They may not be historic, but local races can be hot

Anyone who thinks local politics is not as interesting, engaging or energizing as national politics should take a look at the "most commented" list on the Daily Herald's Web home page, dailyherald.com.

Our editors monitor that list every day. It doesn't necessarily tell us what kind of stories we should play on Page 1 of the print newspaper, but it does tell us which ones are generating conversation among readers. Usually, the topics on this list change every day, or nearly every day. A lively conversation may typically involve more than a hundred posts, and occasionally something will stir comments into the three, four even five hundred range. Even so, rarely do such conversations last more than a couple of days before something else excites a group of readers and makes its way to the top.

But right now - or at least as of Wednesday evening - a comparatively straightforward story by Kimberly Pohl announcing an election challenge to the incumbent mayor of Hanover Park, published almost exactly a month ago, continues to be the most-commented story at our site, with more than 800 posts.

A couple of things worth noting:

One, while the first several pages of commentary seem to include a fairly broad diversity of voices, the discussion seems to have narrowed to a smaller group of fewer than 10 people responding back and forth among each other.

But, two, it's hard to tell how diverse the commentaries have become, because so many posts have been removed for violation of terms of service. Posters call this removal "being TOS'ed," and it usually happens because someone uses foul language, disparages an entire town or group of people or says something highly inappropriate and personal about someone else. We can't monitor every one of thousands of posts every day, but posters who see something inappropriate get the attention of our monitors when they click on a "Report Abuse" icon near each comment. If the monitors agree a post is inappropriate, they remove it from the conversation.

I've written before to decry the incivility that often characterizes commentaries on stories, and getting TOS'ed requires a remarkable level of incivility. So, I'm not about to defend the high number of TOSes in this particular string of commentaries, but in this case, I do find it an interesting indication of how passionate people will get about their local politics. If you haven't summoned this passion yet, you might want to start thinking about it.

Even now, the Daily Herald is ramping up for coverage of spring municipal elections. We're executing plans for reporting on thousands of candidates in hundreds of suburban school, park, library and municipal boards. Few of these stories will have broad appeal outside their own boundaries, but it's almost certain that one or more will affect you and the community where you live.

So, it's time to keep your eyes peeled. Intermittently, at first, but in a torrent before you know it, you'll see stories about candidates and issues that will directly affect your pocketbook and your quality of life. Indeed, it may well be argued that the decisions you make this April will affect you and your family more directly than anything that happened last November.

People often think that the interesting political discussions involve the president or the governor, dealing with broad, important issues like war, abortion and the economy. But if you look into your local races, you may quickly find there's just as much there to inspire or anger you as in any state or national campaign.

Doubt me? Ask some of the folks in Hanover Park.

Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is an assistant managing editor at the Daily Herald.