Harold Cogdell: Hero or copout?

So is Harold Cogdell a hero for standing up against the entrenched political parties? Or is he just taking the easy way out?

Cogdell, the chairman of the Mecklenburg County commissioners, announced Monday that he would not run for reelection. One of his main reasons? Exasperation, he said, with the state of politics today and the refusal by Democrats and Republicans to ever peek out of their silos.

"So often we don't pull back the layers and look at the complexity of certain issues," said Cogdell, who also announced that he was leaving the Democratic party to become unaffiliated. "We're often too busy vilifying the positions of the other party and tune out to their side on the issues."

He's right about that much. This community and this country were built by people who had a vision for how to make things better. They had their ideology, to be sure, but often it was not all-encompassing. It did not blind them to solutions to society's most pressing problems. Now, the party label seems to be all that matters. The 'D' or the 'R' after the name are all voters want to know, and the politicians themselves become slave to the label too.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison warned about the danger of "factions" in Federalist No. 9 and No. 10. Madison defined a faction as a group of citizens united by some interest that is adverse to the rights of other citizens or the community. They are inevitable, Madison said, so he advocated a republic -- rather than a true democracy -- as a way to limit the damage they can do. Today, our elected representatives, meant by Madison to be a bulwark against the danger of factions, are wedded to them as much as anyone.

So most of us can sympathize with Cogdell's frustration with politics. It is the path he has taken that is puzzling. What has changed in the less than three months since he ousted fellow Democrat Jennifer Roberts as board chair? If becoming board chair served some greater purpose than personal aggrandizement, should he not now be about achieving that purpose rather than high-tailing it? And if disillusionment with politics and the demands of the job drove him away, how is it possible that he considered running for Congress but declined only because he couldn't get the 25,000 required signatures to join the ballot as an independent?

The filing deadline to run for office is noon Wednesday. Instead of a leader who takes a walk in the face of partisan politics, Mecklenburg needs county commissioners willing to do something about it. The three at-large seats are vacant for the first time in decades. We hope that will be seen as an opportunity by Mecklenburg residents who are public-service-oriented and who will put the county's progress ahead of party loyalty. We need candidates who have demonstrated leadership, intelligence and commitment to community. We need candidates who refuse to be beholden to special interests or any one party. We need level-headed public servants who will subordinate their personal fame and their partisan backers to the betterment of Mecklenburg County.

Are there such people out there? Now's the time to step up.

-- Taylor Batten