This is just amazing.
Dan McQueen
After just 37 days in office, Dan McQueen announced his resignation as the mayor of Corpus Christi via Facebook last Wednesday. “Consider this my resignation. I resign immediately,” he wrote in the Facebook post, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. “The city can no longer deal with such differing views and divisiveness. I step down from my position as Mayor, in order to allow the council and city to regain focus on success. Sorry, they are now into my ex-wives and kids. Nothing good will come from that mess.”
The sudden resignation marked the end of a tumultuous, albeit short, tenure as mayor. McQueen, who ran as a political outsider and made promises to fix the city, encountered a clean water crisis less than two days after he came into power. In recent weeks, he took jabs at local media and members of the city council on Facebook, and found himself the subject of several investigative news reports that raised questions about the legitimacy of his educational background and the nature of his relationship with his chief of staff.
By the time McQueen officially tendered his resignation to the city secretary, he had clearly had enough of the intense public scrutiny that all high-ranking public officials inevitably must face. McQueen hinted at his intention to quit as early as last Monday, according to Corpus Christi’s local ABC affiliate KIII-TV, when he took to Facebook to criticize both the media and his constituents, all while drawing a tenuous link between himself and Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“On a Day of Unity, I find a City of Divisiveness. Dr. King and I both are graduates of Boston University, and I find my-self in a city named, “The Body of Christ” (IRONIC). However, in the past 35 Days, I have been attacked by council as being Sexist, Racist and continue to fight attacks from Media and the public. I just don’t see the VALUE in this fight for 600 more. I had such HOPE for our city. God Bless Corpus Christi!”
McQueen deactivated his Facebook page shortly after that post, then re-activated the account on Wednesday. Given his lack of experience in the public sector—during his campaign, McQueen branded himself as a “tech guy” who would apply his business and engineering background to the mayor’s office—it’s sort of understandable that McQueen felt a little shell-shocked by his busy first (and, as it would turn out, only) month leading the city. But it’s still surprising to see how quickly it all fell apart.
Read the whole thing, it’s something else. Basically, this guy was an outsider candidate, a businessman whose credentials turned out to be shaky, who was elected over an establishment politician because the people wanted “change”. It quickly became apparent that he was temperamentally unsuited for the job, and wound up spending a lot of time feuding with people on social media. I feel like I’ve heard this story before, I just can’t put my finger on where. At least in Corpus, there was a relatively painless resolution before any real damage was done. The rest of us should be so lucky.