Ouch
Based on the unofficial results from the Monroe County BOE, this was a mixed night for Dems.
Key indicators:
- They only won 11 of 29 seats on the County Leg. I believe the GOP did a partisan redistricting this year - that would explain a lot of this loss.
- Sandra Doorley won for DA. 58/41. Nice.
- Sandy Frankel lost to Maggie Brooks. 57/43. Not a bad showing, but it still begs the question - what will it take to wake up that additional 8% of Monroe County?
Related posts:
Honestly, someone else. Sandy Frankel has been in county politics for twenty years. She’s from Brighton, very liberal for this area (I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, just the truth) and was too easily pegged as a New York City tax-and-spend liberal ala Shelly Silver. Her reputation preceded her and I’m only surprised that she did so well. This county may have more Democrats than Republicans, but many of them are (like me) fiscially conservative and moderately center-left on social issues (libertarian). Like I said, Frankel was too easily pegged as a tax-and-spend. And as for the Leg, Steve Eckel has a reputation in some circles for being rather prickly in addition to the nude photos issue, and Dick Beebee was in Greece, which has been a Republican stronghold since the 1920s and shows no signs of weakening as such (unfortunately).
Some of the problems I see are: 1.The activists in the Democratic Party that set the tone are skewed much further to P.D.A. and Dean-type liberals, while most of the suburbs trend toward moderate/liberal Republican. 2. There is no broad Democratic agenda for the COUNTY; it’s all individual candidates on their own rather than a broad strategy from M.C.D.C. 3a. What strategy there is from M.C.D.C. focuses too much on turning out the city and worrying about city races rather than focusing on suburban issues. b. M.C.D.C tends to assume a much higher level of knowledge of issues and concern of issues among the general population than there is. There’s just a lot of apathy in this county, partially due (I think) to distrust of public ventures after so many failures with close to $100 million in taxpayer money: Ren Square, the Fast Ferry, PATEC. M.C.D.C. seems to assume that the broader public knows who the candidates are and already agree with them. c. As part of the previous point, many of the Leg candidates were first-timers who most of the voting public never heard of before and will probably never hear of again. Sandra Oliver. Paula Randall. Nick Coffee. Sue Davis. Did anyone heard of these people before? Can they pick them out of a lineup? Did anyone talk to them, understand their plans for governing this community? Doubtful. From what I can glean from those closer to Democratic H.Q., the strategy was to run on the Brooks’ scandals this year. That might have been a good strategy in 2009 (which was a much quieter year in the county) but instead I heard crickets from the Democrats. The former assistant to Maggie Brooks was on trial for heaven’s sakes! (and aquitted) Since that year became The Great Fail (as it’s known on this site), why on earth would voters care about such things two years down the line? Also did any of the Legislative canidiates actually say specifically what they would DO if they got elected, or was it just general “I’ll help you” blah blah blah.
Also I think this area is just much more conservative than most others in New York, with the exception of the S. Tier and Adirondacks. Perhaps someone should write a book on the whole thing. Oh yes, Curt Gerling did: SMUGTOWN USA. However that being said, I’m painting a broad picture of what I believe were some of the problems in the races and are in the broader Monroe County Democratic Party. I’m not right on everything, but I think there’s probably some truth to some of what I think. Since we want to get this place back up as a forum, would anyone but bsarbane care to respond?
I was surprised by the low voter turnout, I think I saw 31 percent? I think a lot of folks don’t think local elections matter and that’s a shame because there is obviously a lot of impt work that can be done at the local level. More people have to be convinced to get out and vote.