The Monroe County Republican committee ran ads for Maggie Brooks during the blacked out Panthers Bills game where Maggie Brooks touted the success of COMIDA and how “Monroe County is open for business”.

Well, I hope it is all true. I mean Xerox got a bunch of breaks for building the new Toner plant in Webster. The toner plant is supposed to add 40 new jobs as I recall. A quick google search shows October 31st was a day at Xerox with layoffs as listed in the D&C with this little gem.

The third-quarter earnings report released by Xerox last week showed that the area’s fourth-largest employer continued to cut jobs. Employment in Monroe County was 8,070 during the third quarter, down 260 workers from the same period last year. Worldwide employment was 54,900, down 1,400.

OK - 40 jobs vs 260 jobs and yes, business changes and it is easy to do a search on a multibillion dollar company and find something. Remember when I wrote about these latest Comida awards? When are those jobs coming? Are these net gains in job growth?

But this isn’t a COMIDA question.

The bigger question is what kind of leadership do we want in our elected officials?

Joe Trippi recently wrote a piece about Transactional vs Transformational candidates. (I added the bold). Now he discusses this in the context of the Dean campaign but this doesn’t apply solely Howard Dean. Think of it in a broader context of getting a message out to the voters.

All modern campaigns and transactional campaigns are built around a candidate who proclaims to the nation “Look at me — aren’t I amazing?”.

The Dean campaign (and any transformational campaign successful or not) was built around a candidate who proclaimed “Look at you — aren’t you amazing?”

This strikes me as essential. More than ideology, or any other factor — true transformational leadership can only come from a candidate who fundamentally gets that it isn’t about him/her — its about us.

So, I’ll start with our County Executive. However, these questions can and should be asked to anyone running for office and especially our elected officials.

Maggie, which type of candidate are you? Can you work with Mayor Duffy, Governor Spitzer, and the leaders of surrounding counties to help transform Monroe County into a center piece in Western New York or is this about you and how you didn’t raise property taxes.

BTP pointed out that no Democratic initiatives have been adopted during this Monroe County budget cycle. Come on, are they all that bad? Help me understand how they hurt the people of Monroe County.

What is our Monroe County leadership doing to transform Monroe County into a powerful growth engine that creates more jobs that are lost? That becomes a place where young people become educated and stay because there are opportunities. Where people can raise a family safely and securely and are confident that the hope and promise of tomorrow are visible today. Where we all work together towards a common goal of restoring the vibrancy of Western New York.

Well, what are we doing?