybody here, it seemed, adored him like their own son or brother. When they needed a favor, say to erect an alumni association banner across Ramble Street or the Boys’ Brigade wanted to hold its annual St. Valentine’s Day parade, Murph would cut through all the legal red tape in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. He was the “go-to” guy in town who latched onto Harry Truman’s slogan, “The buck stops here.”
Even the chairman of the Pumpkin Grower’s Party, Murph’s opposing political faction whispered, behind the security of closed doors upstairs at Tudwiler’s Tavern, that he couldn’t find an equal to run against Murph.
Job security? Murph had it. So why would he throw it all away to move along to “bigger and better” offices? Bull feathers.
Most voters never put two and two together to realize that all those years they reelected Murph; he was quietly chalking up retirement credits. In just four more years, Murph could safely walk away from the public’s eye, stroll into retirement, and get a nice chunk of retirement change for the rest of his days.
Ah, that was the America everybody dreamed about, yet so few ever achieved. Big fish, little pond, that fit Murph perfectly.
So it was, as Labor Day — the historic date when proper political campaigns began — rolled lazily around, that Murph McShade was “priming” his machine for another no-sweat campaign.
But what was that unnerving, nonsensical chatter Murph heard at the gas station and in the barbershop?
Some upstart from the Pumpkin Grower’s Party, Erasmus File, without even so much as getting a thumbs up from Chairman Rupert “Hap” Burper, had the effrontery to circulate a petition and actually got 50 names on it that placed him in the running against Murph.
Stuff like this just wasn’t supposed to happen. It never had, and it never would happen again, Murph thought.
File was a first degree neophyte when it came to small town politics.
For starters, he was a “transplant.” That meant he came from over in Butte, and had only lived in town for less than five years.
Imagine! Why, that just didn’t happen here, not in Murph’s town. Even the members of the School Mom’s Association agreed. Murph’s pals in the Gill-netters Club were stunned, too, and told him so.
If the election were held today, they vowed, Murph would be looking forward to another four years wearing the local crown.
File fired off a press release to the Merrytown Times and Fern Forest Advocate. He drew a line in the sand, and blatantly offered to debate Murph anywhere, any time on “the issues.”
A reporter asked Murph if he planned to debate File on those “issues.”
“Hell no!” Murph snorted. “Man’s a fool. What’s he going to debate? Where was he when we put sidewalks down the east side of Cockerville Road so the poor folk didn’t have to walk in the lane? Huh?
“Where was File when we had the Blueberry Festival or the Oyster Day Feast? Where, I ask you. Where?”
Murph exuded confidence that was for certain. And, to his credit, that’s the way it had always been, especially around here.
Murph was certainly sure of himself.
File ignored such outbursts from his honor, whom he had met but once, and that was at Stew Sorley’s funeral along with most of the other townspeople.
File had enlisted some disaffected cohorts who had suffered because of some of McShade’s dealings. Like so many small town politicos, Murph had won election so many times (he forgot how many); he truly believed he WAS the law.
Fast forward past the Ground Huggers Oktoberfest and onward to General Election night.
Murph sat out the campaign, smiling and self confident, truly believing all his buddies loved him; and if not him, well, at least the favors he did for them. That’s why they had elected him, he reasoned.
File, decidedly the underdog, went tapping on doors. He listened to people, nodded as they spilled out their raw feelings, and jotted down what they said. He did something Murph long ago forgot how to do, he listened to the electorate. That baffled some folks, but they were willing to give that guy File a spin. What did the average Joe or Jane have to lose?
File pledged if they’d vote for him, he’d do what he could to change things in town, if change was what they truly desired.
The Pumpkin Grower’s Party spent a paltry sum half-heartedly backing File. Burper secretly urged members to go with old tired-and-true Murph. Why? Well, you know, you know!
So imagine the surprised expressions on faces that Election Night as the numbers for File outdistanced those for Murph.
None of the above has anything to do with any person dead or alive. If it does, that is purely unintended. The tale was but a figment of a weary mind.
We all know money talks. However, if enough people vote, it will be seen that ballots speak louder than bucks. It’s just that people have to believe in themselves and their power.