Elections Committee victim of semantics

Suggestions that the Ocean Pines’ Election Committee  might be biased in this summer’s contest is another case of the political community’s tendency to see molehills as mountains in the making.

More likely than not, this minor flap had more to do with semantics than anything else, as committee Chairman Steve Habeger said candidates Stuart Lakernick and Rick Farr “declined” to attend last Tuesday’s forum.

Lakernick objected on social media that he didn’t decline but was “unable” to attend.

Fine. It’s not quite a distinction without a difference, but it’s close enough that Lakernick’s clarification should have been the end of it.

But no. In what turned out to be something akin to the children’s game of Telephone, in which a simple statement gets more embellished and misconstrued each time it’s repeated, suddenly it’s being hinted that the Elections Committee just might be playing favorites.

An overly sensitive board of directors then inserted itself into the conversation, with the aim of defending Habeger against unfair assertions that … weren’t that big a deal until the board made it one.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and members agreed that their best move would be to stay out of the elections committee’s business.

Besides, few people, if anyone at all, believes that Habeger’s focus is on anything other than producing a well-conducted election. That’s it, regardless of whatever his personal preferences might be.

There is no scandal here other than the difference between “can’t’ and “won’t,” or “declined” and “unable.”

Anything that suggests there might be more to this is either the product of an over-active imagination or a desire to flatten every molehill just in case.