In New York State today, we’re having the primary elections. For me, there are three Democratic races.
The District Attorney contest is between the incumbent, who some think overreached by indicting some Florida folks over steroids, a case that was largely undone by other courts, and a guy, son of a prominent defense attorney whose wife was so visible on the first piece of campaign literature I received, I’d think SHE was the candidate; I also got an AWFUL, as in amateurish, robocall from her. Does anyone for someone because their spouse, or worse, their kids, tells you how wonderful the candidate is? If anything, I’m LESS inclined to vote for that potential officeholder.
Then there’s the incumbent state senator running against a guy, and there’s almost no difference in their positions on the major issues.
But the one that is REALLY bizarre is the state assembly race with SIX, count ’em 6, candidates running for an open seat. One candidate is a disgraced former county executive named Jim Coyne who was convicted back in 1992 on federal charges of bribery, conspiracy, extortion, and mail-fraud charges for taking $30,000 from the architect of the Knickerbocker Arena while the 15,000-seat indoor arena was under construction in downtown Albany. Just this week, the retired county DA said Coyne should never have been indicted and is supporting his candidacy. There’s a woman named Margarita Perez who has been all but invisible, plus a couple of guys, William McCarthy and Christopher Higgins, who ran credible campaigns, especially the latter.
But the general consensus is that the real race is between a guy named Frank Commisso and a woman named Pat Fahy. For reasons that mystify me, Commisso decides to attack Fahy regarding some possibly substantive issues, but also about whether or not she had been registered and voted in Cook County, Illinois in the 1970s into the 1990s. The Cook County Board of Elections couldn’t find records under her name. Aha! Commisso says. But here’s where the great big caveat comes in.
From here:
In 1997, the [Cook County] clerk’s office switched to a new system of tracking its voter registrations… At the time of the switch, any voters who were still active in the old system were simply carried over to the new one.
But…”If you were registered in the ’70s and then your registration was canceled because you moved or you died…those registrations were not carried over to the new system.”
…[T]he clerk’s office, because of constraints on storage space, no longer has the hard copies of voter registration cards from that far back. And that means there’s essentially no way to know for sure.
The search that yielded the records produced by the Commisso campaign… went no further than the current computer system.
It is a massive non-story politically, as far as I am concerned.
But the librarian sees it as a lesson learned for people who expect data ALWAYS to be available. I was told in my first week in library school that when technology changes, information inevitably gets lost. This is almost always the case. Not every VHS movie has made it to DVD or BluRay. There are LPs that have never been in digital format of any kind. Ever since the cave drawings failed to make it onto papyrus, it has been so.
Given the way that we rail at the inadequacies of information systems, it amazes me how some people believe they are infallible and if there isn’t a record then it cannot be true.
And yet, contemporary record-keeping is robust: No one can get away with saying something that’s not true without someone—even someone from the mainstream newsmedia—pointing out that it’s not true. Maybe as social media grows, out collective memory does, too?
Unless you say a lie often enough. Then the truth may not matter.
Today is the morning after election day, and Ms. Fahy absolutely creamed Mr. Commisso. Apparently Mr. Commisso’s tactic of casting doubt on Ms. Fahy’s character did not appeal to the voters. I would go so far as to say the tactic backfired.
To be honest, I was leaning towards Mr. Higgins, but when Mr. Commisso beat up on Ms. Fahy over rubbish, I ended up picking her.
It is interesting the way we now somehow just expect to always be able to find out whatever we want to know. Just the other day my husband was ranting about the fact that he can’t find any information online about his great-great grandfather. I had to point out that for people/events prior to this great digital world, someone has to make a concerted effort to locate whatever information exists and then transfer it to a current state–a lot of work for “average” people (not to discount the importance of his family history, of course!).
As for your politician and his “charges” against the other, what a boob.
Remember the poor schmuck who ran against Hillary Clinton for NYS US Senator? Rick somebody… at one debate, he sort of went to her side and crowded her space, which people didn’t dig at all. She won, of course, and promised it was NOT a stepping stone to the presidency… then proceeded to do NOTHING for upstate NY except the wine country, which is now a glut of wineries, most so-so. She is doing a very good job as Sec. of State, so she seems to have found her stride.
Roger, did you know that there’s been draining of the aquifers in Broome County, about a million gallons so far, loaded onto trains at 3 am? Yet another reason I’m glad I didn’t vote for Andrew “Faded Xerox of Mario” Cuomo while I still lived there. Plus they will be fracking in Broome and Tioga counties as well. As you know, even if there is one holdout in an area, it doesn’t matter. If you “just say no,” your well is still going to be polluted with methane, etc. I’ll email you activist info just in case. Peace, Amy
PS – Fahy won, by a healthy margin, over Commisso, and I think his strategy backfired badly, as Dan noted. Cheri’s characterization of Commisso is about right.
Yes, Amy, send me info re fracking in Broome. I didn’t know about the aquifers. It DOES feel like a fait accompli.
I’d heard the aquifers of western Broome County had been poisoned by IBM. Perhaps this is some sort of cleanup of the IBM Plume:
http://www.syracuse.com/specialreports/index.ssf/2009/01/life_in_the_plume_ibms_polluti.html
Disclaimer: The Wife hails from Endicott (pronounced “AN-dee-cot”) which is slowly being abandoned because of the plume.