Recently here, I said I was voting for Elias Davis for president of the Writers Guild of America, West. I still may be. But there's a new eruption in the battle between the two factions in the current election — his and the one supporting John Wells for the presidency. It's all gotten angrier and nastier with each side accusing the other of bald, premeditated lying. That's above and beyond each side blaming the other for the fact that our current contract isn't better than it is.
(I think, by the way, it's not a bad contract, especially when you consider the opposition we had to face down to get it. But one of the many things that soured me on WGA politics is that no matter what we achieve — and we achieve a lot — there are always members willing, even eager to piss on the efforts of others and say, "That's not nearly good enough.")
The current spat is an ugly squabble, especially because most of it's being played out in Nikki Finke's online column. If this battle has to occur at all, it should be waged within the Guild, not out in public where things become harder to settle. It also means anonymous and unverified commenters hop in to pour petroleum on the conflagration. It's always clear to me in such donnybrooks that while some who post are what they say they are, a lot are not…and some of them are the same person under a variety of pseudonyms. This does not help.
My ballot arrived today and is presently unmarked. It may just stay that way or I may still mark it for Elias, as he's always struck me as a good man and all the reasons I had for favoring him are all still valid. This is not a retraction of my endorsement…more like me saying, "Hmm…I may want to think this over a bit more." Or I may not. Having been caught up in many Guild brouhahas that I thought were destructive to everyone involved, it doesn't take a lot to cause me to wash my hands of the whole schmear, mutter something about a pox on all their houses and turn my back on WGA politics. I've done it before and I can do it again.
So I have to decide if I still want to vote for Elias Davis…but first, I think I have to decide if I want to spend more than five more minutes of my life thinking about Writers Guild politics.