A Political Brain Dump For You To Consider

Back in March, I wrote a piece about Dennis Delano, calling him a Buffalo hero. That was written after Capozzi’s exoneration, but before Lynn Dejac’s. The piece was written to criticize the fact that Delano had apparently unfairly been placed on administrative leave after disobeying orders from one of the most secretive and non-transparent government entities in Western New York, and I thought he was entitled to the benefit of the doubt. There remains no question that Delano did good work on the cold case squad, helped to free two innocent people, and that he’s a good cop.

Nowhere in that piece, however, did I give kudos to Delano’s political convictions or his ideas for state government.

At least one person cited that March post as proof that I have now abandoned Mr. Delano in favor of political party loyalty. I have recently written about the fact that people are now questioning whether Delano took undue credit for the work done in whole or in part by others. I am not a huge fan of people taking undue credit for something, and this information was not available at the time.

The beauty of the way that I run my site is that I am completely unbeholden to anyone. I have no financial or political stake in the outcome of any election – local or otherwise. Although I am an unrepentant Democratic partisan, I have given Republicans credit when it’s due, I have supported Republican candidates, and I have criticized Democrats when I thought it necessary. Am I a loyal Democrat? I like to think so. But I don’t unthinkingly go along with candidates just because of the “D” at the end of their names.

And so it is with the Delano / Stachowski race that I have sided with the incumbent. While I remain very mindful indeed of the fact that New York government in general – and WNY government in particular – is FUBAR, I won’t shunt aside a “career politician” for that reason alone. Stachowski may have been in the State Senate for 30 years, but Delano has absolutely nothing going for him politically. He’s a marquee candidate, whom the Republicans have endorsed because of his name recognition and the positive feelings that people have for him. Because the facts underlying that support seem to be eroding, I am going to point that out.

It’s tough when you look at the candidates and races going on right now. It’s absolutely true that I am contradicting myself when I call for the swift removal of the detestable thug Dale Volker from the State Senate, yet I post positive stuff about Stachowski and negative stuff against his opponent. Politics isn’t perfect, and neither are candidates. The best I can do is weigh the available options and make the best choice I can. Oftentimes it’s a lesser-of-two-evils situation, and so be it.

It’s nice and all that Western New York is apparently a decent place to ride out a recession, but that’s only because we’ve been on a slow-burn decline for decades now, and “growth” is a word that is seldom used for anything around here except taxes. We don’t get deep lows because we never get the steep climbs. Now that downstate is in financial turmoil and the state budget is in big trouble, do I want the ranking member of the state finance committee going back to Albany, or do I want to send a nice cop who did his job, but has no real grasp of the job for which he’s running?

What of the career politicians? That’s not always, uniformly, a bad thing – something to combat. What was the compelling reason to select Kavanaugh over Hoyt? What’s the reason why someone would select Hoyt’s Republican challenger, who stumbled and bumbled through a softball Hardwick interview a month ago? Why would I choose Dan the Tan Man over Brian Higgins? Yes, Higgins has been in government for a long time, but he’s got a good, positive record of getting stuff done against tremendous odds. Why would I choose Mike Ranzenhofer over Mesi? So Ranz can go and do the same damage to Albany – through omission and commission – that he did to county government over his 20 years there? At least with the Volker race, I have an arrogant, spendthrift of a bully being challenged by a Democrat who has a record of reform. Say what you want about Konst, but in this particular case she’s the better option by far. You have to examine the options and go with what you think is best. Career politician or not.

If you demand perfection and blind consistency from your candidates, you’re going to be uniformly disappointed. Unwavering adherence to a certain rule or policy is, to me, the sign of an inflexible and unpragmatic individual who may be slow to react to reality, and prefer to play it safe.

In the 26th Congressional district, we’ve got two new people vying for that seat. Some die-hard Powers partisans have called on me to immediately and thoroughly investigate the fact that Kryzan had criticized the acceptance of “special interest” money during the primaries, but has now accepted “special interest” donations herself. Why don’t I delve into this? Because I don’t care. If I didn’t care that Powers was getting that money, why should I turn on Kryzan and critique her? So, she’s inconsistent. It costs a lot of money to run for Congress, and this is a much-watched race – a possible Dem pickup. I had, and have, no doubt that Kryzan would accept contributions from traditional Democratic donors like unions, womens’ groups, and left-leaning PACs, just as I have no doubt that Lee would accept contributions from traditional Republican donors like construction firms, business interests, and right-leaning PACs. Is it any better or worse for the bored unemployed millionaire Lee to self-fund his campaign, versus Kryzan getting money from groups whose goals she already supports? I don’t really think so, so I don’t get bogged down in that.

To another point, at least one commenter makes the point that the frontrunner in a race has no need or obligation to debate his opponent, because the more he says the more damage he can do. I definitely see the validity of that point. However, I would counter that this opens up a new line of attack against that frontrunner, and that lead could fade. Because Delano absolutely refuses to discuss issues, it makes people wonder why – they’re left to extrapolate from that the fact that Stachowski would probably wipe the floor with Delano, who is the closest thing we have to a local Sarah Palin-type lightweight-but-politically-attractive candidate. Lee and Kryzan both have operated out of extreme caution, and I am fully mindful of the fact that Kryzan has also skipped out on some events, as well as free media time offered to her. I disagree with that – I think that a candidate should be on-message and confident in his or her positions, and take every possible opportunity to debate their policy differences, because the voters have a right to know. This Sunday they appear together on Hardwick’s show to debate, and hopefully they’ll both be at the Clarence voter’s forum where I’ll get to see them live and in person.

And what of the current state of our politics locally and statewide?

Remember a couple of years ago when everyone cared about county government? When there was a “tax revolt” and people demanded efficiency and accountability? Yeah, that was a long time ago. Nothing has really changed. We have candidates on the left who run on fiscal prudence while ensuring that their pet projects and supporters are taken care of, and we have candidates on the right who are almost uniformly self-funded businesspeople who detest the very notion of government and all want to ride the Collins coattails.

But where are the big thinkers? The people who see that stuff is FUBAR and want to re-examine from a fundamental standpoint the way that we govern and do business in this region and in this state? Tom Suozzi comes to mind, and I hope he runs in 2010. Even Governor Paterson has proven to be less of a Kool-Aid drinker and willing to make tough choices. Locally, we could point to Kevin Gaughan, but his victories are few, far-between, and largely pyrrhic.

We need to examine everything – abolition of one house of the legislature? Look into it. Slash the budget for Albany’s operation? Go for it. Abolish county government, leaving only the sheriff, the clerk, and the comptroller? Let’s do it. Get rid of the Thruway Authority? 20 years overdue. Reform the entire outmoded, corrupt system of off-book authorities that bleed the system mercilessly? Also long overdue.

Constitutional conventions are rough, because lobbying groups from all over will have their tentacles all over it. But the people of New York and WNY deserve better – we need better. It’s a global economy, and we have a myopic vision of how to reconfigure ourselves to compete in it. Policies from Washington, Albany, and Buffalo hamstring our ability to be flexible and proactive. They hinder our ability to better merge our economy into that of our more economically stable and wealthy neighbor to the west. The megaregion of Tor-Buff-Chester is an idea that has legs, and it’s time for more than just Richard Florida and a handful of hopeful bloggers to start talking about it, and considering ways to implement it.

As we embark over the next 10 or so days into an election that has, above all else, stood for the notion of change, we need to examine just how backward we are around here. Change comes here in minute volumes, in dribs and drabs; oftentimes not for the better. Change comes when the economic realities demand it and the people clamor for it constantly and unwaveringly. Only then will the sleeping giants in Albany muster up the political courage to address it in a meaningful way.

Maybe we can start by figuring out what we want a 21st century New York to look like. What we want it to do, and what we don’t want it to do. There will never be complete unanimity, but compromise can be had, and we can help take New York and Western New York’s natural advantages, slough off as many impediments as we can, and start to compete again for jobs, for people, for economic growth, and for a brighter future.