Just in time for Halloween, the Greece GOP try to dress up Dan Maloney as Satan. Look at the words used - “Dangerous”, “Liberal”, “union boss”, “attacking our freedom.”
This is so funny we had to laugh.
Frankly, the Greece GOP should stick to the dog park.
The Republican candidate for the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district, moderate Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, has suspended her campaign only four days before the election. This means that essentially, she is out of the race even though her name will remain on the Republican and Independence Party lines on the ballot next Tuesday. This is shocking news that dramatically alters the composition of the election and leaves Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman with the opportunity to solidify Republican support in the race to succeed longtime Republican congressman John McHugh.
For months earlier this summer, Scozzafava, a perennial assemblywoman from the Watertown area, was considered the favorite to win this race, with polls showing her consistently in the lead. But as she continued to be squeezed from both sides by Democrat Bill Owens on the one hand and Conservative Doug Hoffman on the other, her support has collapsed in recent days, with polls showing her now in a distant third place, as this chart from Pollster.com illustrates (we’ll try to embed the graph later if we can). To be sure, some of her collapse was due to huge blunders on her part.
The question now becomes: with a two-way race now solidly in the running, who stands to benefit more from Scozzafava being out of the race? The conventional wisdom is that with the Republican candidate out, her supporters will move largely to the Conservative in the race, but this is not necessarily a given at this point. 538.com takes an interesting look at the numbers in the context of the Siena poll released earlier this morning that showed Owens in the lead with 36%, Hoffman a very close second at 35%, and Scozzafava at 20%:
Scozzafava’s supporters in this poll:
– Have a favorable view of Barack Obama by a 64-31 margin.
– Have an unfavorable view of Hoffman 15-57.
– Have an unfavorable view of Democrat Bill Owens, 19-50.It’s not quite so clear how Hoffman stands to benefit from this. Although a majority of Scozzafava’s supporters are Republican (about 62 percent, by my reckoning), it is safe to assume that they are mostly rather moderate Republicans, because almost all the conservative Republicans had already gone over to Hoffman. To wit, two-thirds of Scozzafava’s supporters say they like Barack Obama. While moderate Republicans are an endangered species elsewhere in the country, that is not true in upstate New York, where a lot of voters are registered as Republicans and vote that way in statewide races but often vote Democratic in federal races. (NY-23 supported Barack Obama 52-47 last November.)
[snip]
If I had to guess, I’d think that of Scozzafava’s support, one-quarter of people don’t vote, one-quarter vote for Scozzafava anyway, 30 percent defect to Hoffman and 20 percent defect to Owens. Extrapolating from the morning’s Siena poll, that would produce a result of Hoffman 43, Owens 42, Scozzafava 5, with 10 percent of the voters still up for grabs.
So, presumably this race is still up for grabs. I might argue that given Hoffman’s higher disapproval ratings and the fact that his entire campaign to this point was based around him being the true Republican in the race, her supporters may hold a much bigger grudge against him than they do towards Owens, and may blame him for being the person who cost her the election. If indeed Scozzafava’s hardcore supporters have such a favorable view of Obama, then perhaps Owens’ rally with Joe Biden coming to town on Monday could sway some voters in his direction.
In other post-Scozzafava news, the Independence Party, which is stuck with her on their line, has endorsed Owens. State Party Chairman Frank MacKay said this (via The Washington Independent):
“Some of our local organizations have endorsed Hoffman now that Scozzafava is out, and I want to be careful and respect their decisions,” said MacKay, who lives in downstate Suffolk County. “I don’t have a vote in the district. But if I did, I would vote for Bill Owens.”
[snip]
“If I knew how chaotic the Scozzafava campaign was going to be, I would have gone with Owens in the beginning,” said MacKay. “That certainly was a disastrous campaign.”
Even though Scozzafava is likely to formally endorse Doug Hoffman, her supporters would be much more at home with moderate Democrat Bill Owens; if anything, the assemblywoman is to the left of Owens at least on some social issues like gay marriage. To be sure, even though Hoffman might well end up winning this, his hardcore rightwing brand is not in the mainstream of New York’s 23rd district. One thing that Owens still has going for him is his large advantage in fundraising. But with only a few days left and perhaps no more public opinion polls to go by, this race is really anyone’s guess at this point.
Update: Democrat Bill Owens released this statement praising Scozzafava and launching a blistering attack on Hoffman — a smart strategy for him to follow for the remainder of the campaign.
Kucinich’s amendment to allow individual states to adopt a single payer system, in liu of a national plan, has been stripped out of the current floor bill. Yesterday, Kucinich introduced a letter to have this amendment reinstated.
“Like many other important reforms included in the underlying bill, the Kucinich amendment is the object of attack by the insurance industry,” Kucinich wrote in a letter. “Unlike other reform measures, Leadership has chosen to strip the Kucinich amendment of the protection it deserves.”
Kucinich’s provision, which would allow states to set up single-payer health care systems modeled after Medicare, passed the House Education and Labor Committee in July, but was stripped out by Democratic leaders as they pieced together their final bill from the various committee proposals. Kucinich concedes that the provision represents “incremental reform.” “But,” he adds, “it allows the country to move incrementally in the direction that is needed.”
If Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) is right about there being no floor amendments, this plea could be Kucinich’s last shot.
Update (4:46 p.m.): Democratic Reps John Conyers (Mich.), Eric Massa (N.Y.), Neil Abercrombie (Hawaii), Janice Schakowsky (Ill.), Lynn Woolsey (Calif.) and Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) have also signed the letter
How can removing this amendment be anything but a buy-out of our congress by the big insurance companies and big pharma? The majority of our health care providers and workers favors a single-payer system, along with the majority of the American people. I know that big insurance and big pharma realize that it is only a matter of time before single payer is a reality and they’re fighting tooth and nail to keep their “profit over people” philosphy in place for just as long as they can. Remember the Tobacco Industry? Insurance and Pharma are very powerful, but sooner, or later they will go down. Let’s help to make it sooner.
Kudos to Eric for signing on (I would expect nothing less- he’s a congressman with a set, and then some). I wonder where Alan Grayson is?
Woof, this is exciting! (did I say “Woof”? I meant to say “Wow”) But anyway, this is something that has been sorely lacking in our community. Look what we now have in Greece (from MPNow):
Greece, N.Y. —
Monroe County opened its first dog park Friday at Greece Canal Park. Funding for the dog park was raised from non-county government partners by the Friends of the Monroe
County Dog Parks.The Monroe County Dog Park is an off-leash area that is one acre in size and is completely enclosed by a five-foot-tall fence. It includes separate areas for both small and large dogs.
Yep, just opened up today. Now that we have a new park for dogs in Greece, we can conveniently forget that we also have this in Greece:
Awesome, just in time for the elections. Don’t forget your scooper and your little red bags!
Come-on Greece Republicans, is this all ya got?
Jeepers, where is County Legislator Rick Antelli? Last week, endorsed by the D&C, he was on top of the world. This week he was caught red-handed passing off a phony endorsement letter, then was stripped of his newspaper endorsement.
Our friends in the media tell us they’ve been trying to track him down for days, with no luck. He was a no-show Wednesday at a scheduled appearance, a neighborhood candidates night in Greece.
If you see Rick, won’t you let us know? He likes treats and answers to “Mr. Legislator.”
Here is Rick’s WXXI video. Fast forward to :51, that’s when he describes how accessible he is.
Weelll, here it is, shall we panic now?
ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. David Paterson has declared a state of emergency because of the rise in swine flu cases.
The executive order means that far more health care professionals — including dentists — will be permitted to administer vaccines with only brief training. The order is needed to suspend provisions of state law.
State officials say the number of vaccine doses is also being increased. The federal government is ramping up availability of the vaccine, allowing the state to order twice as many doses as a week ago, a trend that’s expected to continue.
The executive order obtained by The Associated Press says at least 75 deaths in the state have been attributed to the swine flu.
I heard today, on NPR, while I was riding in the car, a letter read from a gentleman opposing vaccination, not because he was afraid of the vaccine, but because he wasn’t afraid of the disease. He made note that no one had addressed the issue from this particular perspective. Why are we so afraid to let our bodies work the way they are designed to work?
If we’re so concerned about immunities for our babies, why do we not have a mandate that every woman breastfeed?? (hint: ka-ching)
Just putting it out there.
Today, I received an email blast from PDA:
We’re coming down to the wire on the house vote for the Weiner amendment– sources tell us the vote is imminent, assuming that Speaker Pelosi allows the vote as she promised. Call Speaker Pelosi in support of the Weiner amendment.
Pelosi will announce tomorrow the introduction of the final House bill—no amendments will be allowed. Apparently, the bill does contain a public option with reimbursement rates tied to insurance rates—not Medicare rates as the CPC’s version does, along with provisions more closely resembling the Senate’s bill.
To make the challenge even harder, the Kucinich amendment has been stripped.
When single-payer advocates were excluded from the White House meeting on healthcare reform, we kept pushing. When the mainstream media blacklisted discussion of single-payer as a viable solution, we kept pushing. When Senator Baucus said “Single-payer is off the table,” we kept pushing. It’s time to push some more.
Please contact Speaker Pelosi, ask her to fulfill her promise and allow the vote on the Weiner amendment, and demand that the Kucinich amendment be reinserted. Click here.
We, as Progressives, have the responsibility to keep our legislators feet to the flames in order to assure that these amendments are recognized. Stlo7 has said before that the bills in congress have been modified in response to the persistent pressure that we apply to individual members, the committees and the 2 houses.
When all this is said and done, let us be remembered as relentless in our pursuit of single-payer, the health care reform that this country deserves.
Anyone catch that Molly Clifford may be appointed as Rochester’s Fire Marshal? This D&C article makes the case that Clifford, soon to be out of a job because of department consolidations, is taking some firefighting classes and may be appointed Fire Marshal by Mayor Duffy to fill the expected vacancy of due to the retirement of the current Fire Marshal.
The city’s former NET director who ran Mayor Robert Duffy’s first election campaign could be making the jump to fire marshal — a move the firefighters union claims is political patronage.
Molly Clifford checked out city firefighter gear last week and began taking an introductory firefighting course on Thursday at the Gates Volunteer Fire Department.
Clifford’s position with the city is being eliminated in a three-department merger, and she will be officially out of work at year’s end. The current fire marshal is considering retiring in early 2010.
The current Fire Marshal has been the marshal for 30 years so retirement is realistic - much like the Public Defender who retired after a similar length of service.
So, what do you think? Patronage?
Well, what does it take to be a Fire Marshal?
Fire Marshal is all about code enforcement and investigation. Job Descriptions vary from city to city and scratching the surface I found the Town of Madison CT and City of Farmington, NM but not Rochester, NY. Still the common theme is administrative - running investigations, Code inspection, and being a public face of safety.
Duffy is ultimately the one who makes the appointment and I’m sure the duties will be tailored to the appointee - seems that is what happens with Fire Marshals. Is Molly Clifford “qualified?” Molly Clifford certainly has a beavy of various job experiences (Ex MCDC leader, Duffy’s Campaign Manager, Legal expertise etc) and she is tenacious and capable, however, this isn’t the first name that would pop into my head (then again, I’m not the first name someone would ask 
).
The thing that I worry about that the Fire Marshal or a similar position becomes a stop enroute to something else over a short period of time.
Take the appointment of the Public Defender. Now we certainly have had and still do have issues with how the entire process was executed by the GOP led legislature. That is well documented on RT. The actual Public Defender - Tim Donaher? From what I understand he is doing a great job. Let’s assume the Legislature flips and the Democrats come into power. Does that mean that Tim Donaher is out of a job to be replaced by some other appointee? Let’s hope not. Oh, and if my accounts are wrong and Tim Donaher is not doing a decent job well, See ya.
Now to the Fire Marshal. Want to appoint Clifford? Fine - but if this becomes some stop over to something else - Clifford is in the job say a year or so and a new opportunity opens - Well, I have a problem with that.
How can we find the happy medium with these types of appointments?
I was thinking that I would get my flu shot as soon as I was told it was not required, but, maybe not.
From Down with Tyranny comes this:
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll yesterday showed continued growth in support for a public option. Voters want meaningful health care reform with choices for consumers that don’t leave them to the mercies of avaricious insurance companies. And as support for the public option grows, approval of GOP obstructionism on health care remains steady at just over 20%, while around 65% of Americans disapprove of the way the Republican congressional caucus is handling the health care debate. It’s counterintuitive than [sic] dozens of weak, frightened Democrats are joining the Republicans in their opposition.
[snip]
Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn says there are 47 hard no votes among conservative Democrats as well as 8 more leaning in that direction (55 in all). There are 256 Democrats– so 201 after the 55 who have announced they will be crossing the aisle to vote with the Republicans against meaningful health care reform.
Yep, weak, frightened politicians. Frightened that their funding might dry up if they were to vote for a public option. (And then there are the opportunistic ones, without naming names) But, sad to say, who do we find in the fray of the Blue Dogs, but our very own, endorsed, Dan Maffei of NY’s 25th congressional district.
Now, if you will recall, when we had a conversation with Dan during his campaign, this was his response when asked what his legislative priorities were:
Healthcare reform. I’m for healthcare for all. Medicare for all.
Voting against a public option is a bit of a one-eighty, is it not?
But Dan is actually one of the Blue Dogs leaning towards yes. What he needs is a shout out from his constituents. This is where we make a difference, people. So, those of you in the 25th who are looking for serious health care reform, here’s his number, give him a ring:
Washington office: (202) 225-3701
Syracuse office: (315) 423-5657
Encourage Dan to help make history. Health care reform. It’s happening now, but we’re the ones who have to make it happen.
(Update from ladkiddo: We received word today from Dan Maffei’s Communications Director who wanted us to clarify that Dan is NOT a member of the Blue Dog coalition, rather, he is a member of the New Democrat Coalition.
My bad, apologies.)
So Harry Reid is pushing hard for a public option in the senate’s health reform bill.
Joe Leiberman has threatened to filibuster with the Republicans if a public option is part of the senate’s health reform bill.
In the words of Sarah Palin (cringe) “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”
Does Joe Leiberman really care about health care reform, with or without a public option attached? Ummm, not so much. What Joe Leiberman cares about is getting re-elected. This time, as a Republican. From the NY Observer:
So it’s possible that he’s just playing for leverage and that he’ll be persuaded to return to the Democratic fold in the end, the scenario that Senate Democrats seemed on Tuesday to be banking on. And it’s also possible that he isn’t bluffing-and that John McCain’s favorite surrogate really is willing to provide the vote that would effectively kill a public option.
Either way, his latest headline-grabbing posture offered further confirmation to disgusted Democrats in his home state that even though Lieberman (thanks to Barack Obama’s intervention last November) now caucuses with Senate Democrats, he is writing the party off as he considers his own future.
Looks like the Democrats in Connecticut have had just about enough of Joe Leiberman. He could not get his ass elected there as a Democrat, or even, probably, as an Independent.
That leaves the G.O.P. option. And it’s not hard to imagine Connecticut’s Republican Party, which is far more moderate on cultural issues than most of its counterparts across the country, embracing him as their nominee. The state G.O.P. has a very thin bench and hasn’t won a Senate election since 1982 (and then only with the very liberal Lowell Weicker). In many ways, Lieberman would be doing them a favor by coming on board.
And is there a better way to curry favor with Republicans than to position yourself as the biggest obstacle standing in the way of ObamaCare?
“Joe is such an extraordinarily opportunistic thinker,” Curry said on Tuesday, “that what you immediately ask yourself isn’t what he might be trying to achieve on health care, but what he’s thinking about his re-election.”
So, Obama returns Joe’s chairmanship to him, and quicker than you can say, “Bob’s your uncle”, Joe turns around and kicks him in the teeth.
He’s not looking out for the president. He’s not looking out for the Democrats. He’s not looking out for the American public.
He’s looking out for Joe.
SBR wrote about Rick Antelli making false claims of support regarding Navitech. I asked the question last night and to the D&C’s credit - looks like they were thinking the same thing:
On Oct. 22, this page endorsed Republican Rick Antelli for a seat in the Monroe County Legislature District 7, which includes north Greece and part of Charlotte. But troubling details of the incumbent lawmaker’s behavior have emerged that were not known to the board at the time of the endorsement. These details call into question Antelli’s judgment and character.
…
Antelli’s actions show an appalling lack of judgment. Much more is expected of elected leaders.
Click over and read the endorsement withdrawal. Anything like this ever happen before?
That Obama guy drives me crazy. Whenever I hear the things he says, I go nuts. And when I learn that, in truth… oops, he never said such a thing, well… it still makes me mad, because I know he meant it anyway, even without saying it. Rush tries explaining his way out of a paper bag when he is caught spreading a hoax.
Yes, you’ve got a plan. Yes, you’re taking the situation seriously. You say you’re doing everything possible, but maybe it’s not enough. That’s why, President Obama, I’m ready to blame you today for the flu epidemic that might come tomorrow. He said he was taking time off, but he just couldn’t stay away. A kick in the wingnuts to Bob FUBO Lonsbery, who wants to blame President Obama for the severity of the flu epidemic that didn’t happen yet, calling it “Obama’s Katrina.”
And the same day that the CDC announced that it couldn’t deliver 10 million doses of swine flu vaccine it promised, statistics showed that more American children died of swine flu in September than died of seasonal flu in all of 2008.
Coincidentally, that was also the same day that Barack Obama went to New Orleans to denounce his predecessor for poor preparation and poor response in the Hurricane Katrina episode.
The sad fact there is that, as horrible as it was, Katrina was limited to a small geographic part of the United States while the swine flu will sweep every inch of this nation. And long before it is done, the swine flu will take many more lives than were lost to Katrina.
Mmmmm Boy!! Presuhdant Oh Bama sure do love dat fried chickin, don’t he! Now don’ go lettin none o us darkies sleep wit yo white women…. Oops, RNC caught with this featured on their facebook page for over a week.
It was either a case of massive brain cramp or massive brass ones for GOP Chair Bill Reilich on Monday. He complained that Democrats used photos of models from a stock photo service, rather than actual local voters, in recent mailings.
The problem, Republicans say, is that the photos were purchased from a stock photo service on the Internet. And the women are not known to be local Republicans, so they couldn’t have said the things they were quoted as saying.
“These reek of election fraud,” said county Republican Chairman William Reilich, during a press conference Monday. “They’re desperate.”
County Democratic Chairman Joseph Morelle called the piece “marketing.”
“It’s a literary device,” Morelle said.
Maybe the GOP Boss thinks Dems should do it the Republican way: Instead of paying for stock photos, make Monroe County taxpayers pay for the models who appear in campaign ads.