There are so many opportunities to blue up that map. As a Brightonian, I think the Brighton experience is very informative. Some people think that Brighton has “always” been Democratic. In fact, before 1989, Michael Miller was the only Dem who had elected to the Town Board in recorded history. That began to change in ‘89, when Jim Vogel and Lynda Graner Goldstein were first elected to Town Board and Sandy Frankel nearly was elected Supervisor, despite a GOP registration edge of over 2000. Why did they win? Three factors. First was an issue…open space. Second, they were all people who were well known in the community as leaders, Jim as an active youth sports volunteer, parish leader and marine reservist, Lynda as an education advocate who had led the fight to have mandatory stop arms on school buses, and Sandy as a well known school board member. Finally, they had a relatively small but passionate and energetic campaign team. In 1991, the job of turning Brighton government Democratic was completed when Sandy Frankel won the supervisor’s election overwhelmingly on her second try and Ray Tierney and Bob Barbato were elected to the Town Board, still in the face of a considerable registration deficit. Again, the same factors applied, with open government and budgetary mismanagement being added to open space as the key issues, Town Board candidates who were both well known Monroe Avenue business people and long time Brighton residents and an even larger campaign team with the same drive and more experience. Since that time, there have been some different Town Board members, but the constants have been a committment to those same issues, as well as the development of new successes under Sandy Frankel’s leadership, strong candidates with a history of committment to the Brighton community, and active volunteer campaign committees.
I can’t stress enough that during those early years, there were many more Reps than Dems in Brighton, although that has now changed dramatically, as Dems have moved from the city into Brighton and more and more blanks and Reps have registered Democratic.
This model can be used in any Town in Monroe County, and in many ways it is exactly what the Gates Dems have done to become successful. Their issues include the budget mismanagement and closed government in Gates, they have recruited great candidates and have put together a strong campaign committee (with one of their most dedicated volunteers a veteran of the wins in Brighton!). If Brighton can do it, if Gates can do it, if Irondequoit can do it, any Town in Monroe County can do it, especially now, when there has been such antipathy towards the GOP in general. I certainly hope and expect that in coming years we will see more and more of these successes throughout Monroe County.

Very informative post.

Great post. Holy shite there’s a lot of Republicans around here.

I looks like much more imposing when all laid out like that first graphic, but as Irondequoit recently pointed out - these towns can turn blue. Parma might be the next to go. They’ve gone from no Democratic committee, let alone any Dem officials, to a quickly growing committee and Mr Rittler on the council. They already plan on running 2 Dems in 07 as well. If we can win out there, there may yet be hope for the Southern tier.

To paraphrase “Chinatown”

“Forget it, Jake; it’s Rochester”.

[...] Now - Minarik is dumb like a fox and he comes home to focus on 2007 where we have County Executive races as well as some town races. I have to look up the number of voters but unless you live in the town of Brighton - Monroe County is Republican with a smattering of Democratic success. Reynolds and Walsh carried Monroe County. BTP posted about the challenges here with a graph of elected Democrats. Our job will be to ensure Minarik’s statewide success is transferred to the local level. that is done by shining light on our Monroe County Elected Officials and sharing what we find. [...]

[...] Who receives and handles these absentee ballots? Is it the town clerk? Because that’s an elected position and as I noted in a previous post, just about all the elected town clerks round these parts are Republicans. Not suggesting any malfeasance, but voting is one of the key elements of our democracy, and it disturbs me that something as simple as keeping track of 5 envelopes is not being done. When I see two close races like this and the Pittford village one have a 1 or 2 vote difference, and– whoops!– gee we lost a couple envelopes for these ballots over here, I start seeing the ghost of Ken Blackwell, notorious Ohio Secretary of State who also happened to co-chair Bush’s 2004 Ohio re-election committee. Not like they had any voter suppression issues in Ohio, or anything. Much. Just sayin’. [...]

[...] earlier on how many GOP officials we have compared to party registration, I was reminded of the kick-butt map I created last fall. (Hey, it’s a map, it’s gotta be [...]