An elderly constituent attacks Missoula mayor John Engen.

Two weeks ago, Missoula mayor John Engen won reelection with 65% of the vote. He faced four challengers who registered their candidacies on the day of the filing deadline, and the closest one got 16%. He ran unopposed in 2009. John Engen is going to be mayor for a long time, partly because he has no credible rivals but mostly because he is extremely likable. He listens to people. He is particularly sensitive to neighborhood concerns, as when he sided with residents who opposed Missoula College’s expansion to the UM golf course, or when he supported a city council plan to retroactively zone a soup kitchen out of business. That last one doesn’t sound like such an unqualified triumph, does it? Mayor Engen has the virtues of his faults, and sometimes his willingness to accommodate his constituents can lead him astray. That’s the subject of my most recent column in the Missoula Independent, which you can read instead of a real blog post. Or you can click on over to one of the web’s many clearinghouses for tasteful erotica—don’t let me tell you what to do. We’ll be back tomorrow with Friday links.