Working the Congressional Primary

NY-21, the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi.

The Republicans held their congressional primary in NY District 21 on June 24. Candidates running for office have to cover a lot of territory if they want to canvass the voters because the district is larger than every New England state except Maine. The Democratic and Green Party candidates avoided the indignity of a primary because they are running unopposed. 

There were two Republican candidates on the ballot, Elise Stephanik and Matt Doheney. Ms. Stephanik won by a landslide. Her campaign was 40% financed by NYC billionaire venture capitalist Paul Singer and further boosted by Karl Rove's super PAC. With her campaign already bought and paid for by Singer and Rove, there was only $5k of influence remaining to peddle to the Koch brothers, pocket change for them, but they paid up, too.

First name only on the placard: Stefanik contains too many syllables for her supporters.

Elise is a 29-year old who grew up in upstate NY but left for Harvard, and after graduation landed a swell job in the Bush White House. She then gravitated to Romney's campaign, preparing Paul Ryan for the VP debate, presumably by portraying Joe Biden. If elected, she will be the youngest woman to serve (not the common good, of course, but her employers, Singer, Rove, Koch & Koch) in Congress. As for issues, she promises to repeal 'ObamaCare' and replace it with the usual ineffective slogans: tort reform, legalizing out-of-state insurance providers, eliminating waste and providing more tax deductions for medical expenses. 

The market-tested slogans are designed to appeal to emotional voters, especially the ever-growing cadre of Obama-haters. Tort reform, for example, sounds great but it can only lower premiums by about a half of one percent. Same deal with the out-of-state insurance companies, it's a great slogan but a bargain policy in Texas won't meet NY minimum standards. I suppose the NY standards can be lowered precipitating a race to the bottom in insurance coverage. Congress has no jurisdiction over intra-state insurance and the response time of the NY legislature is measured in decades. Increasing medical tax deductions has no effect on the working poor because they don't pay income tax. All this illustrates the shallow, low bandwidth marketing strategy that, with enough money, wins elections.

There were originally two Democratic candidates, but Stephen Burke was eliminated after a party operative alleged that he didn't have a sufficient number of signed petitions. Mr. Burke had an tendency to understate numbers, such as his age. Although 77 years old, he claimed he was a decade younger until he was outed by a reporter for the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. Thus Democrats are left with the abundantly-vowelled Aaron Woolf from Manhattan. 

This doesn't look like Woolf's grocery store in Brooklyn

Woolf lives in Manhattan, owns a grocery and deli in Brooklyn and says he splits his time between there and the North Country. Right, and I split my time between here and Paris. According to the local newspapers, no one has ever heard of him. Aaron was a documentary film director and producer, notably King Corn, an inside view of big agriculture. Imagine the angst at Monsanto, now they have to line up behind the Koch brothers to feed money to Woolf's opponent. 

Aaron alienated the media, who accused him of running a campaign in absentia. He initially refused all interviews, probably because he had to learn upstate geography and issues before being questioned about them. He's a nice guy, with perhaps some principles but he's from the city and appears to be just another imported, wealthy, lightweight candidate. 

A working man who represents the interests of constituents. He has no chance of winning.

The Green Party candidate, Matt Funiciello, may be the best choice to actually represent the people. He's a resident, works hard to run a bakery in Glens Falls, isn't wealthy, spent part of his childhood in Canada and has firsthand experience with a single-payer health care system. He opposes fracking for the North Country and doesn't support military bases (like Fort Drum) solely for the economic impact. He will be dismissed as a serious contender.

Returning to the primary last month, some states (such as South Carolina) have open primaries, meaning that any voter who shows up can vote, regardless of party affiliation. That sounds egalitarian, but it opens the door for all sorts of mischief. It is fun to vote for a first-rate nutjob from the opposing party - but sometimes that backfires when the kook (such as Mark Sanford) actually wins the general election. 

Sanford was the South Carolina governor who was in Brazil visiting his mistress, not hiking the Appalachian trail as he told the press (and his wife). That got him in hot water, but he never resigned as governor. His wife, Jenny, stood right by him when he faced the media - while finalizing the terms of her divorce. He cooled his heels for a couple of years, and when the opportunity to run for Congress arose he jumped on it. Mark also had the audacity to ask Jenny to manage his campaign (which she did when he ran for governor), even "offering to pay her this time" but she turned him down. 

Another fine example is the 2010 SC Democratic Senatorial candidate, Alvin Greene. Mr. Greene won the primary, probably assisted by crossover votes from Republicans. He was such a defective candidate (complete with an impressive arrest record) that even the Democratic Party didn't support him. Because Mr. Greene was unemployed, the Republicans probably paid his $10k filing fee. His primary victory permitted his opponent, Jim DeMint, who identifies with the Tea Party, to coast to reelection. There was no outrage, such political shenanigans are unimportant to an apathetic electorate, especially during football season.

New York, which is no shining example of clean politics, has closed primaries. Why they need Democrats to inspect balloting for Republican primaries is puzzling, but so many things aren't intuitive here. Anyhow, they were short-handed for Election Inspectors over in Chesterfield. Holly at the Essex County Board of Elections called to see if I was available to assist. Anyone who asks me for help is desperate by definition so I put away the chainsaw and got cleaned up for work.

I drove to the utterly unmarked Knights of Columbus hall and took my seat at the "Town Shed" table. Why "Town Shed" and why aren't there the usual "vote here" and "no campaigning" signs outside the building? Well, signs are unnecessary because everyone knows this is where you vote, and what damn fool is going to waste their time - in blackfly season - lobbying a tiny number of voters on their way in? And, I was patiently told, "Town Shed" is Election District Two. But no one calls it ED #2, because that district used to vote at the Highway Department (aka, "shed") years ago, and if they started calling it District Two, no one would know what that meant. 

There were seven other Inspectors, four Republicans and three Democrats, so I evened out the team and made it legal. We had 81 voters all day, each one (and two previous and succeeding generations of their relatives) were known personally by one or more of the inspectors. This was a fun group of people to hang out with, and one of our biggest laughs involved my question about asking for voter ID. I, in fact, was the only anonymous person to enter the K of C building all day - and perhaps all year.

It was a long day, one big social event, as one doesn't just vote, say hi, and run. It's impolite to meet a neighbor without chatting about the kids, work, weather, crops, animals, bugs, taxes and of course trucks, tractors, moose and deer. Our biggest celibrity was Charlie, the retired ferry ticket booth operator for Port Henry, a few miles down Route 9N. Charlie worked there for over forty years and sold over a million tickets. Well, the millionth customer got a free ticket to cross Lake Champlain that day, then Charlie was honored with a big party at night. 

The polls closed at 9pm. Votes were carefully counted, cross-checked, forms signed, ballot bags sealed and delivered to a deputy sheriff standing patiently by. No polling place exceeds Chesterfield's high standards of integrity and diligence.  It was another glimpse into past - and perhaps future - America.