Certainly it's fair since he won a spot in a three-way tie to begin with. He came back in before the official start time of the run-off, so there's no real harm there. Explanation? I think he wanted to withdraw to show his respect to the other candidates - ScottC who is an incumbent and the reputation and platform that doc (our most proficient poster) put forth. Hey, bhatnasx is one of those newbie politians here on FT so he might have had cold feet going against those two. But seriously, I think that many other FlyerTalkers contacted him through the day and wanted to let him know that his participation was warranted and would make an even better run-off, which it does because no matter who wins the fifth spot, just getting to this point is a very large vote of confidence by the members of FlyerTalk.

I personally had an exchange with bhatnasx and his reasoning to even run for office was to continue giving back to a community he has great respect for. He started by becoming a volunteer moderator since he felt that was one of the most important benefits of FlyerTalk and recently became a mentor to new mods in a program we've had in place for some months now among the moderator group.

But I do believe is is fair for him to continue to pursue the faith that other members have in his possible role as a representative to the member-elected TalkBoard, just as ScottC seeks to continue serving on the Board and doc seeks to leverage his considerable knowledge of the posts, people and issues on FlyerTalk.

At the end of the day, this is not "Survivor" and we don't need alliances. We need strong individuals to lead this great nation...... (pretty heady stuff huh?)

10-4 Over and Out.