




The Good Old Boys Will Rejoice! Clare’s Ship Sailed with Her on Board
By Ken Rossignol
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY
There always is one of those in every class. The self-confident, all-knowing and unbending. They are the kind of people who urge others to do right, pursue excellence and demand fairness. Clare Whitbeck was one of that kind of people.
Visiting the rule-makers and bureaucrats of the O’Malley Administration, Clare cited facts and figures of how the state inspectors failed to do their jobs properly and the failings of existing standards.
Sweet, tough and uncompromising all describe Clare as she was a complex person who could make hell rain down upon her perceived injustices and rally the troops behind her. It was good that Clare never won an election as she would have made a lousy insider in the political system. Besides, it would have been a waste of her talents to have to sit through all the boring, mundane, wasteful and moronic presentations brought before the St. Mary’s County Board of Commissioners.
Lacking an evil heart of a committed politician, Clare would have promptly left a closed and secret meeting of the commissioners and spilled the beans on all of them. The idea of having her in those meetings would be tantalizing indeed as she would have been a better county commissioner than the guy she ran against and lost. She would have been a better delegate than the fellow who defeated her in another race. While she received fewer votes in both those contests, she gave the voters a choice and that in itself was a victory. Whenever voters have a choice between corrupt Good Ole Boys government and a bright, honest and capable person, that is rare.
Clare was the best choice, there just weren’t enough smart voters to recognize it.
H. L. Mencken wrote one hundred years ago: “the common man knows what he wants and he deserves to get it, good and hard.”
Goodbye to Clare for our world is now a bit less colorful, but don’t feel bad for Clare, this angel earned her wings a long time ago.