Politics as Usual

Today’s paper contains a story about how the process to select the next senator from New York may be illegal. At least that what the tag line seems to claim. They quote from Robert Freeman who says that some of the documents that Gov Paterson has in his possession should be made available through Freedom of Information Law. Supposedly, Gov Patterson has sent questionnaires to possible candidates for the job. He is not releasing the names of the candidates, nor the questionnaires, at least for now. Now, Bob Freeman is one of the absolutely most respected figures in all of New York State. People who don’t like Bob seem to be people who have something to hide. But for this, I think he may be a little out of line. The governor has gotten information from potential replacements for Senator Clinton. Why should he be turning over job applications when he may not even use the forms for anything more than just gauging interest? Plus, there may be people who aren’t interested in the job who would rather not be bothered with the speculation? Understandably, the media would love this info as this would fill a lot of space in a paper, on the radio, on a blog. But I don’t see anything nefarious about how this is being done. Now, if one of the questionnaires said ‘I will give your wife a no-show job paying $500,000 if I can be senator’, that might be different. But, technically, I can’t fault Mr Freeman. His job is to make as much of politics as open as possible.

            The worse part of this is the partisan Assembly Minority leader James Tedisco from Schenectady. He’s now calling for an election for the position. Seemingly, he is upset that Caroline Kennedy is the presumed favorite for the job. He says he wants an ‘election, not a coronation’. I agree that Caroline Kennedy is not the right person for the job. Except, I’m a democrat, and I have no axe at all to grind, whereas Tedisco would politicize any event he possibly could to try and make the Democrats look bad. He’s probably already calling this the ‘Obama recession’. Of course, his idea has about as much chance as Obama naming W as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Paterson will nominate his choice probably within a week, and the Democratic majority won’t even allow it out of committee for weeks.

Also, how much would a special election cost us? I was under the impression that we were in an economic downturn (although John McCain tells me the US economic fundamentals are good). It’s a short term appointment, and whoever gets it will have to run in just 2 short years. Tedisco is just trying to blow some smoke to keep his name in the papers. Maybe he didn’t get the memo about ‘blatant partisan politics with no substance and no chance at all for success is no longer tolerated’ by the majority of Americans and new Yorkers.

On another note, the Pine Street Pool league will be having their year end banquet tonite at Casa. I plan on taking home the team trophy, my better half as singles champion. My buddy from the Moody Pond Marauders has had a bad 2008 season only eclipsed by the Republicans running for office in 2008..