Just reinforcing that payback is a b*tch. When Republicans eat their own…

Liz has the details

In a move seen as an effort to settle a political score, state Republican Chairman Joseph Mondello unceremoniously dumped former Gov. George Pataki off a list of John McCain delegates to the national GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul this summer.

Bummer. I mean jeez - Pataki is an ex-Governor.

Well, this is interesting. Want to see exactly what 8 years of George W Bush’s Presidency has wrought? The Bush Legacy Bus Tour has scheduled a stop in Rochester on Tuesday July 1st @ 10:00.

It will be parked at the Fairport Village Landing parking lot across from Randy Kuhl’s Fairport office (220 Packetts Landing).

Why Randy Kuhl’s office?

Well, President Bush is nothing without his enablers. And one of them is running for reelection here locally. Yes, Randy - you weren’t there for all 8 years but 4 of 8 years is close enough.

Here is an advertisement about the Bus Tour Project.

Head over and tour their website.

If you can - tour the bus in person -

Tuesday July 1st, Fairport Village Landing parking lot across from Randy Kuhl’s Fairport office at 220 Packetts landing

Directions below the fold

__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)

What a day in NY-26!  From The Buffalo News:

Democrat Kathy Konst is expected to end her congressional candidacy tonight and instead launch a new campaign for the State Senate against veteran Republican Dale M. Volker, a source in her campaign said today.

This is a win-win for Democrats because, as Stlo7 pointed out to me when hearing this news, the threat there is now spreading good Democratic candidates across the field where they’re needed.  Add this nugget to the amazingly great day in the Jon Powers For Congress camp.  It’s possible the DCCC announcement earlier today affected Konst’s decision, given the momentum Powers’ campaign has gained.

From TAP and also Angel’s post- Jon Powers is getting on the DCCC’s Red to Blue list - a big fundraising help.

Frankly, this is good news - especially for Jon Powers who, in my opinion, is the best and strongest candidate for the NY-26th.

This recalls the memories of the enigma that is, the DCCC. We recall the DCCC efforts in the NY-29th last cycle under its myopic old management (boo, old management, boo).

Under new management, we recall Chris Van Hollen’s comments when Massa was facing a potential primary challenge.

You might want to recall the comments from DCCC on how they tend to stay out of a primary.

Or Van Hollen’s early visit and support of Massa after the primary dust settled.

These must be exceptional circumstances because, if you follow the Van Hollen link, that is what it takes to involve the DCCC in a primary.

Good news - exceptional support for an exceptional candidate.

The Chairman of the DCCC, Chris Van Hollen, had this to say today about Jon Powers‘ campaign for Congress in NY-26:

“Jon Powers has assembled a strong and dynamic campaign with strong grassroots support, local labor leaders, and all seven Democratic committees,”…Jon Powers will bring the leadership skills he used in Iraq to the issues facing western New York – bringing good paying jobs to the district and fighting to reduce gas prices for middle class families. The Red to Blue Program will give Jon the financial and structural edge to be even more competitive.”

From the remainder of the press release (bold mine):

Democratic congressional candidates running in open seats earned a spot in the competitive program by establishing significant local support, surpassing demanding fundraising goals and by skillfully showing voters that they stand for change and will represent new priorities. Powers is one of only 18 candidates in the Red to Blue program for open seats.

The Red to Blue program highlights top Democratic campaigns across the country, and offers them financial, communications, and strategic support.

Powers himself had this to say:

“This is a huge advantage for our campaign.  From the beginning, our campaign has focused on bringing the voice of Western New Yorkers back to Washington. Today we are receiving recognition that our message is resonating on a national level.”

This really is a significant development in Jon Powers’ campaign to represent Western New Yorkers in Congress because of the well-funded opposition he faces on both sides of the political aisle.  It’s a classic struggle of moneyed interests vs. the people’s interests—and Powers is fighting to ensure the people’s interests win.  Today’s announcement by the DCCC is one more tool Powers now has in the fight to bring the voice of the people back to Washington.

This just in from the Jon Powers campaign:

Jon Powers, Iraq War Veteran, former captain in the U.S. Army and the endorsed Democratic candidate in New York’s 26th congressional district, joined with local labor leaders to discuss issues affecting working men and women of Western New York.

Meeting with local labor leaders in Rochester and Amherst, Powers accepted the endorsement of several key labor unions including:

· Western New York Council of the Communications Workers of America

· Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 22

· National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 3

· UNITE-HERE, Rochester Regional Joint Board

The announcement comes after Friday’s announcement of the New York State AFL-CIO for early endorsement for Powers.

This is turning out to be a great day for the Powers campaign.  The hard work he is doing going door to door and listening to the voters is emblematic of Powers’ approach to leading and labor groups have noticed, as evidenced by these comments:

“We are most impressed by his understanding of the needs of working men and women,” said Richard Lipsitz, Political Action Chair of the local AFL-CIO and member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 264. “Jon made a strong impression on us when we saw he truly believed in creating a fair trade environment, a platform for building green jobs and understands that every American needs affordable health care.”

Jim Bertelone, President of the Rochester and Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO and American Postal Wokers Union Local 215 said, “We finally have a candidate we believe will work for working families.”

This adds to an impressive and growing list of key endorsement for Powers:

:

__(’Read the rest of this entry »’)

More great news from the Jon Powers campaign: The DCCC has included Powers in their Red To Blue campaign, which means that he will receive the resources and power of the national party. It also means that the DCCC recognizes how important it is that Democrats take this seat back from the Republicans—and it means they believe Jon Powers is the strongest candidate to do just that.

Update: (btp here)  This is significant.  In reality, even though the DCCC frequently says they like to stay out of primaries, they clearly can take sides when they feel like it. But it’s unusual for them to be this clearly behind a candidate in a crowded field.  To me, this means they believe, as I do, that “Dollar Bill” Davis will not be able to buy his way into the seat and that the grassroots that Powers has built up will win him the primary over Kryzan & Konst.

No kidding -

Buried in a D&C article about Steve Minarik’s resignation was this bit of information.

Going into the 2008 campaigns, Republicans control many offices, but they face serious challenges. The party controls two congressional seats that cover parts of Monroe County but could flip Democratic, as could the county clerk’s office.

Well first off - the D&C needs to remember there are 3 GOP held Congressional seats touching Monroe County that could flip to the Democrats. Which race is being written off here?

But this is about the County Clerk race isn’t it. Here we have acknowledgment by the D&C that there is a competitive County Clerk race. In my mind this is a huge step forward for the D&C.

Of course, we like Mr. Hasman who brings a professional not political insight into the County Clerk’s office. As we have said earlier when we interviewed him and you can see via a Messenger Post profile as well.

Yep, we have a race. But we knew that already didn’t we which is why GOP ads appeared early in the cycle.

Remember the the Cheryl Dinolfo ads that went up in early June? I wonder if Steve Minarik had an inkling that he was on the way out so pushed the ads out early. Advertisements in June?

From City News:

By a unanimous vote — minus two members — the board of trustees of Monroe Community College has named Larry W. Tyree as the college’s interim president. The vote came after a two-hour executive session. Tyree was interim president of Independence Community College in Independence, Kansas from November 2007 to May 2008. Prior to that, he was interim president for Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas.

Any thoughts? Seems he is experienced in being an interim President.

Let’s hope he helps or contributes where he can in getting MCC past this bitter GOP driven partisan attitude that has tarnished MCC’s fine reputation.

Update: (btp here) We’re seeing what we can find out about Tyree, meanwhile, this part of the City article was funny:

Before voting in favor of naming Larry W. Tyree as interim president of Monroe Community College, Trustee John Parrinello, wearing a “Trust me, I’m a politician,” T-shirt, gave a speech praising former MCC President Peter Spina. Spina had been County Executive Maggie Brooks’ choice for interim president of MCC.

It’s interesting that Maggie’s choice was not selected.

For weeks now there have been rumblings in the conservative groups around town about the status of War Kids Relief, a charity for children founded by Jon Powers, Democratic candidate for Congress in NY-26.  I received this from the Blue Mass Group in my Inbox last night and I think it will clear things up (I’ve corrected the original message’s link to childrenscultureconnection.com because it is incomplete):

Your comment bothered me, because as a vet, I was concerned that lingering doubt was detrimental in so many ways.

Thank you for raising this question. I hope you find this response from Jon Powers satisfactory. If not, he has invited further inquiry.

Jack Mitchell
sleeping.giant.stirs AT gmail DOT com

Thank you for sending the information about the War Kids Relief email because I want to address the issue.

War Kids Relief has been reorganized under Children’s Culture Connection and led by Charles London. It is continuing the same mission and I will remain involved, but we wanted to separate the program from me so that there was no conflict of interest once I am in Congress. http://www.childrenscultureconnection.com…

This is something that we definitely want to address [since] the website came down. Please share this email with the folks. Anyone with any concerns can contact me at 716-633-6068 or CCC through the website.

Thanks,

Jon

Jon Powers
Congressional Candidate NY-26
www.powersforcongress.com
T: (716) 633-6068

There is a War Kids Relief link on the Children’s Culture Connection site that can be viewed here.  The site states:

Now in partnership with Children’s Culture Connection, War Kids Relief is harnessing the creative potential of children in both Iraq and the US to make a lasting positive change in their lives and communities.

For Fall 2008, War Kids Relief is developing programs that help American children learn about Iraq’s culture and history, and building on that knowledge, to encourage them to foster peace with their Iraqi peers by sharing their own unique culture with them.

Through specially designed care packages and activity kits (including letters, artwork and videos) that will be taken to Iraqi students by US servicemen and women, American youth will have the opportunity to share their benevolent spirit with the children of Iraq. From there, the US troops will help the Iraqi youth to create their own care packages to send back to their new friends in America.

I hope this quiets the rumblings because when a veteran wants to give back to his country by starting a charity for children, it is something we should applaud, not tear down.

Today’s the first business day post-Minarik. Frankly, I’m cynical that we’ll see serious change, and I’m cynical that the change we do see won’t be more self-serving window dressing, as part of the photo-op/sound bite management style of the local GOP.

That said, Exile raised some really good questions Saturday on what to look for going forward. The first of which, of course, is who gets appointed interim MCC president today. What do we know about this appointment? Not much. Even those not just keeping their eyes on the ball, but those in the direct path of the ball don’t know for sure:

MCC Professor John Wadach, who has actively opposed the search process, believes SUNY has given the divided board a list of acceptable candidates.

County Executive Maggie Brooks criticized the original search process, and urged the board to appoint former MCC president Peter Spina to the interim post.

On Friday, Spina said he had not been informed a selection for interim leader may have been made.

Any thoughts or info on Spina? This is not a good recommendation:

This is the reaction from MCC Board of Trustee Chair Richard Guon to Brooks comments. He said Peter Spina served MCC well as president for 18 years.

Spina may be great, but the approval of Richard Guon, the man who ousted Lori Van Dusen (perhaps the most conscientious member of the MCC Board), around the time the whole MCC presidential selection process went horribly, horribly wrong, is suspect in my book.

Update: From the City Paper:

The MCC board of trustees, minus Lori Van Dusen and Mike Nuccitelli, is meeting right now. The board convened at 9 a.m. and immediately went into executive session. The board may appoint an interim president of the college this morning.

Van Dusen resigned her seat on the board and Nuccitelli’s term expired today.

There are about 70 people in the audience.

Here we go.

Random thoughts, upon further analysis of these developing stories:

• Jack Davis got campaign finance law overturned, so now he can spend whatever he wants while Jon Powers is still shackled by fundraising limitations.  Seems to me that Powers’ freedom of speech is the one being limited by this ruling.  What Grievous Angel said, basically.
• Trouble for Davis is, who votes in primaries?  The base. The grassroots.  It’s hard to guess how many folks are going to turn out for the primary in September, but estimates I’ve seen show a super-low turnout, compared to the general election.  Especially if folks are saying “Wha?? Didn’t we already have a primary in February or something?  Don’t we have a nominee already?”  Who in NY-26 is going to be fired up enough to go out to the polls on primary day?  Spidey sense tells me low information voters who have been saturated with Davis ads will not be bothering.  On the other hand, Powers has been building a grassroots army for about a year, working with downticket candidates at several levels, and garnering support from every Dem committee in the district.  All these committees and candidates have dedicated volunteers (mini-machines, in a way) that will network and get each other out to voters and to the polls on primary day.  I believe that alone will get Powers over the top.  Personal contact is a much more powerful motivator and persuasion tool than even paid media.
• After thinking about the rumor about Minarik being appointed to the MCC interim presidency, my spidey sense is starting to tell me it’s a Rovian trick, to make people feel better about who they actually do appoint on Monday.  Kind of like when my wife comes home and says, “Honey, I’ve got some bad news. I’m…pregnant again.”  After I come to, she says, “Just kidding– I actually just spent $100 on some clothes.”

Might want to read this article by Bill Moyers.

Here is the lede paragraph

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn’t a war about oil. That’s cynical and simplistic, they said. It’s about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be … the bottom line. It is about oil.

Alan Greenspan even says it was “Everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil”

read the article

Welcome to the “Is that all that was going on?” edition. For your reading pleasure…

Will the last person please turn out the lights

We ask the question is the GOP elephant an endangered species? Bruno announces he is not running for reelection. Airbare8 had a good solid post immediately on the electoral implications. Skelos takes over. Of course - as exile points out, correctly, the real fight in the State Government begins in November, It doesn’t end on election day. That same logic applies at the local and national level as well.

Locally? Local Republican political power broker - Steve Minarik - abruptly resigned fueling speculation. Did he jump or was he pushed.

heck even Tony Argento, a leftover ER village appointee, finally resigned from ER village board.

Dependent on subsidies are we?

COMDIA made the news - what else is new. Fill out an application, demolish someone else’s building or have a government appointed non-governmental agency subsidize your retail establishment by using the market’s invisible hand to smack your competition.

Speaking of subsidies - DayCare? Seems Maggie has her hand out for DayCare subsidies in this a dust-up between County and State Government.

Can you say RenSquare? Has it crossed the point of no return? Is this project deal yet? Mayor Duffy seems to be moving in that direction.

You reap what you sow

We discussed two books - Perfectly Legal and Three Cups of Tea both worthy of reading.

We were reminded, on the 60th Anniversary of the G.I. Bill of a key contributer to America’s growth as society.

Speaking of sowing… Mr Smith doesn’t go to MCC yet (this City News interview) - and that didn’t stop this group of determined MCC protesters with great pictures.

Finally - it is petitioning time- and this discussion on New York State electoral processes.

A couple of Congressional race briefs

Massa/Kuhl go at it over fuel subsidies and it is ugly.

Powers get the AFL/CIO endorsement. This is importnat because Powers is in a Democratic Primary and Davis has made trade his centerpiece issue.

Of course with the Dem’s caving on FISA in the House there was this plea to call our State’s Senators.

Paloma in Seneca Falls at the birthplace of the women’s rights movement

Meet Paloma Capanna.  She’s running for the NY State Senate in the 54th district.  From her website:

It’s time for the Democratic Petition Drive to collect the signatures required to get on the ballot for Election Day, Tuesday, November 4, 2008.

For the first time in 16 years, a Democrat is running for the office of New York State Senate in the 54th District. I’ve had enough of the dysfunction in Albany, haven’t you?

I am running on platforms of change for our future: universal health insurance coverage, green energy for green-collared jobs, and environmental remediation and protection. The future jobs of our economy will be harmonious with our natural resources as we research and develop renewable energies.

We are a grassroots campaign, powered by people, funded by individual, local donors. Now we need you: to help us get on the ballot, to help us mount a successful campaign, to wage the battle in Albany to restore government of, by, and for The People.

Paloma needs help collecting signatures to place her on the Independence Line.  If you are a notary, or know of any notaries who would like to help a progressive candidate get elected in the 54th to turn the NYS Senate around, go to Paloma’s website and offer your help.

In the words of the great Red Green-”We’re all in this together”.

Thanks