| Apologies to all for the fact that I haven't been posting as much lately as I used to, or would like to have been. Other things are unavoidably taking up my time, not least of which is trying to find more gainful employment than freelance writing.
I realized tonight that by the time you read this, it'll be one year to the day since the 2008 congressional primary, here in the New York 26th District. For all those of us who were involved in it, a pretty bitter anniversary, as I'm sure most of you are aware, and one that some around here (myself included) still grumble and curse at.
But the good thing is that elections come around pretty regularly. Being just a year out from our last disaster, we're also just shy of a year out from our next big chance to make things right.
Somebody asked me the other day why I want to strangle Chris Lee with his own necktie. Believe it or not, it's not entirely for partisan reasons. Yes, he's a Republican and I'm decidedly not. But that's not enough to put me in a froth like this.
It's simple, I told her: he's a walking hairdo. A stuffed shirt, an empty suit, a heartbreakingly vapid excuse for a legislator, the kind of man who throws a bone to decency by voting in favor of reauthorizing SCHIP, while voting against the deficit neutral Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Trumpeting fiscal responsibility while spending $22,500 on sending his constituents a mailer riddled with lies about healthcare.
Any regular reader here knows the man's record: He's got little traction or clout in Congress, so he's reduced to renaming post offices and reciting talking points on anything of substance, because he either can't or won't work with Democrats for the common good. He's a waste of a representative, at a time when our area desperately needs someone in congress to really fight for us and for fixing our local economy.
I'm sure that the suburbs are a bit better off, but out here in the middle of nowhere, the towns are slowly dying. Businesses are folding, people who can afford to are moving away, and those who can't are passing on their poverty to their children and grandchildren. Without somebody in office who's willing to do the right thing, in twenty years most of the small towns out here will simply be ruins.
The reason some of us are so serious about this is simple: we're fighting for the survival of our communities. We can't afford more of the same. |
