NY21 Race: “All politics is local” ain’t what it used to be
Rick Karlin, with the Albany Times-Union, has reported a fascinating piece looking at the way that politicians in New York state are making bids for office more regularly in communities and districts where they have few ties.
Aaron Woolf. Photo: Woolf Campaign, via Facebook
He focuses a lot of ink on Democrat Aaron Woolf and Republican Elise Stefanik, both of whom shifted their residency into the North Country — both to Essex County, actually — to make runs for the 21st district House seat.
“It seems that people from outside the district are going to be the players, and money makes the difference,” said Paul Maroun, mayor of Tupper Lake and a longtime local Republican activist, in an interview with Karlin.
Maroun is now backing Stefanik, following her strong primary win in the GOP race, but speaking with the Times-Union he continued to express reservations about the shift in process:
“You’ve got to know what it’s like to live on Wabeek Avenue in Tupper Lake, or down in Fulton County,” he added. The issues
Stefanik defeated Matt Doheny in the GOP primary, despite the fact that Doheny has lived in the district much longer.
are different — Tupper Lake sits in an area with a timber and tourism history while in Fulton County, communities like Gloversville struggle to transition from their old-industry identities such as the tanneries and glove factories that used to dominate the scene, to the 21st century economy.
He added that having two relative newcomers as candidates is a recent phenomenon in the North Country. “It’s a phenomenon that this district at least has never experienced before.”
Is this one of the unanticipated side-effects of the rising tide of cash in American politics, that money will come to match — or even supplant — local roots as key to a viable campaign? I’m not sure we can know yet, but it’s an interesting political phenomenon and worth keeping an eye on. Read Karlin’s full article here.
Here I go again, in a district about the size of Connecticut, Hawaii, and Rhode Island put together I’m not convinced that being a “local” gives someone all that much more insight into the district as a whole than anyone else. Hardly anyone who lives here really gets to all the regions in the district even in their whole lifetime. Sure, there may be more of an end of the driveway snow shoveling bond, but how does that translate into better representation? I don’t know.
I’ve also observed that many of our “local” leaders in the business community, arts, community, political leaders, even farmers are “outsiders”. Huge portions of many of our communities are owned by “outsiders”.
Take a look around, in my town the Supervisor is from downstate. NCPR? Where did all those people come from? Mostly somewhere else.
I think a better standard for judging our representatives would be a “Gumption Quotient” ( TM – KHL ); I care less about where a candidate is from and more about whether they have gumption or not. And we’ve got some candidates with gumption. What we need is to re-make our communities in ways that keeps our locals who have high Gumption Quotients from leaving, or at least make it so they can return after seeng the world outside.
KHL – I think a lot of people agree with you. But I think the change is worth noting, especially as it comes at a time when money is growing in influence in our politics. As we are represented by new people to our communities, ‘gumption’ will be a big factor, but so too will be dollars and Super PACs and sources of money from outside our House district. –Brian, NCPR
No doubt that the influence of money is a great concern, and part of the reason that many don’t even think about getting into politics. That has to change. You have to hand it to Matt F. on that front, he’s not rich but he’s working with what he’s got.
I think the local aspect isn’t as important as what it used to be, for the two reasons mentioned above (the size and heterogeneity of the district and the influence of outside money). This is why I think it’s far more important what a candidate’s life experiences are and where he (or she) gets his money.
To me, it matters little if Woolf, Doheny and Stefanik are from this district or not. None work in a job that has any relevance to issues faced by locals. And all will be taking orders from their corporate sponsors. My impression is that both Stefanik and Woolf are good and decent people. But with the suffocating influence of corporate cash in the process, this becomes almost irrelevant to the job they will be expected to perform.
I think Barack Obama is fundamentally a decent person who mostly believes the right things in theory. But in practice, he’s been a terrible president for ordinary people because, like virtually all since Reagan, his job has been to represent the corporate interests who “donated” hundreds of millions to each of his campaigns. Beliefs don’t matter if actions don’t follow.
I know Funiciello personally and he’s a good and decent person too. But the reason I’m voting for him is because in addition to being a good person and believing the right things, he’s not accepting legalized corporate bribes. So that tells me he’ll be free from those shackles so as to actually try to put his beliefs into practice in a way that the others wouldn’t.
The others are playing within the rules of the rigged system as it is. In one sense, I can’t blame them. But if they’re not going to try to significantly change the system, it’s largely meaningless to me who wins.
Funiciello understands the need to destroy the corporate state and re-install democracy. He’s playing by rules outside the “conventional wisdom” because he knows that nothing will change until people are willing to try to do things differently.
I actually think these comments point toward one of my past blog posts, in which I argued for limiting the size of House districts to a population of 500,000, with the number of representatives growing as the population increases.
As some of this population indicates, the House member is just not really an intimate, up-close politician any more, particularly in vast geographically dispersed districts like NY21. If we stick with the current system, we’ll eventually get to the place where “representatives” function far more like US Senators — they’ll be distant, remote and not “local” in any meaningful sense.
Under this plan, we would have 630 members of congress, rather than the current 435…is there a downside to that?
–Brian, NCPR
Im not so convinced in this “local” issue. Elise Stefanik grew up in the Albany area. Its contiguous to the NY21 district. Aaron Woolf grew up all over the place, but his heart has been in the Adirondacks and he personally and physically rebuilt his house here. Matt Doheney grew up in the Watertown area, but made his fortune in NYC. All three of them have considerable experience living outside the district in the larger world which should be an a major advantage not a disadvantage.
who cares where someone is from? what matters is how they’ll vote in congress, and where they’re from is at best a very weak indicator of that.
Off topic but you really can’t find a better picture of Stefanik? It’s like you are using it on purpose.
I guess I am old fashioned. I find this race very troubling and yes I do think it matters if you live here or not. I mean it does not matter to me if you have lived here all of your life or not, but I think the idea of simply establishing an address in a district so you can run for office there is unhealthy.
Gumption does come into play because different parts of our district are very different and you have to get out there and meet people. But I think the infusion of money and the infusion of these, narrow emotionally charged, national social issues (government is the problem/government is the solution, pro-choice-pro-life, gay marriage, immigration; just creates plastic candidates that surf around until they find a place that they can win and spout the same rhetoric I can get from any standard conservative or liberal web site. The fact is we are a poor district that does not have time for a ideologue; we need real hands on help and that takes someone who can compromise and cut deals and really honestly CARES about the people who live here.
If someone comes in who is against all of my beliefs about any of those social issue mentioned above, but has the ability to keep Fort Drum open for example; I would vote for that person, and so should anyone who cares about this place as our home.
Mervel – I would add to Fort Drum that that they should be deeply committed to North Country infrastructure improvement, North country agriculture – big and small – and cross border commerce (including tourism).
I totally agree Peter.
Brian Mann,
Be careful increasing the House size, strange results can occur. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_paradox
Mitch
Agreeing with wakeup. That picture of Stefanik makes her look like a cross-eyed drunk, and that can’t be entirely true, can it?
I am going to have to agree with wakeup, not because there is anything wrong with the picture of Stefanik. The picture is fine. She looks good and pleasant. It looks like her. The problem is that people’s faces are almost never symmetrical and hers is particularly asymmetrical – so placing a picture that represents her well ( and I have seen a number of much worse pictures of her ) is going to become a meme that “the liberal press is trying to slant coverage.”
So, please change the picture of her so that we can stop hearing this complaint.
While you’re at it, show a picture of Woolf that doesn’t emphasize his receding hairline and graying hair. Get rid of the picture of Matt Doheny that shows his double chin, and where the heck is the picture of Matt Funiciello? I have complaints about that pic – and I haven’t even seen it yet, but I’m sure there is something wrong with it.
Hi guys –
That photo was distributed by the Stefanik campaign. That’s their photo. They sent it out because the like it. Same with Woolf’s photo. That’s the photo his campaign distributed it.
We’re also using images that Doheny and Funiciello’s campaigns sent out. The idea that we would try to spike a candidate by using a crappy photo would be hilarious if it weren’t exhausting.
NCPR doesn’t work like that. I know those of you who believe that we would operate in such a Machieavellian way will never be convinced.
But we actually love doing what we do, which is trying very hard to offer a level playing field for debate, ideas, and reasonable argument.
There probably are people in media somewhere who are so petty and silly that they would do hatchet jobs with ugly photographs. They don’t work here…sigh.
–Brian, NCPR
Brian – I think they are pulling your leg
Oh…good. Sorry if my sense if humor is a bit off. A long couple of days with rail-trails and other breaking stories.. — Brian, NCPR
Re: the photo. It is kind of funny, in a mean kind of way, that everyone thinks these images of her are intentionally bad… when it is just the way she looks.
There are these large (and kind of obnoxious, if you ask me) billboard size lawn signs all around that have a very similar photo with a very similar look. It is just the way she comes across in photos, because if they had a better head shot, I am sure they would have used it on those ginormous signs.
Btw: The apportionment paradox was an interesting read, thanks for linking that.
It is sad that our public discourse has become so far out on the fringe that it is impossible to be obviously facetious and people don’t even recognize it.
Clue #1, when I complain about the appearance of a photo that doesn’t even exist it should be understood that I am being facetious.
But there are so many contentious battles over issues of bizarre belief around now even surreal humor cant keep up. There are probably people who can’t sleep at night worrying about Monty Python getting elected to Congress.
And seriously — I am being absolutely serious! — the pic of Elise is fine. She looks good.
Unfortunately, it IS indicative of current public discourse that I took the photo complaints as serious too. “The media is biased against my side and I’ll bombard you with every infintestimally trivial piece of ‘proof’ I can conjure up” has become such a permanent campaign that it’s hard to recognize the satirization of it.
Brian M: Did you make reference to a photo of Funiciello? I didn’t see one in this post… just the other three. More proof of bias! ;-)
I have an absurd sense of humor. Nothing is funnier, or more aggravating than the absurdities of humans. It is a rich vein of humor, often dark humor, which includes the absurd amount of money some groups will spend in order to avoid paying taxes, or for social services, or whatever. but often the political spending is a means to make even more money for the spender.
It is an old story, the absurd costumes worn by Elizabethans were a result of the desire for patronage from the queen. And the patronage could be valuable — land grants in the New World, for example.
Our Founding Fathers weren’t immune to the lure of lucre. For all their high talk of Freedom and Liberty many held slaves counting them as 3/5 this of a person but buying or selling them by the whole, nor were women or non-landowners given full status as Men in the general sense of the word…humans. Our Revolution was fought as much for the ability to steal land from the Indian Nations as for any other reason, but not too many school books will point that out. Perhaps with the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta coming up in 2015 we will get a better sense of what the core principles of Rights are…the lowest level of the house of cards we have built on which our Supreme Court has recently built the penthouse of corporations are people and money is speech.
Until then we will continue on with a political process that is best characterized as the tyranny of the neglected and disaffected as used by the well connected.