I was at the Primary Night watch party for Jon Powers on Tuesday. Every TV crew from Buffalo and Rochester showed up. One of the crews was setting up a microphone and we had to get out of the way. Only a few minutes later, the same crew came back to get their mic.
Within minutes, the TV crews were gone.
In the two days since Alice Kryzan topped the polls for a primary win over Powers and Jack Davis, I've been looking for some sort of metaphor that would best describe this situation.
How about the tortoise and two hares?
I live in NY-26 and supported Jon Powers ever since I met him and interviewed him on July 8, 2007. Powers had the momentum going. He was picking up endorsement after endorsement. The first four county Democratic committees to endorse Powers were all four of the rural counties in the district: Genesee, Livingston, Orleans and Wyoming. Then Niagara endorsed and Monroe followed. Erie became the last to endorse Powers, giving Powers every county Democratic committee in the district.
So how did he lose? How could he have the support from virtually everyone - local Democrats, DCCC, "grassrooters" in the district, the netroots and others - and lose?
This is a pretty big deal. Billionaire industrialist (and all-around racist nutjob) Jack Davis is hell-bent on using his considerable personal resources in order to buy the seat of retiring GOP Rep. Tom Reynolds. Since Davis is currently embroiled in a contentious primary with Iraq vet Jon Powers, he has gone to great lengths in order to guarantee a spot on the November ballot no matter the outcome of the Democratic primary next Tuesday. Davis formed a new party (the "Save Jobs and Farms Party") for exactly this purpose.
After paying field workers to gather 7,000 signatures from around the district, the move looked to be a slam dunk. The only problem? Davis forgot to officially accept the nomination:
The state Board of Elections on Friday threw Davis' new party off the November ballot because he failed to file a document accepting the party's nomination for Congress in the 26th District, commission spokesman Robert A. Brehm said.
"The state board commissioners voted today to determine that the . . . petitions of Mr. Davis are invalid," Brehm said. "The reason was the failure to timely file an acceptance by the candidate, which is required by state Election Law."
Davis has until Wednesday to appeal the decision, but the commissioners agree that it was a slam-dunk move that stands no chance of being reversed. If Jon Powers can win Tuesday's primary -- and folks close to the action in the district tell me that the primary is a true tossup -- getting Davis weeded from the November ballot is crucial to Democratic chances here.
Nutjob candidate Jack Davis ("D") is at it again. The wild-eyed billionaire industrialist and frequent loser has most recently caught flak for making some, uh, unique observations about immigration:
Congressional candidate Jack Davis, in a speech earlier this year, warned that increasing immigration from Mexico could lead to a new civil war between northern states and Mexican-influenced Southern states that may want to secede from the United States.
"In the latter part of this century or the next, Mexicans will be a majority in many of the states and could therefore take control of the state government using the democratic process," Davis said in the speech. "They could then secede from the United States, and then we might have another civil war." [...]
"They have an allegiance to Mexico, where they were taught the U. S. fought an unjust war with Mexico and took this territory," Davis said. "They believe the territory of these states belongs to Mexico."
This blunder, which occurred in March (according to the Buffalo News), was first posted by The Albany Project's Robert Harding in April, but has only recently caught the attention of the tradmed. Davis is now predictably distancing himself from his earlier remarks, but it's perhaps too late. You can't put the crazy juice back in the bottle, Jack.
Let's pray that this nutter doesn't successfully buy the Democratic nomination for this open seat.
With the ongoing meltdown in NY-13 in spectacular display, it's easy to forget that there are at least three other GOP-held House seats in New York that are on the chopping block this year. In NY-26 (the seat being vacated by ex-NRCC chair/Mark Foley enabler Tom Reynolds), however, we have a crowded primary to get through before focusing our fire on the Republican, and that primary just got more crowded.
Erie County Legislator (a position equivalent to county council or county commission in most states) Kathy Konst has announced her intention to officially announce her campaign for this seat later this week. Designating petitions to get on the ballot begin circulating this week, so she's a little late to the game, but she's committed to spending at least $100,000 of her own funds on the primary.
"I'm beyond the exploration stage of this," she said. "I'll be making the decision shortly."
There are already three candidates on the Democratic side of this primary. Jon Powers is a substitute teacher and Iraq War veteran who has already secured the endorsement of the local Democratic committees in all of NY-26's counties and enjoys netroots backing (although I noted Matt Stoller voicing some misgivings about Powers last week).
Jack Davis was the 2006 candidate, and was basically responsible for wresting defeat from the jaws of victory against the scandal-plagued Reynolds with a tepid campaign that focused almost exclusively on trade issues and those damn kids who are always on his lawn. (Davis is in the news these days for his legal quest to overturn the "millionaire's amendment," in order to bring his plan to spend $3 million of his own money to win the primary to fruition.) No word on whether he plans to seek cross-endorsement from the Crazy Old Man Party this cycle. The other candidate, Alice Kryzan, is an environmental lawyer, which sounds good until you realize that she was an environmental lawyer on the side of the polluters in the Love Canal disaster.
I don't know of anything to suggest where Konst falls in the liberal/conservative spectrum; the Buffalo News says she's "proud of her independent reputation," but, geez, everyone from Bernie Sanders to David Duke is proud of his independent reputation. Another question might be from whom she'll draw votes: she's the only elected official in the race, so she has that base of support to draw on, but the other three candidates are all also from nearby towns in the Buffalo suburbs portion of the district (she's from Lancaster, Powers and Davis are from Clarence, and Kryzan is from Amherst), even though this district encompasses a lot of rural terrain and Rochester suburbs as well. She and Kryzan might well split the "women's" vote, but I'm more worried about Powers and Konst splitting the "party establishment" and/or "sane" vote, allowing one of the other ones to slip through. Hopefully some polls soon will provide some clarity to this situation.
On the Republican side, Rothenberg is reporting that Iraq war vet David Bellavia will be dropping out of the race soon. This allows a clear path to the nomination for businessman Chris Lee.
