Look at the patterns of Democrat leadership

Common sense is not partisan, nor political. It’s not racial. It matters not to common sense how much money you have, nor your gender, creed or family name. It pays no attention to how many diplomas are framed up on your wall, nor which side of the tracks you grew up on. Common sense knows better because it’s been there and done that.

So when State Rep. (and former Shreveport Mayor) Cedric Glover recently wrote that Shreveport has no crime-fighting vision or strategy, but that violent crime today isn’t nearly as bad as when Shreveport had Republican mayors in the 1990s, he missed an opportunity to bring attention to those common-sense solutions that have worked in the past and that might work today, rather than take a political jab, as he did, and continue dividing our city along the partisan lines that he says he also laments.

But the truth about the 1990s, according to the FBI, is that there were more crimes registered during this time, across our country, than in any other time in our country’s history; any crime wave in Shreveport, then, was simply a reflection of what the rest of the country was experiencing at that time, and not exclusive to Shreveport, by any means. And to blame Republican mayors in Shreveport during this time of historic crime rates is simply disingenuous and misleading.

Yes, it is true that most of our country’s most troubled, dysfunctional cities have been electing Democrat mayors for decades. But does any of that really matter to the victims? I mean, when you don’t feel safe in your neighborhood, no one gives two whits about the political party of the mayor or the police chief, just like you don’t care much if the doctor in the O.R. is conservative or liberal while you are being wheeled into surgery.

What you really care about, in that situation, is whether the doctor is competent or not. Is he or she qualified? Have they done this before, and if so, how many times? And, most importantly, what were their results? These are the same questions we should be asking of our elected officials.

Is it coincidental that Detroit has not elected a Republican mayor since 1957, and today 40 percent of its population lives below the poverty line, or that it’s considered by most to be the most dangerous city in America?

Is it worth discussing that, since 1927, Chicago has elected only Democrat mayors, and that today the violence in the inner-city today is unimaginable and the city is insolvent? Or that New Orleans has elected Democrat mayors since 1868 and is annually considered one of the most dangerous and corrupt cities in the country?

Or that New Orleans has a higher murder rate than Chicago, Orlando and Cleveland and has the highest homicide rate in the South?

But since Rep. Glover brought it up, are we supposed to ignore the pattern that has emerged of cities with Democrat leadership? Like in St. Louis (which has been electing Democrat mayors since 1949) or Philadelphia (which hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1952) or Baltimore and Oakland (whose mayors have been Democrat since the 1960s)? These cities all share common qualities: They are beaten down, broke and rife with crime.

Even uber-liberal filmmaker and Michigan-native Michael Moore can’t ignore the destructive cycle of it all, tweeting that “Flint has voted for Dems for 84 straight years” and then asked, “What did it get us?” Regardless of what side of the “aisle” you are on, we should all agree that government ought to be making more common-sense choices than partisan ones, and less politicking for personal gain. As Thomas Jefferson said, “I can never fear that things will go far wrong where common sense has fair play.” In fact, “Nothing astonishes people so much as common sense and plain dealing,” as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said.

So, Rep. Glover, maybe partisanship hasn't failed Shreveport as much as our elected officials have. And that seems like common sense to me.

Avallone Louis R. Avallone is a Shreveport businessman, attorney and author of “Bright Spots, Big Country, What Makes America Great.” He is also a former aide to U.S. Representative Jim McCrery and editor of The Caddo Republican. His columns have appeared regularly in The Forum since 2007. Follow him on Facebook, on Twitter @louisravallone or by e-mail at louisavallone@mac. com, and on American Ground Radio at 101.7FM and 710 AM, weeknights from 6 - 7 p.m., and streaming live on keelnews.com.