McDonald and Marchione

I’ve been around long enough to look out for weasel words and am not so naïve to not know politicians and their operatives “put the spin” on you about every time they open their mouths and I know too sometimes outright lies come out of their open mouths.

Generally, though, while the spin is expected and can be kind of fun to sift through sometimes they cross the line into a lie. It’s part of my job to wade through the spin and look out for the lies and sometimes, I guess, I still need a good kick in the teeth to keep me on my guard.

For example, I wrote Monday Kathy Marchione, the Saratoga County Clerk who is challenging Sen. Roy McDonald, won Columbia County’s Republican endorsement. I didn’t read the press release close enough and admittedly jumped the gun. It’s the kick in the teeth I need every once in a while.

In my defense – of which there isn’t really a good one - The Marchione camp even put numbers in the press release saying they had won the weighted vote by a count of 3,085.5 to 3,058.5. And the quote by Germantown GOP Chairman said: “It was a nice grassroots victory for Kathy…” He went on to say that her “courage and experience certainly propelled her to this rewarding victory.”

Marchione’s own quote said: “Last night was a major victory for our team…”

Girardin

Turns out, Marchione didn’t win Columbia County but it was declared a tie. The release does say the county chair declared it as such, but I just thought it was either a poorly written press release or the Marchione camp was just taking some shots at him because he backed McDonald. Whatever the reason, I took it at face value, and I was wrong.

Ken Girardin, the guy who wrote the release, told me after it was in fact a Marchionie “victory” because McDonald, an entrenched incumbent, didn’t’ win outright. That’s a stretch, and straddles the lie/spin fence. But, I guess, it’s about all you can expect from a guy who planted campaign signs on the neighbor of a rival candidate and then had someone in the camp hid out in the bushes and film said candidate stealing the signs and throwing them in a ditch. Sure, it’s funny and it worked but it was kind of cheesy.

And politicians wonder why they have such bad reputations.

Anyway, I was right in saying that the individual committee endorsements don’t mean squat as both camps will get the needed petitions and the nomination will get decided by a primary in September.

In the end, though, I got a kick in the teeth. At least it’s only May and it won’t happen again for a while.