The Albany Times Union's coverage of the anniversary today makes mention of the Albany County Democratic Committee's endorsement of Phil Steck was an event that would never have happened in the days of Albany's "mayor for life."
"Mayor Corning told me to talk to people and to make myself available," said Mayor Jerry Jennings, who was a vice principal at Albany High School and a Common Council alderman when Corning died. "But times have changed, and you're never going to see that type of political structure again."
That much was confirmed at last week's protest walkout by Jennings and more than 100 Albany County Democratic Committee members from the city after a contentious meeting of the party. A disagreement over the endorsement of a candidate for Mike McNulty's congressional seat underscored factions between stalwarts and newcomers, suburbanites and city dwellers.
"That never would have happened under Corning, who ran the ultimate tight ship. But he seems kind of irrelevant now," said Dick Barrett, a former city parks commissioner and longtime political observer.
Emphasis added.
The TU makes no mention of the candidates' names; as I reported last week, the "disagrement" occurred after a meausre introduced by retiring Representative Mike McNulty's father Jack McNulty, a supporter of Tracey Brooks, to endorse nobody failed. The committe was considering Tracey Brooks, Phil Steck, and Paul Tonko, all of whom were actively seeking the committee's endorsement. Jerry Jennings, Albany's current mayor, walked out of the meeting along with supporters of Tracey Brooks, while recently announced candidate Paul Tonko basically remained silent, supporting the measure despite having lobbied heavily for the committee's endorsement. The committee then endorsed Phil Steck by a three-quarters majority.
Committee member Dick Barret, quoted above in today's Corning commemoration, was also quoted after the committee meeting last week:
Barrett said he'd never seen anything like the walkout and called it "disgraceful."
"It fosters disunity," he said, noting, committee members are elected to represent thousands of Democrats, all of whom were disenfranchised by the move.
Link to story.
Back in Erastus Corning's day, we would have had our next Congressman selected for us. Today, we have eight Democrats vying for the people's vote, and Phil Steck has won it in Albany County. I was pleased to see Jennings admit today that no such structure exists.
However, he may just be saying that because an attempt to create such a structure has failed: since the 1993 election of Jennings as mayor as the 1995-1997 elections of Mike Breslin as County Executive and his brother Neil as State Senator from Albany County (along with their brother Tom as county judge), one might say another machine was being built up to replace the old one.
But the power structure now taking hold in this decade does not revolve around political families or dynasties; witness this on the national level as Barack Obama overtakes Hillary and Bill Clinton. Here at the Congressional level, in a city and county that just 25 years earlier was ruled by an "iron grip," the power structure is now shifting to the grass-roots level.
This is an extremely beneficially turn that history has taken for the voters of this district. Considering the fact that nearly all eight candidates for Congress agree on making green technology a solution for the energy and economic crises we are currently experiening, Mayor Corning was ahead of his time but stuck as political boss on this very issue so many years ago:
Some of Corning's progressive ideas never came to pass in the constrictive conservatism of machine politics. His enthusiasm for what's now called going green was 40 years ahead of its time: solar-powered homes, bio-mass fuels, a fleet of electric vehicles for citizens to borrow for short jaunts around town.
Today, we are closer to finally realizing The Mayor's vision because his historic machine has broken down and failed to repair itself. The days of "constrictive conservatism" of machine politics have passed; the new age of grass-roots progressivism, lead by candidates like Phil Steck, is now here to stay. This, I believe, will do nothing to turn Mayor Corning in his grave, but rather would help this historic figure in New York State and American history rest more peacefully, twenty-five years after his passing.
The eight Democrats running for Congress in NY-21 are: John Aretakis, Tracey Brooks, Criag Burridge, Lester Freeman, Darius Shahinfar, Phil Steck, Paul Tonko, and Arthur Welser. |
