I don’t know what TV spots are going for nowadays but it seems like it’s the thing to do.


As I reported earlier, CB Smith is going up today in his bid for North Greenbush supervisor against Al Spain and I’ve never seen a candidate for any town, outside of Colonie which is huge, go up on TV.

Also, starting Tuesday, At Large candidates Nina Nichols and Lynn Kopka are starting their TV commercials.

A preview of which can be seen

Here
And here

The At Large races are going to be a battle ground this year and the winners of which will probably determine which party controls the majority. As I see things shaking out, the Democrats have a 3-2 lead in the districts with District 4 being a tossup so it’s going to come down to who wins the three At Large seats.

There are six candidates for the three open seats but I see it coming down to four as of right now: Kopka and Nichols for the Democrats or Tom Killips and Jim Gordon for the GOP. Billie Jean Greene, who is running with the GOP and Rodney Wiltshire, a Democrat, just don’t seem to be getting the same amount of traction as the other four.

John Haggerty, an Independence Party operative, was indicted for what amounts to stealing close to $1 million from the campaign coffers of the bizzionaire New York City Michael Bloomberg.


Well, that’s a shocker. I thought he would get off, despite the testimony of North Greenbush’s own Tom Connolly, the party’s state vice chair, who said there is, and I paraphrase: “A certain amount of faith given to consultants.” Connolly came across as a choir boy. But Haggerty was found guilty and that’s a good thing.

Bloomberg gave the Independence Party more than a $1 million dollars. There is only one reason for that, in my humble opinion, and that was to buy the line. And yes, the Independence Party and the rest of the other minor party lines are for sale, be it as blatant as this instance or with jobs given to cousins of those who control lines. The minor party lines are bought and sold in this state and this type of thing has been going on forever.

This whole thing backs up my years-long contention that third parties should not be allowed to cross endorse major party candidates. Nobody is listening, but if they did, it would eliminate a bunch of the bullshit and patronage and otherwise the ability to mess with the electorate.

The Independence Party has a catchy name, so does the Working Families Party and so does the Conservative Party. It’s all a scam to get the major parties to get their cousin a job.

The minor parties stand for nothing … nothing … and yet they are worth at least 10 percent of the vote. People go into the voting place and see “Independence” or see “Working Families” and they pull that lever because odds are that’s who they are.

But it may not be what that candidate represents and they might just taking advantage of your neighbors, plain and simple. I would say they take advantage of you, but since you read this blog, you’re a junkie, and you know better. So tell your neighbor.

C.B Smith is going on TV to promote his bid for the supervisor of North Greenbush.
I can’t remember when a candidate in a town race in a town of 11,000 or so went on TV.

He’s running against Al Spain, a member of the Town Board, and I have no idea how close it is or isn’t. North Greenbush is a tough town to get a grip on since everyone kind of crosses party lines to forward their own agenda, which means getting elected or re-elected.

Not so much for Smith though, who is a Democrat through and through, and won the town’s first ever primary against Spain for the line – in years past it was done by caucus and honestly, in years past it was rigged. Rigged maybe too strong of a word but the deck was a bit stacked to say the least. A caucus depends on what proxies you have, a primary depends on who you get out to vote. Needless to say, a primary is more democratic of a process.

Spain, a Democrat, has the GOP, the Independence, Conservative and Working Families Party lines. Smith has the Democratic so it’s going to be a tough go for Smith. He’s been around for a while, ran for the county Legislature and twice for county exec. The fact he's been around a while may help or hurt him but he does know the game.

So without further ado, here is Smith’s TV ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRW--ARA9wg&feature=share

MANTELLO

ROSAMILIA

I went over to the Troy 100 mayoral debate last night for a little while and was surprised to see Jack Cox Jr. still included in the mix.

Mind you, he has a right to be there, but the Appellate Division, by unanimous decision, tossed him off the ballot and he is now waging a write in campaign. It’s his right, but that right is open to every other Trojan in the city so I don’t get why he was allowed to participate.

I was all in favor of him staying on the ballot, as he collected a boat load of signatures but got hung up on some technicalities, and probably rightly so got bounced. Once that happened, he is as much of a candidate as the other 50,000-plus Trojans and should not have been allowed a premiere spot on the stage unless it was granted to everyone else.

His presence only worked to take time away from the two major party candidates – Democrat Lou Rosamilia and Republican Carmella Mantello, who are in a nail-biter of a campaign.

Also, the moderator, Dan Bazille, of WNTY, was asked not to ask questions about voter fraud. Granted, voter fraud isn’t a big deal when it comes to setting a road map for the city, but it is a relevant question to ask since it’s been a cloud over the city for more than two years. Like it or not, it’s there and shouldn’t be unilaterally cut out of the discussion.

In other words, if you put those two things together, the debate was slanted towards Rosamalia.

As an aside, I got bashed tonight by Democrats across the board as being pro Republican. And my across the board response was the GOP bashed me across the board when Mark Pattison, a staunch Democrat, was mayor and those operatives accused me countless times of trying to get a job with his administration.

My other across the board response is … I call it as I see it.

ABELOVE

It was a pretty nifty move Friday by DA candidate Joel Abelove, bringing out a jury in the high profile, emotionally charged trial of Joe McElheny, who was acquitted of killing his 4-month-old child Ina. But it would have worked better if they left the juror’s significant other home.

MCNALLY

The juror, Tina Price, was upset with District Attorney Rich McNally reaction to the jury’s decision, which she described as short, abrasive and demeaning. McNally, of course, describes it differently as does one of his investigators who I’ve gotten to know over the years and who I don’t think ever lied to me. What transpired I have no idea. It was at the end of probably one of the most emotionally charged days at the Rensselaer County Courthouse in a long time.

So, Price gets on the Melody Burns show and bashes McNally. Abelove, wisely, calls a press conference the following day to take advantage of the fact a juror willing to speak about the awesome power of deciding the fate of someone’s life she just had in her hands and the fact said juror was more than willing to bash the DA, his opponent.

Abelove said he never met Price. Price said she never met Abelove. That much I can see and if there was nobody else present it would have gone over a whole lot better.

But, also at the press conference was Price’s significant other, Carl Gottstein.

I never met the guy before, but TU reporter Ken Crowe asked him if he was for the former City of Rensselaer City Chairman of the Republican Party and turns out he was. News Channel 9 reported that he posted on Facebook in favor of Abelove’s campaign in August.

As I said, I have no idea what transpired between McNally and Price and it really doesn’t matter. She was pretty convincing and she was a juror – a hallowed charge we all could be responsible for but few are willing to talk about publically. But, it would have been a much event if they left Gottstein, a GOP operative, at home or at least kept him in the background.

Now it just smacks of politics.

The courts tossed Jack Cox Jr. off the ballot but despite him becoming a somewhat credible third party candidate – who had no chance of winning, but credible just the same - I see it as a wash between who he would have stolen more votes from, Republican Carmella Mantello, who brought the action that got him bounced, or the Democrats pick Lou Rosamilia.


Yes, he got 4 percent of the vote in our past poll after he got enough signatures to start a third party, the Revolutionary Party, but waging a write in, which he’s vowed to do, is about an impossibility despite the fact the process is easier today than it was on the old voting machines.

I still don’t think bouncing a candidate off the ballot who collected nearly twice the number of signatures necessary plays well for Mantello. The guy did go out and busted his butt to get the signatures. The Appellate Division agreed, in that he got enough of them that were valid but said he shouldn’t have signed the petition as a witness after admitting some of them were bad and that he didn’t see the people actually sign their names. It’s a technicality, and one reason I like the Cox family is they aren’t one’s big on technicalities.

As an aside and a heads up, which may be too late since the first round of calls for our fourth poll I’m sure are over by now, Cox won’t be included. Cox can say he’s waging a write in, but so can any of the other some 50,000 Trojans.

Well, the grand jury checking out voter fraud met earlier this week and I think it’s only a matter of time before more indictments are coming down.



CAMPANA

BROWN

Who’s going to be on the receiving end of that, is anyone’s guess. Councilman Kevin McGrath testified again as did Rensselaer County Working Families Party Chair Jim Welch and a number of employees at the Board of Elections and allegedly defrauded voters.



I have to say allegedly because nobody has been convicted of defrauding them but the evidence seems pretty strong, despite what the special prosecutor, Trey Smith, might think. I’m not a prosecutor, obviously, so he’s probably right but if it isn’t there, it isn’t there so let’s move on with it one way or another.

So who’s next? Or does Smith orchestrate a no bill? As the saying goes: “A prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.” And I suppose the opposite is true: “He can no bill a ham sandwich.” Who do you think?

There are some who say it’s going to be Council President Clement Campana, Councilman John Brown and his brother Dan, a political operative. McGrath pretty much threw McDonough under the bus with his statement to the State Police on March 29, 2010 and, to me, he does the Browns too.

Also, word is Mike Rebel was subpoenaed and that is the one ballot Campana admittedly handled. Rebel works with Campana at Hudson Valley Community College and while the two might be friends, after agreeing to the: “Is what you say is the truth and nothing but the truth,” or whatever they say when put under oath, odds are people are going to say what’s actually went down.

Who else?

Brian Premo, the attorney representing Ed McDonough, who is charged with scores of felonies, has been dropping bombs on just about everyone in the Democratic Party, including Smith, for what Premo claims is selective prosecution. I’m still not buying his whole conspiracy theory, but he is dropping bombs.



A recipient of one of the bombs is longtime Democratic operative and the Troy City Council’s Legislative liaison Tony Renna. Another is District Attorney Rich McNally, who admitted to talking to former City Clerk Bill McInerney – a guy at the center of the entire voter fraud and who recently pled to a felony in exchange for his cooperation because it could have been a bunch worse for him if he didn’t cooperate – after the voter fraud scandal broke and talked to McDonough too.

PREMO AND MCDONOUGH

MCNALLY

McNally’s opponent, Joel Abelove, a former prosecutor in the same DA’s office, is making a stink about it and he should. It’s a legitimate issue. McNally beat out Greg Cholakis in ’07 by the narrowest of margins. Out of 38,500 votes case it went down to absentees and other paper ballots. And this scandal is all about absentees. And yet McNally talks to a target of the investigation and another who probably spearheaded it?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I for one am tired of waiting and seeing but it’s not my call.

In a surprising move, the Working Families Party endorsed Katherine “KiKi” Cholakis in her bid for the state Supreme Court, and that means the Republican who beat out Columbia County Judge Jonathan Nichols, in another surprising move, will have three lines in November.


It’s surprising because the Democrat who didn’t get the line is Albany County Judge Tom Breslin. The Breslin brothers - Judge Tom, County Executive Mike and state Sen. Neil - have had a pretty good relationship with the WFP over the years and, well, Cholakis is a Republican. The WFP doesn’t usually play too well with the GOP.

Some are saying it was Rensselaer County Chairman Tom Wade’s doing so he can get rid of a Republican judge and get the governor to appoint someone of his party to the bench. I’m not sure if I buy that one. Wade may have some juice with the WFP in this county but I don’t think he has much with Karen Scharff, who pretty much calls the shots for the WFP on anything going on with the party in the Capital District and certainly would have a say, if not the most say, in who the party endorses for a state Supreme Court judge. And, needless to say, the WFP on this side of the river are kind of in disarray thanks to voter fraud.

My guess, and that of some other pretty smart people I’ve talked to, is the WFP over in Albany County are trying to remain relevant and again become the tail that wags the dog. In this case, the dog is the Democratic Party. Minor parties do tend to flex their muscle once in a while – and the cynic in me is saying a second cousin of one of the party’s hierarchy needs a job.

That’s one scenario. The other is that former Rep. John Sweeney, who worked behind the scenes to get Cholakis the Republican and Conservative lines over Nichols - who everyone thought was going to get them - could be working some of his magic too. Financials are due on Friday, so we’ll have to see who donated what to the WFP.

Both of those make sense to me, and if the first scenario is true, then I don’t get why the WFP bailed on Breslin and backed North Greenbush Judge Ray Elliott. While Elliott is popular in this county his name recognition isn’t that of a Breslin.

As it stands, Elliott will have the Democratic, Independence and WFP lines, Breslin will have the Democratic and Independence Party lines, Albany attorney Guy Roemer will have the Republican and Conservative Party lines, and Cholakis will have the Republican, Conservative and WFP lines.

How’s that for a mixed bag.