Thursday, October 1, 2015

A boring county executive race.

It is only a month until the November elections.
There will be very few surprises.
Most incumbents will probably win their seats. Again. Not because they have accomplished anything of note. They have name recognition. The few people who vote are accustomed to them. And their competition is just as unworthy as they are.
The race for Monroe County Executive is different. Maggie Brooks is termed out and can't run again.
Her understudy, Republican Cheryl DiNolfo, currently chief clerk and bottle washer in county government, has been waiting for twelve years to step into Ms. Brooks' three-inch pumps.
Mrs. DiNolfo's opponent, Establishment Demagogue Sandra Frankel, ran for county executive before. And lost.
Mrs. Frankel never received the financial and moral support of her party four years ago. She still hasn't got it because the MCDC is in a state of chaos, with incompetent leadership as its fatal flaw.
Frankel does not have the open support of the Black Demagogues, who have no loyalty to the dictates of the MCDC. They see this contest as one between two white women, and will probably flip a coin to decide who they vote for. Or they will do as they are bidden by David Gantt.
Apart from that, this year's campaign has been a bore.
Both ladies have been too busy social butterflying it around the area to mount anything approaching a political campaign. They are counting on party loyalty alone to get elected.
Certainly, Frankel has been whining about Republican corruption and the county's fiscal stress from time to time. That card is worn out. She played it before and lost.
Nor has she expressed her solutions in anything but the most vague and general terms, leaving undecided voters bewildered and confused. Which leads one to believe that she doesn't have any solutions other than to increase taxation, liberalism's usual panacea for all of society's ills.
DiNolfo hasn't risen to the bait and sought to make an issue of Frankel's accusations. If she did, she would be forced to come up with answers of her own. That would stir up a kettle of fish DiNolfo and her handlers would rather avoid, especially in the city of Rochester.
DiNolfo knows she has the county, which is dominated by Republicans. She can afford to be less concerned about Rochester, which is split between black and white Demagogic factions. The fact that Rochester mayor Lovely Warren has refused to support Frankel is a feather in DiNolfo's cap.
As for the Green Party candidate, Rajeesh Barnabas, he has been remarkably silent as well. As the candidate of a third party, he won't count for much in the upcoming election.
They all seem to be waiting for public forums sponsored by WXXI, WROC and the League of Women Voters and the Rochester Rotary to get their word out.
Those events will probably not be well watched or well attended, because the voters won't be swayed so late in the game. They will probably vote for their own party's candidates, with Barnabas getting a few hundred votes that might have gone to Frankel.
That's what the political parties want. Not to elect the better candidate, merely their own.
Which is why they haven't wasted any time talking about issues.
And shame on the Rochester Rotary for involving itself in politics.

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