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NY-19 Dem Primary: Can anyone get a mandate?

2018-06-03T09:32:01-04:00

Normally, a political party wants its nominee to enter the general election race with a sense of momentum and a mandate from the people. But with seven Democrats vying in the June 26th primary to determine the party’s congressional nominee, it seems likely one of them will win with barely 1/3 of the vote, or even less.

When this point was made to a prominent Columbia County Democratic Committee officer, he seemed surprised. But it’s just a matter of simple mathematics. With seven options, there just aren’t enough votes to go around for one to win with more than 33.3%, let alone a majority — unless most of them perform abysmally and one of them truly distinguishes him- or herself from the field.

With only a few weeks to go, no clear frontrunner has emerged. So one can reasonably expect the winner to have trouble cracking even 30% unless several people drop out in the next two weeks.

Start with a baseline of seven generic candidates who are equally popular (or, more likely equally unknown). That gives each of them a roughly 14% share of the vote out of the gate:

After nearly a year of campaigning, that level playing field has tipped and dipped and deformed into a lumpy, uneven terrain. No one seems to have a good sense of who the frontrunners are, though each candidate has tried to project an image of leading the field.

Let’s go through some scenarios where some candidates excel, some slightly overperform, some are average, some underperform, and some stumble badly. Here is an example of a smooth progression of support among the candidates:

Above, though five candidates get only 15% or less of the vote, that still leaves the top three candidates fighting over just 45% of the electorate. The “winner” prevails with just 25% of the vote.

Now, consider what it would look like if one of the candidates somehow manages to reach a 50% majority of Democratic voters, facing just one other moderately strong challenger:

This scenario requires five of the candidates to get only 2-6% of the votes. It doesn’t seem like any of the candidates are quite that pathetic, or that anyone is that far ahead.

Now, let’s get to the starting premise: What would it take for a candidate to just crack 1/3 of the vote?

This requires the improbable scenario of fully five of the candidates garnering 10% or less of the vote each, and only one other candidate cracking 20%. Is the field really that weak?

Reading this election is difficult. The general perception is that the Rhodes, Flynn and Delgado are doing somewhat better than the rest, but none of those three has gained separation — meaning they all are wallowing somewhere in the 20%s. Collier, who entered the race late as the sole woman among the contenders, doesn’t seem to have caught fire, and might finish at 5% or less. Ryan and Beals have some intense supporters, but also have generated strong negatives, while Clegg has his local credentials going for him. But the presence of four other contenders means these, too, are having trouble breaking out.

But all that is just guesswork, and ultimately the names don’t matter for this exercise. If you have three candidates averaging between 20-30% each, that means the rest have to average 10% or less, and at least one of them has to gain virtually no support at all.

Could this situation have been avoided? Generally, spirited primaries seem like a good idea for the health of a party, though establishment Dems often rail against them. The competition ideally means that more people pay attention to, get involved with, and care about the race than if both major parties just anoint a predictable standard-bearer. Committee insiders nominating whomever they choose, in private, is terrible for the party in the long run. Any idea that primaries are inherently “divisive” is bunk, intended to shoo off pesky outsiders.

Still, seven candidates on the ballot seems like far too many. It dilutes the vote too much, limits fundraising, and may risk inspiring needless acrimony or resentment among candidates’ supporters.

Sure, most every Democrat including the candidates themselves are saying that they will support whoever the voters choose to run against Faso. (Not me—I wouldn’t vote for Ryan, who has a sordid and well-documented record of participating in schemes to spy on and harass union leaders, journalists and activists). That’s an easy promise for people to make now, before the primary.

The reality is that some of those fired up for a candidate who winds up losing on June 26th will themselves lose interest, and neglect to vote in November. That just happens; after all, barely half of Americans even participate in Presidential elections, let alone contests for Congress.

A better outcome might have been for the leadership of the various County Dem committees in the district to have diplomatically but persuasively convinced a few of the weaker candidates to drop out. This would be a positive use of such leadership roles, to the extent that there’s little point remaining in a seven-person race if you’re running 5th, 6th, or 7th. It just saps energy from the rest. A 3- or 4-person primary would lead to more clarity about the differences among the candidates, while still generating interest and competition, while having a better chance of one person actually pulling away from the field, and winning a primary mandate.

The unfortunate reality is that there isn’t much “there” there with our County committees. Their operations and leadership is mostly invisible or mysterious to voters, with Dem officers having little or no real pull among the populace. And so, we are more likely to see someone “win” on June 26th, maybe, 28% of the vote, if that.

Reports: County Dems endorse Yandik over Teachout

2016-01-30T13:39:06-05:00

Will Yandik, Democratic candidate for Congress (Source: Campaign page on Facebook)

Livingston farmer Will Yandik was endorsed today by the Columbia County Democratic Committee (CCDC) to fill the soon-to-be vacant NY-19 Congressional seat currently held by Chris Gibson, according to several Democrats attending the meeting in Valatie.

Both Yandik and Teachout made half-hour presentations and took questions before the decision.

According to one committeeperson, the votes broke down 79.6% for Yandik, 20.4% for Teachout.

Another Democrat said that following that straw poll, the Committee unanimously endorsed Yandik by acclamation.

Teachout reportedly strive to focus on broadly-popular liberal issues, but faced questions about her short residency and very recent voter registration in the district. More than one attendee felt she dodged those questions and did not provide any real answer to concerns that her campaign would be hampered by allegations of district-shopping.

Voted 2429 1/2 Yandik
624 1/2 Teachout
CCDC endorses Yandik

Sent from my iPhone

Barrett won in Columbia, too

2014-11-24T16:03:41-05:00

Some icing on Didi Barrett’s campaign cake: Final results indicate that once all ballots were counted in her re-election race, she prevailed in both of the counties which comprise her Assembly District.

On Election Day, Barrett showed a decent lead in Dutchess, but Mike Kelsey made the race competitive by leading in Columbia. Now that absentee ballots have been counted, it appears that Barrett also narrowly won in the more northward county, by 15 votes (5,682-5,667).

Siena/TWC poll: Gibson has wide lead over Eldridge

2014-09-13T16:46:41-04:00

A Siena College-Time Warner Cable poll of the NY-19 Congressional race shows incumbent Republican Chris Gibson with an “early” 24-point lead over Democratic challenger Sean Eldridge.

Gibson leads 57%-33% district-wide, with 10% undecided. Of those already decided, only 10% indicated a likelihood they might change their mind.

The poll’s results for Columbia County are lumped in with those for Greene, Montgomery, Schoarie and Rensselaer counties. In those five counties, Gibson’s lead is even larger, 64%-23%.

Full “crosstabs” for the poll are online at this link.

Scramble to repair P.R. damage leads to more mockery of Sean Eldridge

2014-05-11T16:05:49-04:00

In the wake of his latest public relations debacle in April, Sean Eldridge’s Congressional campaign put out a call for applicants to serve as an “experienced, energetic Communications Director to manage the campaign's day-to-day operations of press strategy.”

Magazine cover featuring Eldridge and Hughes

That story was first reported by the national news site Politico, whose interview requests the Eldridge’s campaign had spurned—leading to another spate of bad press in a wide range of outlets, from the Huffington Post to the Kingston Daily Freeman.

The development led to yet another satirical blast from Republicans. The GOP seized this as a fresh opportunity to highlight Eldridge’s lack of experience in running for public office, his lack of roots in the district, his overabundance of money to spend on his campaign. and other now-familiar talking points.

Leading the charge was the NRCC’s Ian Prior (himself a former Congressional campaign manager) , who drafted a fake application for the job. Prior used the tongue-in-cheek letter to highlight the GOP’s preferred bullet items: that Eldridge is his own largest campaign donor, that he’s allegedly Hudson River Ventures to curry favor in the district, that he’s bought expensive houses in different districts to “shop” for a winnable race, etc.

Gibson’s people seem to understand that in non-Presidential election cycles, these one-liners are useful (whether fair or not) for motivating the Republican base to turn out—and for helping to dampen Democratic enthusiasm.

Even some Democrats who would like to see the party regain control of the house have grumbled that Eldridge’s missteps are playing into Republican hands, as image and media issues allow Gibson to avoid discussion of votes which might put him out of step with the NY-19 electorate.

One p.r. problem leads to another, as even more balanced articles such as this recent Freeman report consistently highlight Republican accusations about carpetbagging and campaign finance before glancingly addressing the issues at stake.

Eldridge’s challenge now is to undo the Al Gore-ing of his campaign, even as the opposition tries to make his infinity pool into the regional equivalent of 2000’s unfair “I invented the Internet” tag on the then-Vice President.

Meanwhile, though the ad for a new Communications Director is now nearly a month old, recent press releases on Eldridge’s site continue to list the same outside p.r. rep, Morgan Hook of SDK Knickerbocker, as his primary press contact. (The Knickebocker Albany office lists only one other key staffer other than Hook, whereas its New York City office lists 20 Managing Directors, Vice Presidents and Associates.)

So while Eldridge may be belatedly realizing—less than six months from Election Day—that his campaign needs to speak more for itself, and more freely, the intended course-correction appears, like the rest of his campaign, to be a work in progress.

Election results as of midnight

2012-11-07T00:00:46-05:00

The faces of the FOX News anchors were ashen around 11:15 pm as they dutifully announced the projection—already aired on MSNBC—that Barack Obama would be reëlected President for a second four-year term.

Meanwhile, several Republican nominees running in Columbia County were ahead of their Democratic opponents. According to published reports as of midnight:

McLaughlin leads Roberts by about 3,000 votes for State Assembly;
Marchione leads Andrews by about 11,000 votes for State Senate;
Gibson leads Schreibman by about 14,000 votes for the U.S. House;

On the brighter side for Dems:

Mott is far ahead for State Supreme Court Judge, with Schick holding an 8,000 vote lead over the closest Republican challenger;
The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that Didi Barrett won comfortably in Dutchess County, while The Times-Union shows Barrett with a smaller lead in Columbia County, indicating an overall win.

There are absentee ballots and some precincts yet to report in all of these races, but they seem unlikely to change the outcome of these races.

South of us, Terry Gipson has declared victory over longtime incumbent Steve Saland for State Senate.

Manning running again for Assembly

2012-07-13T12:15:30-04:00

Former New York State Assemblyman and gubernatorial hopeful Patrick R. Manning filed petitions yesterday to compete in a crowded Republican primary for the 105th District seat, which covers most of Dutchess County.

Manning, a Vassar grad, previously served in the Assembly from 1995-2006, first in the 99th and then in the 103rd District, before being unseated in a GOP primary by current Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro.

Also seeking the GOP line are Kieran M. Lalor and Richard C. Wager. Lalor also filed for the Independence Party line. Meanwhile, Paul F. Curran filed uncontested for the Democratic and Working Families lines. Republicans outnumber Democrats in Dutchess by about 6,000 voters.

Congressional election analysis: Republican wins Democratic primary

2012-06-27T09:00:24-04:00

The candidate who can take the most encouragement from the results of Tuesday’s Democratic primary was not even on the ballot.

Rep. Chris Gibson (R-Kinderhook) is looking like the only real winner of the 19th Congressional District contest, to the extent that more than 9 out of 10 Democrats showed no interest in participating in the widely-publicized vote.

In a district of nearly 150,000 registered Democrats, barely 10,000 voted. That’s a turnout of only 7%.

93% stayed home. But this did not stop Democrats such as Columbia County Chair Cyndy Hall* from spinning the dismal day as a “tremendous” ratification of the party commitee. She can at least feel marginally better than the Democratic commitees in Dutchess and Otsego counties, where party endorsements were repudiated by some 60% of Dem voters.

Across 11 counties, Schreibman’s average margin of victory against a grievously underfunded opponent was about 160 per county, with a sizeable part of his cushion coming from his home county of Ulster. In November, he will face Republican opponent who currently has roughly four times the funds in hand (see below).

Despite blanketing the district with paper and vastly outspending his opponent, nominal winner Julian Schreibman garnered only about 6,000 votes to Tyner’s 4,000. In the fall against Gibson, he now will need to find some better way to energize the other 140,000 Democrats who did not care enough to vote in the primary, and plainly were not motivated by arms-length appeals such as mass-mailers and emails.

Schreibman also faces the daunting task of winning back the progressive base of his own party. What ought to have been a friendly “let the best man win” primary that left the nominee stronger has greatly dampened enthusiasm among Democrats, as evidenced both by Tyner’s surprisingly strong showing and the low overall turnout.

In garnering 41.2% of the vote, Tyner might also take solace from the fact that he spent only about $4 per vote earned. Schreibman (not counting a flurry of late expenditures yet to be reported) spent more like $16 per vote.

Tyner earned the support of more than 2 out of 5 Democrats despite that 4-to-1 spending deficit, despite hostility from his own party’s commitees, despite being mocked by much of the press right up to primary day, despite his opponent being endorsed by the popular Maurice Hinchey, and despite enduring what increasingly sounds like a spurious last-minute campaign finance charge from within his own campaign.

At that rate of spending, Schreibman would need to spend about $1,600,000 in November to have a chance of beating Gibson. Schreibman, according to FEC disclosure reports, had about $250,000 on hand ten days before the primary. Gibson had over $1,000,000.

* It’s a good thing, meawhile, that my old pal Cyndy taught arts rather than math in the local schools, as she seems to think a 2.2-to-1 ratio is “almost 3-1.” Even most high school students learn that you round down under .5, not up.

T-U on Schreibman’s outside cash

2012-06-21T11:44:55-04:00

Hudson Democratic operative Victor Mendolia threw a tantrum yesterday, when ordinary investigative journalism was applied here to one of his nominees. (Just because he may choose to be blindly partisan doesn't mean that thoughtful Democrats have to fall in line, too.)

And as it happens, The Albany Times-Union today is publishing its own report today on Julian Schreibman's campaign finances. Lo and behold, the paper reaches the same conclusion as I did yesterday in my own post on the topic: namely, that the Ulster County Democrat is relying heavily on New York City and out-of-State donors. This fact will surely be exploited by his GOP opponent, Chris Gibson, if Schreibman wins the primary but doesn't start raising some grassroots cash, and if the party establishment thought this would be overlooked by either Republicans or the press, they'd have to be even less politically astute than many already thought.

Meanwhile, friends in Brooklyn and Connecticut with no connections to the area, but who like me overlapped with Schreibman at Yale in the same residential college, report getting fundraising calls from his campaign at home. (Neither of us have any recollection of Schreibman from our dorm; but for all I know, I served Julian keg beer when he was a freshman and I was a senior.)

As also noted yesterday, but overlooked by Mendolia in his haste to object, I'll be doing a similar report on Gibson's finances in the near future... Gibson appears to have many more local donors, while also raking in a lot more PAC funding. He has roughly four times the cash on hand that Schreibman does.

Tyner has earned his place in Valley politics

2012-06-19T15:49:28-04:00

Pete Seeger endorsing Joel Tyner for Congress

Links:
Joel Tyner campaign
Julian Schreibman campaign

It can be big mistake to underestimate Joel Tyner. Just ask my old friend Ed.

Back in 2003, Edward J. Haas was the incumbent Dutchess County Legislator for Rhinebeck and Clinton. Ed was challenged that year by some left-leaning activist known for his Woody Allen glasses and fistfuls of flyers. An attorney and Republican with strong land use planning credentials, Ed shrugged off his 40-year-old opponent as a non-starter: the type of electoral cannon fodder which Democrats in this area often put up as candidates when they think they can’t win and can’t find any other patsy to run.

This same opponent had run unsuccessfully five times before for various offices, including the State Senate and Assembly. So Ed didn’t think it worth even dignifying his challenger’s seemingly quixotic campaign with his attention—refusing, for instance, to debate Tyner.

But when the results were tallied up, the incumbent was stunned. Ed lost, 1,405 votes to Joel Tyner’s 1,450.

Tyner had won the old-fashioned way. He went door-to-door, organized volunteers to phonebank, spoke on public access TV and low-power radio stations, peppered the papers with letters and stood on street corners, always leafletting. He had accomplished the seemingly impossible through sheer energy and tenacity. He also won by speaking out forcefully on issues which some Dems had shied away from in this GOP stronghold, such as the War in Iraq and public health insurance.

Old-guard Democrats and Republicans alike in Dutchess continued to scoff: Tyner would be a one-term flash-in-the-pan in the Legislature. Yet since then, Joel has gotten himself re-elected four more times.

With his dogged and unorthodox style, Joel Tyner has carved out a place for himself in the Hudson Valley political landscape: the rare politician who gets elected by staying true to his values, by motivating supporters and often literally wearing out his own shoe leather. On issues from agriculture to education (Joel’s also a substitute teacher) to fracking to homelessness to universal health care, Tyner has won over doubters and fired up his fans by never giving up his principles or not being afraid to voice his beliefs.

He has earned the people’s respect, though interestingly not that of some do-nothings on the area’s Democratic committees. The Democratic Party in these parts spends a lot of its time fretting about what we shouldn’t say and how to avoid looking bad and how to avoid having to do too much work. That’s just not Joel’s style, and his positive counterexample makes a lot of committeemen and chairs angry. After all, his determination reminds them too much of their own lack of follow-through and gumption.

It thus is not surprising now to see scorn heaped upon Joel Tyner by some institutional Democrats in the region, despite endorsements of Joel’s current Congressional run by respected voices such as Pete Seeger. A Democratic primary is just one week away on June 26th against first-time candidate Julian Schreibman—like Haas, a lawyer. Initially, Schreibman and his surrogates took the Haas approach, simply ignoring Tyner’s efforts to differentiate their positions on issues such as hydrofracking an universal health care. But as Tyner started to show some traction, they have turned instead to third-party attacks.

Now, I probably never would have said a peep about this election. Schreibman and I overlapped at Yale, and I signed his nominating petition when it was thrust in front of me by some panting party operative. (I tend to support anyone’s right to get on the ballot, in this State which makes that process so unnecessarily hard.) I planned to vote in November for whichever Democratic won the June 25th primary. But the offensive, illogical, silly and most of all demeaning attacks on Joel Tyner require a response. And they reflect poorly on both the Schreibman campaign and the deeply-compromised Democratic establishment of our region.

At home with Julian Schreibman

Improbably touting Schreibman’s resumé as a lawyer for the C.I.A. (the one in Langley, not Poughkeepsie) and celebrating campaign cash as a principal reason to support him, the liberal blog Blue In Greene assailed Tyner on May 15th as “bumptious” for having the temerity to run. Normally, party functionaries expect the guy who’s never run for public office before to defer to the guy who has been elected five times locally. But here, that rule has been reversed.

Meanwhile, Chatham Democratic Chair Ernie Reis took to the pages of the Register-Star to explain why he had decided not to back Tyner... reasons mostly concerning Tyner’s looks and demeanor. Reis objected to what he called Tyner’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” image and was incensed that Joel—gasp!—wrote notes on his folder. (I guess Joel should have brought a legal pad instead.)

Like BIG and certain Chatham Dems, other Schreibman partisans have begun mouthing the words to the oldest and lamest whispering campaign in local politics: Tyner can’t win. They never really explain why they think Schreibman has a better chance against Gibson, except that he brings a lot of outside money to the table, has the backing of the national Democratic fundraising machine, has an Ivy League degree, and he’s a lawyer. (Money and status—that’s what we Democrats stand for, right?) Still, it’s always interesting how Committee folks who have routinely failed to win elections are the first to tar others as unelectable.

Looking down their noses at Tyner’s fundraising efforts is not something that groups like the Columbia County Democratic Committee should do, lest someone point out that at the start of this year the CCDC had all of about $2,000 to its name. That works out to about $100 per town. Paradoxically, that tends to make committeemen more hostile to Tyner: if they nominate a candidate who can self-fund or bring in outside donors, that candidate will use robocalls and mass-mailings in place of actual grassroots organizing and volunteerism by real, live people who live in the district. It relieves the Committee of the obligation to work hard.

Anyway, the case for Schreibman is essentially the same issue-free rationale which led Democrats to eagerly endorse Scott Murphy for Congress several years ago: He had a lot of money and a Harvard degree. He bought ties at Brooks Brothers, and he was a businessman. The Republicans, some Dems calculated, won’t be able to tar us as anti-business anymore! Just nominate a businessman, and insto-presto, decades of assumptions will vanish!

Well, Murphy just barely squeaked by a singularly atrocious opponent (Jim Tedisco) in a special election, with help from a lot of us at the grassroots who held our noses for him despite our many misgivings. After his narrow victory, Murphy promptly joined the conservative Blue Dog bloc in D.C., and pandered to the right on issues like health care reform. Despite his “centrist” stances and despite spending nearly $1.5 million on his re-election, Murphy was knocked out of office after less than one term when he had to face a tough adversary, Chris Gibson.

And as far as electability, the Schreibman camp would appear to be standing on quicksand when it assails Tyner on these grounds. As The Kingston Daily Freeman reported about yesterday’s lone debate (held in private, apparently at Schreibman’s insistence) “Schreibman was chairman of the Ulster County Democratic Party when county Democrats lost their majority in the Legislature in 2009; meanwhile, Tyner said he ‘survived the Tea Party onslaught in 2009.’”

Now, all of this is just background to what ought to matter most to us as voters: the issues.

Primaries are the lone opportunity for rank-and-file voters to express their true values at the ballot box, rather than engaging in our national ritual of voting for the lesser of the two major party nominees. Primaries are when one’s vote can help put a nominee on the ballot who actually reflects one’s politics. On the issues, one has no doubts about where Joel Tyner stands; with Schreibman, there is too much parsing and triangulating and calculating going on.

The issue which has made the most noise in this primary campaign is fracking. Tyner has repeatedly called for a complete ban on fracking, arguing cogently that there is no safe way to do it and no regulatory regime that would fully protect our water from rapacious gas industry greedos. Tyner’s endorsements include the celebrated director of Gasland, and respected environmental educator and activist Manna Jo Green.

Supporters of Schreibman have responded that in private conversations, their man is just as anti-fracking as Tyner. But his public statements don’t lend much trust to that claim.

In an interview with Alan Chartock on WAMC Public Radio, Schreibman hemmed and hedged on the topic, speaking in a roundabout way about having “concerns” and wanting to ensure that it’s “done safely.” Schreibman also stated that there was not that much “space” between his position and President Obama’s. (Obama has taken a sort of “trust, but verify” approach to the industry, one which dovetails with Governor Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Martens’ dangerous belief that fracking just needs to be better-regulated.) Tyner’s underdog campaign pounced on that statement, as ought to be expected, but Schreibman’s surrogates have been quick to scream that it’s unfair or that he’s been taken out of context.

Having heard that interview in full, and also followed the candidates’ public pronouncements on the topic, this listener thinks the critique of Schreibman on fracking is warranted. When interviewed by The Albany Times-Union, the paper pointedly noted that Schreibman “did not bring up the issue” himself. When pressed, he described the issue as if it were being decided in some far-off vacuum, and made the assumption that some way could be found to eliminate risks: “It's a decision that will be made one way or another, and my role in this is to ensure if this is done, it's done safely.”

That’s what my pal Jim (James Howard) Kunstler calls Jiminy Cricket thinking—the idea that if we just wish upon an star and trust in good ol’ American know-how, we’ll find some technocratic solution to intractable problems. I don’t buy it from Schreibman. (I will buy Jim’s new book.)

One gets a firm sense of a candidate who wants to have it both ways. Schreibman is privately reassuring rank-and-file Democrats that he’s in step with their concerns, while avoiding public statements that might be turned into campaign commercials against him. He’s making tepid statements about fracking “concerns” while ducking the wrath of industry interests. Most of all, he’s allowing himself wiggle room later if he wants to join some ill-advised “compromise” on the topic. On fracking, few well-informed environmentalists if any think this is an issue with a middle ground. And this Democratic voter takes a very dim view of politicians who use weasel words to talk around issues.

Many of us progressive Democrats also have questions about Schreibman’s C.I.A. pedigree, because we have a major issue with the continued drift of the Executive Branch under Obama away from, rather than back toward, protection of civil liberties.

Obama has maintained and even extended many of former President Bush’s most egregious policies. Unilateral killings by drones have risen fivefold or more under Obama, with “civilian casualties” artificially undercounted by treating any post-pubescent male who happens to get caught in the crossfire as an assumed terrorist. Whistleblowers who attempt to reign in government malfeasance and other corruption have fared even worse under Obama than Bush. Media outlets like Wikileaks and other information privacy advocates have been targeted for searches, seizures, and prosecution. (All of this is especially dismaying from a President who we counted on, as a Constitutional scholar, to right the wrongs of the Bush era.)

People accused of “national security” crimes have fewer opportunities than ever to face their accusers and the purported evidence against them before a neutral judge. This ever-expanding and ever-more-secretive security state is all too reminiscent of Koestler’s Darkness at Noon or Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, only it’s not fiction. And of course, agencies like the C.I.A. and N.S.A. are right at the heart of that darkness.

So a natural question is: Where does Schreibman stand on these civil liberty issues? How does he feel about the Patriot Act, or data-mining initiatives like Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness (which was nominally discontinued by Congress, but lives on in other forms)? Would he stand up to telecoms and his former employer if they are spying on Americans? Some critics have focused on what Schreibman did at the C.I.A. when he was there. But this voter is far more interested in what Schreibman would do if elected—whether he would be a Russ Feingold, or just another Murphy/Gillibrand/Schumer clone who follows the industry money and caves into fear tactics about terrorism on issues like telecom immunity. One finds no answers at his website, just some boasts that he helped prosecute some terrorists.

Joel Tyner can be counted on to say what he means, and to keep his promises when he votes. Superficial politicos can diss his style, but Joel’s real style is integrity. Win or lose in the primary, he deserves more respect as a five-time elected official and grassroots politician than he’s getting from some Democratic mouthpieces, who mainly have hurt their man Schreibman by attacking a true mensch like Joel.

Complaint trains fire on Saland

2010-10-29T15:11:58-04:00

PHOTO SOURCE: New York State Senate website

Celeste Katz of the New York Daily News has picked up a press release from Hudson and Dutchess County Democrats, which alleges that State Senator Stephen Saland (R-Poughkeepsie) has pressured Hudson Valley fire companies to post supportive messages in front of their stations. The release alleges that Saland has explicitly or implicitly tied the display of such messages to whether the stations will continue to get State grants he’s been authorizing for them.

The allegations appear to be backed up by more than the usual political posturing, as the Democrats have obtained and posted a letter from Columbia County Fire Coordinator James Van Duesen that seems to dovetail with the charges. While careful to state that it’s up to individual companies whether to express support of Saland, the Van Deusen letter has no address for a recipient and is generically headed “Dear Chief”—suggesting this was a form letter sent to more than one chief—and offers this reminder:

Senator Saland has asked for your help by putting a message of Support on your outside signs.

The Senator has over the years supported your Fire Co. with grants and monies.

The Daily News picks up a photo provided by the Democrats of a sign in Hillside, said to be an example of pressure from Saland. (In past election cycles, I’ve noticed slightly more neutral and less flagrantly political payback of this kind, such a “Thank you Senator Saland” sign on a Livingston station.) Volunteer fireman Lloyd Hamilton has joined the complaint filed with the State’s Legislative Ethics Commission (co-authored with City of Hudson Democratic chair Victor Mendolia), stating that:

On October 26, 2010, I took the attached pictures of the Hillside Fire Department sign in Dutchess County. As you will see, the signs say ‘Firefighters for Saland’. I immediately went to the company president and chief and asked why this sign was posted. I objected to the use of the sign and said that, as a taxpayer in the district, I felt it was improper use of taxpayer-owned property to support any politician. I was told that it was done because our department received grants from Sen. Saland and that this was payback for those grants.

I also understood that it was likely that future grants would be influenced by our overtly supporting him, meaning that if we didn’t do this, our ability to receive grants in the future would be in jeopardy.

The core issue here is that upstate firehouses are funded primarily by taxes and government grants, leading to a public expectation that they should remain non-partisan. Beyond any legal or financial jeopardy the complaint might pose to Saland or the stations, residents have a basic ethical expectation that putting out fires is a non-political job, and that having signs out for a different candidate—say for Didi Barrett, who is running against Saland and was just endorsed by the Times—won’t have any effect on the responsiveness of a fire company.

In general, part of the power of incumbency is the ability to dole out small grants, “member items” and other patronage. A quick web search turns up numerous examples of Saland arranging funding (and receiving praise back) for various public safety agencies and organizations, such as the Mellenville Volunteer Fire District, Columbia County Emergency Services, Greenport Police Department; the Rhinebeck Fire Department; the Beacon Police Department; the Roosevelt Fire Department in Hyde Park; the Village of Valatie Fire Department; the Kinderhook Fire Company; the Fishkill Fire Department; and the East Chatham Fire Co. Most applaud such support—but not if it comes with a tacit or explicit demand that the assistance produce political dividends.

Politicians of all parties are eager to help local firehouses and law enforcement, and there is widespread support for doing so. But tying that support to political endorsements is a major no-no, and Saland owes the taxpayers and residents of his district an explanation. As of the time of this report, he hadn’t so far responded to inquiries from The Daily News.

But it’s probably just a matter of time before Saland takes a page out of the GOP playbook, and tries to deflect from his own alleged transgressions. So look for the sitting State Senator to counter with a demand that the Dems "apologize" to every firefighter in his district—even though the complaint is about Saland's politicking, not about the countless honest volunteers who risk their lives to keep our homes safe.