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Tom Flash Nov 2026
This post comments on Mitch Album’s article: https://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/mitch-albom/2026/11/01/mitch-albom-election-candidates-options/92486223007/
Perhaps you should know where all the candidates have gone. The people who sign your paycheck have helped buy the ones they can influence contributing to the very problems we face today. It’s not a mystery at all, Mitch. It is actually plain as day, and you barely touched on it. Your article, for the most part, danced around the problem. Like how did we get to the point where candidates need so much money to run for office they have to compromise their values?
I suspect you have to dance around it, as The E.W.Scripps Company (Scripps Media) is who I believe you work for and made your name. They are certainly a part of the major problem causing more people to compromise their values to get elected.
Once we had laws that prevented media consolidation to protect a democratic republic. We once had a Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and even, once upon a time, a Detroit Times. And through that time, we also had an Arizona Republic and a Phoenix Gazette. Now, we still have a Detroit News, Detroit Free Press along with what is left in Arizona, the Arizona Republic. We also have the USA Today which was sort of created for people who don’t read much. They now are all owned by one company—more than likely the company you work for, The E.W. Scripps Company (Scripps Media).
So, you don’t have to look far to understand where have all the candidates gone. They are chasing the money, Mitch! All the money SCOTUS has released into the political system so more conservatives could get elected. Whatever “conservative” is today? It is no longer “Fiscal Conservatives,” as their administrations are wrought with war profiteering and massive overspending—all the way back to Eisenhower. Intentional or not, they are moving closer to bankrupting the government. The people who control legislators don’t want to pay the taxes that would reduce the debt.
Perhaps you forget; “The E.W. Scripps Company is a major American media conglomerate and one of the nation’s largest local television broadcasters, operating dozens of stations and national networks including ION, Bounce, and Scripps News.” https://magaornot.ai/the-e-w-scripps-company
The E.W. Scripps Company helps fund the PAC (NAB PAC) to handle industry political action to influence legislation to monopolize the media. That is, in fact, what they have participated in. https://gemini.google.com/app/9b0df4a021fe7325
These are things I knew, but I did cite a couple of sources.
Mitch, you don’t have to ask, “Where have all the candidates gone?” Nor do you have to ask why respectable people would not run for office because they have to compromise their values. Boy, is that provocative, ‘Respectable People”. What is the fundamental definition for ‘Respectable People’? I wonder, are any of the lobby’s for the E.W. Scripps Company; Respectable People? How ‘Respectable’ are you if you are working for the very people who help perpetuate the problem you write about? Going though life without compromising your values can be difficult.
Perhaps compromising your own values, working for a major media corporation who has participated in lobbying to change the rules to monopolize the media, where you can write a heavily commercialized tear-jerk er book about a former professor dying.
It is a good gig if you can get it, but don’t think in today’s Ayn Rand world you won’t have to compromise your own values. That might be almost impossible if you are working for a major corporation in today’s world. Most people who have worked for these corporations, large or small, know the experience. They try to force you to have their values even if it is illegal. It is not unusual for them to expect you to break the rules.
“You want to make money or rock the boat here?”
If you were to become a real independent journalist, you could then write articles of truth and talk about the sources of the problems rather than a garbage article that dances around the problem.
E.W. Scripps is a significant part of the problem, but I guess you cannot write about that. Like they say;
“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
Even if you have to compromise your values. Eh, Mitch? Example; if you work for Starlink you have to accept the fact you are working for a company who uses what I have been informed is an illegal contract with there customers. If you know the contract is illegal and still work there is that not a compromise of your values? One would hope.
The biggest lies we tell are the lies we tell ourselves.
Tom Flash
