Both Candidates Bring Out Big Vote Counts Columbia’s residents went to the polls Tuesday and elected Steve Benjamin as the new mayor of the ‘Famously Hot’ city. Congratulations to Steve and all of the folks who worked on his campaign. I certainly hope he has a great tenure as our mayor.
I would be doing Kirkman Finlay a major disservice if I didn’t extend him a congratulatory shout out. Kirkman and his campaign worked their tail bones off. My wife and I watched it with our own eyes as we live in Shandon, the “battleground” as the two vied for former Morrison voters.
Kirkman actually did more than work hard. He motivated a faction of folks that I haven’t seen as political activists before. I don’t know if Facebook has relaxed folk’s political comfort level or if they felt a certain despise for Benjamin but for whatever reason a lot of my friends were fired up about this election. Kirkman will get credit for this.
Good for both of these guys. Obvious congrats to Steve and Kirkman just needs to remember that in a larger scope, some endeavors provide a win…even in loss.
This election also unfortunately highlighted the still strong divide as well. While I knew many “white” folks that supported and voted for Steve, many of Kirkman's supporters turned this into a race and class issue which is what it's not about. It's funny, but Steve Benjamin, other than the color of his skin, is very much in tune with these folks. He lives in Woodcreek Farms (affluent) he and his wife are both lawyers, they both have nice cars and their children are very well mannered and smart too. It's terribly sad that some people tried to paint this as black versus white, when it was very far from that.