Hep, below, better understands what I was trying to communicate. I’m frustrated at the lack of leadership on the Democratic side of our community over the eight years or so that I’ve lived in the area.

You’re right. No one “deserves” to have an opaque government without input from the people that does not function in their best interest. Least of all, defendants who are entitled to a competent defence in a court of law– in the end, that’s the point of the objection to the process: the concern that politicizing the office of PD will lead to less than competent defence attorneys handling cases.

There’s another fallout from this that no one has mentioned: if the PD office is politicized, becomes incompetent, and looses cases they should have won, not only will innocent people go to jail– but, in the end, guilty people will end up being set free because of questions over the quality of their defence. I wonder how many Repubs in Monroe will be happy with that?

So, no, the people who will be most affected by this travesty do not deserve it. I was hoping, though, with that term to point out that we need to do *something* to improve the state of the Democratic party in this county.

We are plurality D in registration, we vote D in national and state-wide elections yet have R for exec, legislature, state senate, and Congress.

I don’t know that the answer is as simple as Hep suggests– replacing Morelle.

Replace him with whom? We’ve been floundering, trying to find a good leader of the county Ds for years now.

I wasn’t impressed with Molly. I’m still pissed that Rick walked out when we needed him most– to coordinate legislature campaigns in ‘05. And Joe did the same, this year, along with not even finding an exec candidate.

I don’t like Minarik. I don’t want a D leader who will do what I perceive Minarik does– borderline illegal, probably immoral– to win elections. But I’d like to see us have someone who is as effective as Minarik is. I’m just not sure who that person is.

Morelle and the rest of the MC Dems should have moved heaven and earth to find someone - anyone - to take that line on the ballot last November. (Paul Haney? Lois Giess? Bob Stevenson?)

At the very least, they could have cross-endorsed that guy who ran on the WFP ticket.

Leaving that hole on the ballot blank inevitably cost us turnout on election day - and probably the votes that would have pushed Nixon or Dunn or Davis or Levin over the top and prevented last night’s fiasco.

It’s the equivalent of the “50-state strategy” that Dean crafted and that Obama is using to such success in the presidential race - you fill EVERY hole on the ballot, and your chances of getting at least some of those people elected goes up.

I’m not looking to run for anything. But the fact remains that Joe is the freaking party chair. If no one stepped up to run, his name should have been on the ballot. That is his duty as the chair of the committee - IMO as a committee member.

shamrock -
it isn’t a matter of the money they put into that race. County Exec is the big prize in local elections. That is what brings people out. If there had been a contested race - no disrepect to Patrick Christopher - the higher turnout may have made the difference.

I put the blame squarely on Joe. Should someone have stepped up? Of course. But the buck stops with him and he should answer for it.

If Joe had done his job, it might have made the difference in Pittsford and had Ted Nixon prevailed, we wouldn’t be having this discussion now.

the county is getting what it deserves for allowing Maggie to be dictator, I mean, executive.

Monroe County does not deserve this. No way, no how. Every county deserves an open government where the public is allowed to speak and allowed to attend open meetings. This is an absolute requirement that citizens should have of their government, and it doesn’t change because on political party did or did not take a certain action in a certain election.

Furthermore, how do you know this would be any different if there was a challenger to Queen Maggie? You don’t. I’ll go along with Stlo7, lets blame the thugs for their thuggish actions.

That said - there is a reason why the Republicans are in the majority - the local Democratic party needs to run people in all races.

I’ll have more on that later.