by David Abdel
Voting has begun in the Kyle mayoral runoff election, and predictably we find ourselves to be a town divided. At first glance, one would see it simply as Tenorio supporters and Mitchell supporters, but when you dig deeper there is an underlying ugliness you’ll find. A core group of Tenorio supporters, at least based on the social media-sphere, appear to simply be anti-Mitchell. I’ve seen many ardent Peter Parcher supporters switch to singing the praises of Tenorio, as if the latter was never in the running at all. This piqued my interest. As a fellow losing candidate, I wondered why supporters would become so fervent in their zeal for another candidate rather than simply vote their conscience in the runoff quietly.
What I have found, or at least what I surmise from the interactions I’ve followed, is that really this election has come down to a battle of progressives and conservatives. No, not in the popular political sense, but rather in terms of how Kyle came to be where it is, and where it is going. Seriously, this is a tale as old as time. Here in the “New World” this fight has been raging since before we were even a nation. It calls to memory the Great Awakening clash between the Old Lights and New Lights. However, you’ve not come here for a history lesson, per se.
