And to Mike– who the hell cares that it took Jon 38 days to endorse that idiot. He did because he’s a good guy and that’s all that matters. She doesn’t deserve his endorsement

I’ll try and make it clear to you one more time. Try to keep up. What I’m saying is not that Jonny did not do good things, not that he did not serve his country and not that he has not done anything for his community. I’m simply saying that his service to the community (not country) does not measure up to the levels that many people professed on here.

I have not told anyone to shut up. I have not even implied that. All I’ve been saying is that people need to keep things in check. I throw in a little dose of reality when the hyperbole hits a fever pitch. Some people on here speak so highly of Jonny that you have to wonder if the Vatican is just waiting for him to die so they can declare him a saint.

It always seemed like this was an open forum. Yes, BP has some clear views and biases, but I thought everything was open to discussion. So what if this forum is pro-Jonny? Does it upset your sensibilities so much that you can’t even tolerate a person questioning his credentials? (And again, I should point out, I’ve only questioned the credentials others have presented.) I’ve never seen anything to suggest that only pro-Jonny posters were allowed to comment on this site.

2. He wasn’t brought down by one ad. He was brought down be a terrible and well-funded attack of lies and half truths, orchestrated by a crazy, kamikaze millionaire who couldn’t care less about the Democratic Party as a whole. Without Jack Davis, Alice gets handed her ass.

3. Jon didn’t outspend Alice against Alice, he tried to keep pace with Jack Davis. And, Alice didn’t win a head to head. She stepped in after the carnage, and did not even win a majority of the votes cast.

4. My argument about the Constitution is not ridiculous OR irrelevent. Powers meets and exceeds the qualifications for the job. And, because I clearly recognize what you refuse to…that leadership is about the person, not about the past experiences. I concede that Obama does not have the experience that McCain has. I am going to vote for him anyway. He has the qualities that I believe will be able to repair our country’s severely damaged world image, which I think is paramount to putting America back on solid footing. The fact that Alice Kryzan can’t seem to gain her footing against a No Show Chris Lee, supports my feelings that she will not be able to win. And, by the way, I am not voting for Palin, not because she lacks experience, but because everytime she opens her mouth she rambles like a ditzy beauty queen. When my wife called and said..”McCain picked a woman”…I was thrilled. Makes the election historic, regardless who wins. Then Sarah started to talk. Game over.

Also, you refuse to acknowledge that Jon Powers has embarked on a lifetime based on service, to his country and to his community. Makes your argument sophomoric, as I/we have shown that he has shown a continued committment to community service. You discount it at every turn. I have never compared him to you or to the high school students. I simply pointed out that Jon does community service and has for all of his life. You say it’s not enough. I say, any community service is good service and the fact that he continues to do it to this day, shows what he is made of, and the fact that you continue to discount it shows what you are made of.

Yes, experience is fair game. Not arguing that. What I am arguing is that YOU refuse to acknowledge any of Jon’s experiences as valuable, and in the true Swift Boat fashion, you have turned good and noble things into bad things. Again, shows what you are made of, not Jon Powers.

5. I neither forget nor ignore that you are posting in response to others. As a matter fact, what is most irritating is that you walk into a place that is Pro Powers and you insult, belittle and refuse to recognize that he has any redeeming qualities at all. I maintain, as I am sure that many in this blog do that Jon Powers is a role model. And, he has come to my school and spoken to two of my classes and helped them with ideas on two separate community service projects. Probably doesn’t count though, because they chose to do the project for a class, right? You respond negatively to someone’s praise of a guy we support and you expect us all to shut up about it. Again, shows what you are made of, not Jon Powers.

At the end of the day, Russy, it is you that is the failure. You want us to shut up about Powers , then you shut up. I am going to keep defending him, not because I am some cultist, but because he has done good things and doesn’t deserve to be talked down upon by shitbags like you, who can’t find ANY good in a good man’s bio. I love politics, but I don’t love this side of it. It is nasty, and so are you.

I did not say I have every registered Democrat in the 26th District to back me. I simply stated I have the voters. The voters are the ones that voted and the majority of them did not support Jonny.

Jonny outspent Alice by about 2:1. He didn’t lose to Davis so your points about Davis are completely irrelevant to the discussion. Jonny also had the backing of the party, locally and nationally, which provides a whole lot of organization. There’s no doubt he had the better organization over Alice to. He lost to a less organized, less funded, candidate that was not back by the establishment. That was the point.

Jonny didn’t have leadership thrust upon him. He went out and told people he was the leader they were looking for and they told him he wasn’t. Obviously Jonny wasn’t the great leader you keep trying to claim he is, at least not in this arena. He lost.

Again, your point about the Constitution is ridiculous and irrelevant. You know people constantly have discussions about whether or not a person is qualified for the office they are seeking. Many Dems said it about Obama throughout the Primary and now many on the Left and in the media and even some Conservatives are saying it about Palin. Are you so sophomoric and narrow-minded that you can only imagine they must have been debating whether Palin or Obama were at least 30 and US citizens? I cannot find anywhere on here where you took exception to those discussions. The qualifications of a candidate are a legitimate debate. It goes on all the time at just about every level. This is not a debate I invented and it’s not unique to Jonny.

What you seem to forget or ignore in all of this is that everything I’ve posted about Jonny was merely in response to what others posted. Like I said before, someone would say Jonny’s done a lot for this community, or more than I have, or more than anyone else and I’ve simply asked them to back that up. Yes, perhaps he’s done some volunteering and has served this community in some ways. However, they do not rise to the level of service that people on here claimed they did. Serving his parish and cooking hot dogs once a year does not make him one of our community’s greatest, as has been claimed and that was what I responded to. I’m not saying he didn’t do anything. I’m merely stating it does not rise to the levels of greatness folks claimed.

So maybe it wasn’t Powers who delayed the endorsement, maybe Kryzan just didn’t care

1. The qualifications listed in the Constitution are the qualifications for the job, same as in the help wanted classifieds. Any one who has those qualifications is able to apply for the position. Thus, Jon Powers is qualified for the job.

2. Qualifications don’t make value judgements, true, but Jon Powers has made plenty. He chose to do the continued community service throughout his life that you are belittling. He chose to serve in our Army. He recognized a serious problem in the Iraq war effort and he chose to bring awareness to it and try to solve it. By many people’s judgement, those are all admirable value judgements. To your mean spirited, small mind, apparently they aren’t good enough.

3. NO ONE EVER IMPLIED that Jon Powers was in the top .0004% of the country or the WNY community. Your ridiculous math, not ours.

4. You have the voters of the 26th District to back you up? There is approximately 130,000 registered Dems in the 26th. A total of 11420 voted. So, if they all voted for Alice you would have 8.7% of the voters of 26th. And since the difference between Alice and JP was 1712 voters, you actually have 1.3% of the voters in the 26th. I know, Russy, it only takes 1 vote. Overall, voters are lazy. They would rather watch Family Guy than study the issues and see what the truth is. Jack Davis didn’t run a campaign to get elected, he ran an egomaniacal slash and burn against Jon Powers, and the lazy voters who make their decisions based on a 30 second political spot believed the lies he spit out. Same crap with Bush and Kerry.

5. Sometimes the best leaders are the fresh faces who have leadership thrust upon them, whether they like it or not. Sometimes the best leaders are the ones who simply stand up and say, “OK, I’ll give it a shot”. Leadership is completely situational. People who can lead a public school where there is no money worries, can’t function in a private school where budgets are tight. Truth is management has to be proven…leadership often just shows up. You personally have no idea at all what kind of leader Powers would be. The 40 career military guys who he was put in charge of, however, might have a better idea and they came out for him.

6. Jon Powers DID NOT have the advantage in money and possibly organization. Jack Davis had clear advantage in money, and he bought alot of people to work for him. Powers used his money as frugally as he could, keeping the staff small and saving the money for big push leading up to the primary. Jack also had the clear advantage in name recognition, having run in the two previous election cycles. He built that by mailing 9 pieces by like July 4.

7. You keep tossing around words like “collosal failures”, which again are very personal and very insulting. And there is no doubt that you are not doing it to make your feeble point, but to be insulting. Politics is politics. I can assure you that there are way more crucial and collosal failures than this. Your parents probably know that feeling well. Lincoln ran like 6 or 8 times before he won anything. He was probably a terrible president though. Untested leadership. Probably a schmuck.

8. The cost of running a Congressional campaign is ridiculous. And the cost of running against a self-funding multimillionaire with no care for how much he spends or how despicable his tactics are is even more astronomical. Western New York simply can’t afford to support it. I have no problem with money coming from out of district. You can’t get a chance to show your leadership stuff if you don’t get in the game. By your “rules” only rich Western New Yorkers would be allowed to represent us. Quite honestly, Jack Davis and Alice Kryzan and Chris Lee have no idea what I am going through every day. Do you think they know what it’s like to struggles to make ends meet or to watch their savings eaten up? Nope. Chris Lee is just doing it because he has nothig else to do. Made his millions and now he needs a new hobby. Another millionaire who is out of touch with the working people? Great idea. They have shown such a good record of helping us out so far. Unless they are self-funded, candidates are going to have to take money from PACs and from out of district.

Come on, Russy, just admit that you don’t like the guy personally. Stop trying to hide behind bullshit. It’s OK. He’s better looking than you, or he ended up with the girl you wanted in high school. Did he score a goal on you in under 14 travel soccer? Because it has to be something like that. He was by far the best candidate. He was good enough that even the pathetic GOP in Erie County had to try and get involved in a Democratic primary, because they knew that he would give their wet rag candidate a run. Powers lost because Davis threw over a million bucks at nothing but smearing him, and the lazy voters bought it. I am happy that at least they sent that ridiculous old man packing too. Powers lost because he had to spend his days raising money…alot of money for a relatively unknown guy. Powers lost because it got so dirty that voters tied him to that too. The voters didn’t get to see what kind of man Powers really was through all the shit.

Alice won because she had ONE good ad that made people smile for a minute. It was a negative ad in disguise, but the voters smiled, so they felt it was positive. Good for her media firm. They earned their money. Doesn’t make Alice a great candidate or Powers a bad one.

I imagine we’ll see Powers again someday and you and Splatt and Hudson can start your hateful circle jerk all over again. Without Jack and his millions of hatefilled dollars, it might be a different story.