The more the merrier:
Fort Wayne City Councilwoman Liz Brown will run for Fort Wayne mayor in 2011.
A well-informed and reliable source told NewsChannel 15 Monday evening that Brown's formal announcement will come Thursday at noon at Allen County Republican Headquarters.
Brown will become the second Republican to enter the mayoral race. Allen County Councilwoman Paula Hughes was the first GOP candidate to announce. Fort Wayne businessman Eric Doden is also likely to seek the GOP nod. He has formed an exploratory committee but not formally announced a run.
There is a trick to having a spirited contest in a primary. The candidates have robust debates outlining how they would improve government once control is wrested from the dastardly Democrats. Then, all the losing candidates urge their followers to support the winnning GOP candidate in the general election. Fort Wayne Republicans have not quite mastered this trick. They much prefer to stay home and sulk if their primary candidate loses, thus helping put the Democratic candidate in office. Maybe they'll get it right this time.
That's assuming Liz is actually running, of course. For that, we have to take the word of "a well-informed and reliable source," who, it must be admitted, is probably more likely to be right than "the anonymous source close to the mayor" who "anticipates" that early in 2011 Mayor Henry will formally announce his re-election bid. Gollllleeeee, Andy, we got unnamed sources here in Fort Wayne just like the big-city journalists use. I wonder how someone gets to be both "well-informed" and reliable? Does one lead to the other. Is "anonymous source" bitter about being neither reliable nor well-informed? If anonymous were better-informed, would "anticipates" be upgraded to "strongly thinks"? I've never been anonymous that I know of, but I was close to the mayor once, standing right next to him, in fact. Don't quote me on that, though. I'm well-informed, but I'm reliable only when I feel like it.
