"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
It's a good news/bad news day on the local independent politics front.
The good news is the rather astonishing editorial from The Post-Star in which the paper wisely called for Libertarian Congressional candidate Eric Sundwall to be allowed on the ballot. The bad news is that it may be too late.
As you'll recall, two enemies of democracy, both senior members of the Conservative Party that endorsed Republican Jim Tedisco, challenged Sundwall's petitions. Sundwall needed 3500 people to approve his candidacy in order to get on the ballot, in contrast to Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy who only needed the nod of literally a few party bosses.
The paper's editorial said they call on Assemblyman Tedisco and Scott Murphy to call off the dogs and let Sundwall have his ballot line. Call on supporters to stop the litigation and withdraw their challenges, and let Sundwall campaign unobstructed for the next seven days.
Amen to that.
However, the two enemies of democracy challenged Sundwall's petitions on March 11. Why did the paper wait almost two weeks to editorialize on this? If their purpose was to rally public opinion and shame the corporate candidates, why didn't they do it early enough for it to have mattered? It may sound churlish to ask but they've known about this for almost two weeks. The race only has six days left.
Even if Sundwall gets on the ballot tomorrow, he still has less than a week to get his name out there. Senior Post-Star editors have asked me why they should give Sundwall any coverage if he can't generate any publicity for himself. Perhaps they now understand WHY he hasn't been able to generate much name recognition: he's been forced to waste most of the campaign fighting these pseudo-legal challenges.
Let me repeat that so it's not overlooked.
Perhaps they now understand WHY he hasn't been able to generate much name recognition: he's been forced to waste most of the campaign fighting these pseudo-legal challenges.
This is something regularly faced by smaller party and independent candidates. An editorial is a good first step. But this scandal really merits a big exposé by The Post-Star and other media outlets.
In a related news article, their first on Sundwall, political journalist Maury Thompson reports on the depressing news that the Libertarian is likely to get knocked off the ballot. Sundwall submitted about 6,730 signatures, but the hearing officers determined only about 2,900 of the signatures were valid, claimed a state Board of Elections spokesman.
It's worth noting that both state and county boards of elections are not non-partisan bodies. They are bipartisan, co-controlled by Republican and Democratic appointees. A close relative of mine once served as a county BOE commissioner. He was appointed by the county Democratic committee and, when he wouldn't break the law to kowtow to the party boss (running as a candidate in a local race), the committee removed him from office.
It is not clear what the 'infractions' are but Sundwall told me that in his previous run for Congress, signatures were rejected for trivial reasons, such as a signatory claiming his hometown as Saratoga, rather than Saratoga Springs.
I've said many times that my most important issues are those related to democracy and good governance. Some ask me why I prioritize those rather than 'sexier' issues. The reason is because the lack of democracy and good governance is far and away the greatest barrier to just about everything else most people care about.
Do you support single payer health care? Do you want an end to militarism? Do you, like The Post-Star, think taxes and spending are too high? If you want progress on these issues, then you need to support democracy and good governance. You need to support real multipartyism, rational campaign finance laws and a more open electoral process.
Once real democracy and good governance take hold, the people will be able to start to impose their will. Maybe not completely but at least the monied interests will have more of a fight on their hands.
The issue is whether the two corporate parties and those with a vested interest in preserving the status quo continue to suffocate the rest of the people or whether we 'naive' people at least fight them for it. Tedisco won't fight for that. Murphy won't change that. Sundwall's the only person with even a remote chance of making a real difference because he's the only one who WANTS to change that... but only if he's given a chance.
This fight is not really about Eric Sundwall. It's about us. It's about whether or not we're going to have something a real democracy.
As Sundwall told The Post-Star, "I'm not running against Scott Murphy and Jim Tedisco. I'm running for the fact that people don't have a choice, and they feel trapped for that all the time."
He's not running to as the Messiah that's going to save the world or this district. None of the candidates are going to be that Messiah; I'll settle for someone who at least wants to try. He's running to give us a real choice, which is revolutionary enough.
No wonder the corporate parties are petrified of what he represents.
4 comments:
Nice of the Post Star to want to include Mr. Sundwall now but why have they not extended an invitation for him to participate in the debate that they are co-sponsoring this evening?
It is most sad to note that the Post Star today announced the firing of 11 employees. Despite the ever-rosy assurances that spill from the editor's column, this move must have been anticipated throughout the newsroom in recent weeks; dire news issuing from every corner of an industry where corporate ownership has become the standard, must have told them something.
Equally sad that it has taken this long for the paper to understand that for any newspaper, even one linked in a corporate chain, the principal mission is to deliver local news unselectively. Second only to that is the championing of free speech and the free flow of ideas from all members of the community.
With one week left before the poll in the race to represent NY's 20th CD, it is certainly too late (not to mention a little hypocritical) for the Post Star's editorial board to be browbeating those who would suppress free speech and a wide open political process.
Here's hoping that Tingly, Mahoney and Co. will continue the process of reconnecting to their community and reconnecting to the honored newspaper tradition of fostering political discourse. If the newspaper can manage that , perhaps the readers it has disenfranchised will return and see the Post Star through to better economic times.
Editor's note: I posted the above comment because it didn't technically violate my commenting policy. However, I'd ask supporters of the candidates (or haters, as is the case) to have teh decency to at least express their opinions in their own words and not use my blog as a vehicle to traffic attack video ads.
Update: I've decided to delete the referenced note because I discovered it did violate this blog's policy against spam.
I saw an identical note, even down to grammatically errors, on a different blog... but posted by a 'different' person (or should I say different 'person').
Again, I welcome a variety of opinions and comments here. Just use your own words.
Post a Comment