… Ms. Chow could have levelled with voters. She could have said: Look, sorry, but we are in big trouble here and I am going to have to ask you to pay more to keep the city in the kind of shape I know you expect. Her rivals would have cried aha!, but voters would probably have elected her anyway. With a well-known name, a long record and no major opponent, she was the prohibitive front-runner right through the campaign. Voters might even have given her credit for her candour if she had simply told them to brace themselves.
She did nothing of the sort. Instead, she told them not to worry their little heads about their taxes going way up. She knew they were hurting already. She felt their pain. She couldn’t say just what the tax increase would be if she were elected, but, ya, modest, just modest.
