Kimberley Paige Barnette has been attracting attention in the last couple of days as she runs in the GOP primary for Mayor of Charlotte. Most people are talking about a Facebook post in which she said, HuffPo reports:
In a since-deleted Facebook post, Kimberley Paige Barnette, 52, suggested voters should pick her Sept. 12 to be the Republican candidate for mayor because she is “REPUBLICAN & SMART, WHITE, TRADITIONAL.”
That’s certainly appalling, and worth frowning at her for her apparent naivete. However, I also found this disturbing:
In a debate last month, she responded to a question about helping lower-income residents by saying, “I don’t think we should encourage more lower-income people to [come to] Charlotte. We should attract higher-income people.”
Being Mayor is about taking care of the city and its residents, and while it makes sense to attempt to promote high paying jobs in the community, there is a sense to her statement that she’d just as soon run the lower-income folks out on a rail. Which may seem sensible until one realizes that resentment will just build up until they show up at the Mayor’s door with pitchforks and torches.
