Joe Quimby

**Joseph Fitzgerald O'Malley Fitzpatrick O'Donnell the Edge "Diamond Joe" Quimby Jr.**, better known as **Mayor Quimby** is the Mayor of Springfield, Springfield's State. He appears as a slick, opportunistic politician whose chief priorities seem to be keeping himself in office, womanizing, and various other forms of corruption, including embezzling tax money, taking bribes from Fat Tony, the local Mafia Don, and giving monthly kickbacks to the equally corrupt Chief Wiggum. The seal on the wall of his office reads "Corruptus in Extremis," which is "dog Latin" for "*extremely corrupt*."

He speaks with a peculiar stutter.

## Biography

Despite being mayor for such a long time, Quimby does not know or care much about his city, often privately (or even publicly) showing his outright contempt for Springfield's citizens. He frequently takes overseas vacations, which take him out of town for extended periods of time, leading to the headline "Mayor Visits City" in the Springfield Shopper. He once referred to Springfield as **Sprungfeld** at a public meeting. However, he makes frequent, albeit short, public appearances for local festivities, events, business openings, etc.

Among other corrupt behaviors he displayed while in office was his frequently accepting bribes from the mafia and other groups. His constantly accepting and securing bribes from unsavoury people while in office was notorious enough that when he declared while shutting down Fat Tony's rat-milking operation that "the Mayor's office is not for sale", the reporters proceeded to laugh at him, apparently the irony of his statement not being lost on them, causing him to request and fail to have the laughter edited out.

If bending the law will suit Quimby's purposes, he will likely do so. He once arranged Marge Simpson's release after she was arrested for blocking traffic on a bridge after suffering a nervous breakdown, claiming that if she went to jail, Quimby could kiss the "chick vote" goodbye meaning all the women in Springfield would hate him and no longer vote for him since Marge's reason for blocking the traffic was understandable. He also resorted to bribing witnesses when assault charges were brought against his nephew, leading Bart Simpson to observe that "the system works: just ask Claus von Bülow". He was once implied to have stolen picnic baskets.[2] He is also willing to do corrupt things when he is confident that he would not get caught. A notable instance of this is when he funneled funds and cement mixings intended for road work to be used to create his swimming pool (which is shown as a lavish, almost Roman-esque design) and maintained this secret despite rumors to it existing until Mr. X leaked the rumor onto his website and the press confirmed the rumor upon questioning Quimby after noticing him subtly telling a guard to close the ajar door to the pool.[3]

Despite his vices and general self-serving use of the law, he has at times attempted to utilise the law for the greater good of Springfield, such as enacting "Code Black" to clean up Lake Springfield, as well as the (albeit largely ignored) establishing of a 75 cent toll booth in order to gain enough tax money to "de-python the town fountain." In another time, during a St. Patrick's Day, knowing how alcohol makes people violent in the city, he PROHIBITS alcoholic drinks that day in order not to be held responsible for any incident (unfortunately, the plan backfired due the participation of actual Irish Catholics and Protestants caused havoc in Springfield anyway because, without the alcohol, they were unable to forget their differences). He also at one point sacrificed television to save Springfield after Sideshow Bob threatened to detonate a nuclear bomb if they didn't end television.

His catchphrase is "Vote Quimby", which he always finds an opportunity to say, even in situations where it would be disadvantageous to identify himself, like inadvertently being caught by Homer in a motel room with his mistress.

When he was young, he was at fat camp named "Camp Flab-Away" along with Jeffery Albertson, Homer and other characters.

Quimby is also extremely unfaithful to his wife, often womanizing and having extra-marital affairs with women who aren't his wife (especially Miss Springfield). Ironically, he actually did attempt to spend quality time with his wife when his life was threatened by Fat Tony after he (albeit forced to by Homer, his bodyguard) shut down his rat milking operation when Homer tried to invite him out to avoid concerns about the mob. It is implied that he does womanizing because he wasn't happy that he married Martha Quimby, as when doing the above of insisting he wants to spend time with her, he pauses and gives a disappointed sigh before saying "wife."

## Elections

Quimby was elected Mayor of Springfield in 1986. He has been re-elected several times since, despite rather open admissions of fraud and wrongdoing. He once admitted to using taxpayer dollars to fund the murder of his enemies, but thanks to a clever use of a popular catch phrase ("I'm a bad wittle boy"), he was re-elected in a landslide, despite the implication that he still is doing so. Further evidence of his apparent political ideology, Quimby has earned himself the hatred of Springfield's small but vocal Republican elite, themselves portrayed (according to the show's writers and series creator Matt Groening) as mostly dark, ghoulish figures who meet in a castle.

When the party nominated Sideshow Bob as its mayoral candidate, Bob rigged the election, briefly deposing Quimby. He was re-instated when Bob was found guilty of fraud and imprisoned. He also survived a recall election in 2005, with no candidate in the race against him (candidates included Rainier Wolfcastle (another Schwarzenegger reference), Kent Brockman and even Homer Simpson) garnering the 5% necessary to force a recall since Homer who had the majority of votes was kicked from the election.

He was replaced by Snowball II for a brief period, until she fell asleep during the British Invasion of Springfield.

In "White Christmas Blues", Quimby called the Springfieldians idiots, which leads to Lenny and Carl saying "Why did we re-elect this mayor?", which occurred because the other candidate had a very long last name.