All politicians and their hangers on gorge at the public trough.

David Andreatta has provided us with yet another well-written, reasonably well-balanced commentary about the incestuous nature of political appointments in the Rochester area.
While he is employed by the local liberal newsrag, the D&C, Andreatta pulls no punches, letting both the Republicans and the Demagogues get it right between the eyes.
It is doubtful that his commentary earned him any brownie points with the editorial staff of the D&C, whose bleeding heart liberal agenda generally makes them look ridiculous and has lost the respect of any thinking individuals who follow their exploits.
Andreatta's article, "Maggie Brooks' long quaff at the public trough," should be read in full.
A brief summation will suffice here.
Outgoing County Executive Maggie Brooks was recently hired by RTS ( the Regional Transit Service ) as their vice-president of strategic initiatives. The job was created out of thin air for her a few weeks ago.
At RTS, she will be joining several of her nearest and dearest who were also associated with her in the county legislature: Scott Adair, Daniel DeLaus Jr. and Justin Feasel. Feasel, Brooks' spokesman, was hired in the last few days, too.
RTS has been under Republican control for years.
Let us not forget that Mr. Maggie Brooks ( Bob Wiesner ) was also appointed to the Monroe County Water Authority some time back, another agency under Republican control. That was before he got his ass busted in a bidding and price fixing scam, which is still in the courts.
Before Demagogues get their knickers in a twist about this, Andreatta also pointed out that they are not without sin, either.
Mayor Lovely Warren appointed her Uncle Reggie to a position at City Hall that never existed before. He left when public outcry over his speeding got to be too much for her to handle. Uncle Reggie currently works for RTS.
Hmmm,
Mayor Warren also appointed plenty of her political cronies to newly created or resurrected jobs at City Hall. If no worse, she is certainly no better than Maggie Brooks in that respect.
Former MCDC chairman, Joe Morelle pere appointed Joe Morelle fils to fill a vacancy in the county legislature. The family that preys together stays together.
However, Andreatta failed to mention how ex police chief, ex mayor and ex lieutenant governor Bob Doofus got himself appointed to head the RBA ( Rochester Business Alliance ) through his shady connections, while double or triple dipping on his six figure pensions.
And let us not forget that expensive Demagogic kept woman, the notorious Molly Clifford. The Doofus and Richards administrations kept on creating jobs for her that she was unqualified for.
I am certain that a lack of space prevented Andreatta  from mentioning those and other instances of Demagogic malfeasance.
What is clear that most politicians of both parties see elected office as a way of feathering their own nests. When out of office they hope to use their connections to continue to feed off of the public like ghouls or vampires.
Or swine.

Mayor Warren's infomercial is a political ad.

The official line from City Hall is that it is not. The infomercial proclaims positive progress in the City of Rochester.
Courtesy of Mayor Warren.
Taxpayers aren't paying for this infomercial. The cost was covered by Mayor Warren's campaign war chest and/or the PAC she set up.
PACs ( Political Action Committees ) are usually created by outsiders and special interest groups to promote the election of politicians favorable to their agendas. They are considered unethical, but legal.
In 2013, the PAC created by Warren's "brother," lobbyist Scott Gaddy, created quite a stink prior to the Demagogic primary election. Warren disclaimed any knowledge of PACS and of how they work.
It is gratifying to know that she is a quick study, learning about PACS and then creating her own, if she was telling the truth in 2013. That's a big if.
The mayor's personal assistant, Tracey Miller, already has a weekly radio show on WDKX, the black radio station, to glorify her. Nobody outside of the black community listens to it. She needed to broaden her audience.
Clearly, the mayor is running for something, hence the ad.
But for what?
The 2017 election for mayor is more than a year away. The 2015 election propelled two of Warren's deadliest enemies, ex police chief Jim Sheppard and the notorious Molly Clifford, into positions where they could challenge her that year. The mayor finds it necessary to get her propaganda out now, since she can count only on the unequivocal support of the Black Demagogues, especially after pissing off the Establishment Demagogues by not supporting Sandra Frankel's bid for county executive this year.
It is also rumored that Warren has federal aspirations.
Octogenarian Demagogic sacred cow Lulubelle Slaughter is seeking yet another term in Congress in 2016. She was almost defeated by Republican Mark Assini in 2014, who is also running again for her seat. Mayor Warren has made it clear that she owes the Establishment Demagogues nothing, and could easily throw her hairpiece into the race, challenging Lulubelle in the Demagogic primary.
There is also New York State Senator Rich Funke's seat up for re election in 2016.
Funke is a rookie in Albany. Warren lives in the district Funke represents. Neither of the two Demagogic parties has a viable option to Funke as of yet.
I believe that Warren won't try to run against Slaughter or Funke. Running against Lulubelle would only serve to again piss off Establishment Demagogues in the county. Her strength is in the ghetto, not in the largely white, Republican dominated suburbs beyond Rochester's borders. Moreover, if Warren were defeated by the Republican Assini in that race, the Establishment Demagogues would blame her for the loss of that particular congressional seat.
As for Funke's seat, it doesn't have quite the status that Lulubelle's does, and the mayor would take a huge pay cut if she attempted it.
Warren can't be stupid enough to attempt it, although her overwhelming ego just might trump her common sense.
She would probably lose those races if she attempted them. And it would also mean that she could be beaten in the 2017 race for Mayor.
Along with her campaign ad, Mayor Warren also had a popularity poll conducted at her own expense. The results were not released, which suggests that her popularity is slipping.
I repeat: Warren's infomercial is a campaign ad, to garner support beyond the black community for her re election campaign in 2017.
She is counting on most people believing anything that they see on television.

A final word on Yversha Roman, Molly Clifford's LaShana Boose.

Yversha Roman failed to recapture LD 26 for the Establishment Demagogues tonight. She was handily defeated by Republican incumbent Tony Micciche.
Micciche has hardly been effective as a leader, but at least he knew how to campaign. And walk.
Nobody ever heard of Roman before, just like nobody ever heard of LaShana Boose before this year.
Roman was the creation of the notorious Molly Clifford and social butterfly Elaine Spaull.
They dragged her out of the ghetto, dressed her up, created a biography for her and even gave her a job to make her more palatable to voters.
Moreover, they expected her to win merely because of the numerical superiority of registered Demagogues in LD 26.
That didn't work.
Nor did reinventing Roman.
To quote the great black god, Obama: "A pig with lipstick is still a pig."
Maybe the next time she runs for something, she and her goon squad will realize that slashing her opponent's tires and vandalizing his property won't win her any votes.
Or maybe not.
You can take a stupid little girl out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of a stupid little girl.

Where does Molly Clifford really live?

Good question.
To reiterate from an earlier blog, the notorious Molly Clifford established residence at 45 Stutson Street in January 2014 to run for the northwest city council seat being vacated by Carla Palumbo.
The house is listed as "owner occupied," and doesn't require a C of O.
Clifford is not the owner. The landlord would therefore have to change the status of the property to a rental and apply for a C of O.
This has not been done, which makes one wonder about the legality of Clifford's residence there, even if it is only on paper. If it isn't legal, how can she run for office based on her residence there?
Clifford is really only renting a mailbox. That is a common ploy used by welfare cheats and con artists to establish residence in places where they do not live in order to pull off a scam.
It means Clifford is interested in nothing more than wining elected office for that district. It is a means to the end of running for mayor in 2017.
Even more interesting is the history of Clifford's previous residences, courtesy of Monroe County's Board of Elections.
For the last decade, until now, they have listed the locations of her voter registration as being "unknown."
Unknown?
Are we to presume that Clifford was homeless or a gypsy?
That is doubtful.
How was she able to vote if she didn't have a legally registered address?
At least her Green Party opponent, Dorothy Paige, has lived at the same address for decades and can prove it.
There is way too much that is, and has been, fishy about Clifford.
To do her justice, she is no worse than Yversha Roman or LaShana Boose. They also have questionable recent residences.
They typify what is wrong with our political system. It explains why people are apathetic about it and refuse to come out to vote. Why vote when all politicians are seen as crooks?
Which is why the whole system needs to be razed and rebuilt from the foundations upwards.
But people are fearful of that, allowing corrupt politicians to continue to go merrily about their way.

Molly Clifford's rented house on Stutson Street doesn't have a C of O.

Rochester's weekly liberal newsrag, City  Newspaper, made much of the notorious Molly Clifford when they endorsed her for city council's northwest district seat.
I'll grant that she is connected to a lot of politically powerful people. I will also grant that she has had several different positions in the last few city administrations.
She had several because she wasn't good in any of them.
Clifford was kept on because ex mayor Doofus owed her something for getting him elected. He finally ended up creating a position in the fire department for her after she loused up her previous position with the city.
That position was as the head of NET, short for Neighborhood Empowerment Team.
NET was supposed to empower neighbors when dealing with crime, slumlords, zoning and code violations.
A rental property without a Certificate of Occupancy, or C of O, and renting out to tenants is just such a code violation.
It is usually punishable by a fine.
More information about C of O's can be gotten from the city's website. Single family, owner occupied homes are exempt. Rental units are not.
When Clifford established residence in Charlotte in 2014 to meet the requirement for this year's election, it was in a house that does not have a C of O. The property's owner could not have legally rented it to her, whether or not she and her boy toy really live there.
As the former head of NET, Clifford would be aware of the necessity of a C of O for a landlord to rent any property.
Perhaps Clifford will plead ignorance. That is not credible.
The bigger question is that if she established residence in a house that the landlord was not legally entitled to rent to her, is Clifford's candidacy based on that residence legal?

There are two Demagogic parties in Rochester.

Demagogic candidate for Monroe County Executive Sandra Frankel lunched with Rochester mayor Lovely Warren yesterday.
Ms. Frankel was seeking Mayor Warren's public support for her lackluster campaign against Republican Cheryl DiNolfo.
If Ms. Frankel was counting on Demagogic loyalty to get Mayor Warren's endorsement, she was sadly mistaken. Mayor Warren was reported as saying that she didn't want to put Rochester into the middle of this race. She also said that could work well with either DiNolfo or Frankel as County Executive.
This was bullshit.
I have already written why the mayor has ignored Frankel's campaign. As it now stands, Mayor Warren is the top ranking Demagogue in Monroe County. Any Demagogic County Executive would outrank her. That is something Mayor Warren's over inflated ego could not endure.
As for counting on Demagogic loyalty, Ms. Frankel seems blissfully unaware of the fact that there are two Demagogic Parties in Rochester. Mayor Warren belongs to one, and Ms. Frankel to the other.
Even the current chairperson of the MCDC, Jamie Romeo, refuses to concede this fact. Romeo is living in a fool's paradise wearing rose colored glasses. She is clearly incapable of bridging the chasm that exists between the two parties. Nobody with even half a brain could or even would dare to try. She prefers to believe that there is still only one Demagogic party over which she has authority.
The Black Demagogues are headed by none other than David Gantt and the mayor herself. Their focus is the ghetto, where their word is law. It does not extend beyond it, though they have tried to expand their authority into other districts of the city and failed. Conversely, they do not respect the authority of the MCDC over them. Why should they? They have succeeded without it.
The Establishment Demagogues, led by Joe Morelle and the notorious Molly Clifford, have a distinctly white elitist membership. They see themselves as the natural leaders of the party within the City of Rochester, never mind the fact that they will burn the rule book when it suits their purposes, especially in regards to the Gantt-Warren faction. The MCDC is slightly more useful to them, and then only at the county level, since the battle lines have been drawn along racial lines in the city.
The Demagogic primary election in 2013 finalized the divorce between the two parties. Ms. Warren won the primary. Clifford continued to run Tom Richards on the Independent line. Morelle, then chairman of the MCDC, refused to help finance Ms. Warren's campaign as he should have done.
Ms. Warren won, and has been fundraising separately from the Establishment Demagogues ever since, much to their displeasure. Mayor Warren owes them nothing.
Paybacks are a bitch.
The Establishment Demagogues owe Mayor Warren nothing, either. This will be made patently clear in 2017 when she runs for reelection.
This is the background into which Ms. Frankel thrust herself, begging for Mayor Warren's support. She didn't get it because she is too white, too suburban, too naïve and not apologetic enough to suit Mayor Warren. And because she wasn't a charter member of the David Gantt fan club.

Boose loses. Again.

New York State Supreme Court Justice John Van Ark rang the curtain down on LaShana Boose's campaign farce today.
According to Rochester's liberal newsrag, the D&C, Van Ark dismissed Boose's bid to challenge the outcome of the primary election on September 10.
Boose's handlers claimed that she "never received a required notice about a routine audit of 3 percent of the voting machines used in the election, and she argued that there were discrepancies in the vote totals announced by the Board of Elections."
Of course, this was bullshit.
I mentioned the so-called discrepancies in a previous blog. Boose and her handlers are even stupider than I thought possible to make that statement.
As for not receiving the "required notice," the D&C states "Ark focused largely on whether the Board of Elections sent the proper notice to Boose. Rob Yauman, an attorney for the Monroe County law department, said the board showed that in August, it mailed the notice required by state law to the address that Boose used to register to vote and in her nominating petitions to get on the ballot."
If Boose didn't receive that notice, it suggests that she doesn't live at that address. Which does a lot to explain why nobody ever heard of her before in Maplewood.
Where does she live, really?
Boose's campaign was a fraud from start to finish.
Van Ark threw out the Gantt-Warren faction's challenge. Who knows what their next desperate move will be? The New York State Court of Appeals?
Election Commissioner Tom Ferrarese called the Gantt-Warren faction's petition "political grandstanding." In plain English, the behavior of spoiled brats not getting their way.
Boose left without speaking to the reporter.  She was true to form. Nobody ever heard her speak to anyone before. Perhaps she is incapable of cognitive speech. Which also does a lot to explain why the Gantt-Warren faction kept her out of the public eye during her, or rather their campaign.
They didn't rehearse her well enough to speak in public on the subject of her case being dismissed. They would have done better with a parakeet.
The Gantt-Warren faction only wanted to get a mindless fool elected to this particular city council seat to forestall the notorious Molly Clifford from challenging the mayor in 2017.
They got the kind of candidate they wanted and failed.
They didn't get their puppet elected. They chose to humiliate themselves and her further in this manner. They chose to piss off other Demagogues. They were entertainment for people not committed to either faction of the Demagogic Party and the Republicans.
Clifford won, leaving the road clear for she and her faction to challenge the mayor in 2017.
Between the two evils, the mindless LaShana Boose and the notorious Molly Clifford, most Demagogues chose not to vote at all.
That should be a warning to both Clifford and Warren in 2017.
But this primary and its aftermath were fun, weren't they?

LaShana Boose must be a masochist.

I thought I had heard the last of LaShana Boose.
You know, the Gantt-Warren faction's invisible candidate who was narrowly defeated by the notorious Molly Clifford for the northwest district city council seat. By 42 votes.
When the absentee ballots were counted, Clifford's margin of victory grew to 66 votes. Not particularly outstanding, but sufficient unto the day.
That should have been that. The Gantt-Warren faction should have learned from their mistakes and put this one behind them.
But no. They are incapable of learning anything.
Boose's incompetent handlers decided that there should be a public examination of all the votes for the northwest city council seat. In her name, they are petitioning the State Supreme Court for an expanded audit of the voting machines that were used.
Boose was certainly not intelligent enough to do it herself, or able to tell her handlers to leave her in peace.
According to Rochester's City Newspaper, the petition reads: "the discrepancy between the 42-vote lead on September 10, 2015, and the 66-vote lead on September 14, 2015, justifies an expanded audit."
Which, like everything else involving Boose, is bullshit. All it's doing is make the lot of them look like sore losers and pests. The only way to stick it to sore losers is to ignore them.  The only way to get rid of pests is to swat them.
That will come when Mayor Warren runs for re-election against Clifford in 2017. That will be an endless source of mirth for Rochesterians, since both factions will throw away the rule book.
Neither side ever abided by it, anyway.
For now, this petition will probably get thrown out of court, providing yet another opportunity for Boose and her handlers to humiliate themselves. They enjoy feeling oppressed, and who can deny them their perverted pleasures?
When I heard about their petition, I laughed so hard I almost pissed myself.
Probably, so did Clifford.
She has nothing to fear from the Gantt-Warren faction ever again.

Sheppard and Clifford are now poised to challenge Mayor Warren in 2017.

It was a bad night  for the Gantt-Warren faction in the Demagogic primary election.

Primary elections usually have piss poor turnouts. A few hundred, maybe as little as a few dozen votes can determine which candidate is victorious.

Such was the case tonight.

True, they kept what they had in their core constituencies ( in the ghetto ), but were unable to extend their malevolence beyond it.

The defeat of their clients in LDs 21 and 28 were unimportant. It merely bruised their tender little egos. Perhaps it even taught them their limitations, if they are capable of learning anything.

It was a different matter in LD 23 and the northwest city council race. Their clients were defeated by long time enemies who are now poised to challenge the mayor herself in 2017.

Ex police chief James Sheppard handily defeated Mayor Warren's employee, Mitchell Rowe, in LD 23. The Gantt-Warren faction couldn't play the race card ( their usual weapon ) because Sheppard is black, their client was white and LD 23 is one of the richest and whitest districts in the City of Rochester.

That card works only in the ghetto.

It must be recalled that Sheppard was unceremoniously and publicly rejected by Mayor Warren when she won election in 2013. He owes her no favors.

In fact, he might very easily take a page out of the book of another inept Rochester police chief, Bob Doofus.

Doofus managed to rise to his level of incompetence, first briefly as mayor of Rochester and then even more briefly as lieutenant governor of New York State.

Sheppard is well placed to run against Mayor Warren when the time comes in two years.

Even more damning was the Gantt-Warren faction's defeat in the race for the northwest district's city council seat.

The notorious Molly Clifford defeated the invisible, unknown and unheard of Lashana Boose. Playing the race card backfired in their faces in a district where blacks are not in the majority, and the white queen swept the black queen off of the board by less than four dozen votes.

This particular defeat should be extremely galling to Lovely Warren and David Gant because they personally controlled it from Day One and bungled it from start to finish.

Clifford's notoriety gave her name recognition. Nobody ever heard of Boose before, or ever will again.

Clifford began her campaign in January 2014, when she established residence in Charlotte to qualify for this year's campaign. Gantt and Warren got Boose from who knows where and sprang her on us only in June 2015.

Clifford's years as a kept woman in the Doofus and Richards administration gave her a thin veneer of knowledge on a citywide basis, at least enough to bullshit her way through political conversations,even though she mangled everything she touched there. Boose is NOT connected to the community; she is NOT connected to her neighborhood; she is NOT connected to anything in the northwest.

Clifford was seen everywhere. Boose was seen nowhere.

Clifford’s political propaganda, consisting of lies and gross exaggerations, was frequently forthcoming including a website and contact information. Boose’s one pathetic political handout had nothing on it. Nothing.

Clifford's campaign was staffed by enthusiastic, hard working though dangerously misguided volunteers. Boose's was staffed by Mayor Warren's paid employees and Assemblyman Gantt's political operatives.

Didn't Warren and Gantt realize that fact would be noticed?

In the long run, it didn't matter. Boose was never credible as a candidate for anything, let alone city council. She was even too stupid to realize or care that her campaign was being mishandled. All she had were the Gantt-Warren faction's assurance that they would galvanize the black community to support her. That wasn't enough.

 Boose should now retreat into her well-deserved political obscurity or oblivion

Clifford won the primary by a few dozen votes, which means she will be the next city council thing from the northwest district, for better or worse.

She can now realize her goal of running for mayor in 2017. That's been in her badly coiffed head since 2013.
Of course, her narrow margin of victory means that Clifford isn't all that well loved in the northwest. Absentee ballots might not be in her favor, and a recount might still further erode her margin, if not eliminate it entirely.
In that event, Clifford will still be on the ballot in November on the Independence and Working Family lines. That is her insurance, despite her fine Demagogic heritage.
Boose's handlers didn't think of that, either.

There is a rumor that Mayor Warren won't be around in 2017, though. It's being whispered that she has federal aspirations, and is looking to challenge Demagogic sacred cow Lulubelle Slaughter for her seat in Congress in 2016.

That's one race Warren won't win. The county is not the ghetto, and she doesn't cut much ice outside of it.

It showed tonight.

A defeat on that level would only serve to galvanize either Sheppard or Clifford ( or both ) to unseat her in 2017.

Their campaigns for the mayor's office start now.

Does LaShana Boose exist?

Last night, the Maplewood Neighborhood Association hosted a candidates' forum for the wannabees running for the northeast district's city council seat.
It would be the final chance for voters to grill the candidates before the primary election.
The cafeteria at Aquinas High School was packed with spectators.
Four of the five candidates appeared.
The only no show was LaShana Boose, the Gantt-Warren faction's foil against the notorious Molly Clifford in the Demagogic primary.
Bill Collins, president of the MNA, informed the audience that Boose declined to attend.
That should have been no surprise. Nobody has seen her or heard her since her candidacy had been announced in June.
Come to think of it, nobody ever saw her or heard of her before, either. Even in Maplewood, where she is supposed to reside.
Perhaps Boose was too frightened to appear. Perhaps she and her handlers know that she is incapable of answering the hard questions voters would put to her; that she would be revealed to be nothing more than a puppet of the Gantt-Warren faction, with no connection to anything in the northwest; that she is a simpering idiot.
Her absence last night was a serious blunder. Most voters won't support a candidate that they have never seen or heard before.
But Boose's handlers think they have a sound strategy. They expect the black voters to support her only because she is black. That she is an idiot will not be taken into account then.
But does LaShana Boose even exist? Is she merely a figment of the Gantt-Warren faction's imagination? Are they playing a joke on the voters of the northwest district? Do they think playing the race card will work in an area where blacks are not in the majority?
Who knows?
What is clear is that Lovely Warren's ego is getting the better of her and David Gantt is certainly in his dotage.
This primary, just a week away, should be lots of laughs.

Dave Garretson couldn't hack it as MCDC chairman.

Well meaning oaf Dave Garretson threw in the towel today as MCDC chairman, less than ten months after being elected to the position.
I have stated before that he was ill suited for the position, that he had neither the strength nor imagination to heal the severe fractures within his party: the fratricidal war in Rochester between the Morelle-Clifford faction and the Gantt-Warren clique.
They are still merrily slicing away at each other, to the amusement of the Monroe County GOP.
Garretson's tenure merely made the county Republicans look stronger, and himself look ridiculous.
Nor was Garretson any good at raising funds for the party, or finding decent candidates to run against Republicans this year.
Really, Dave. Choosing two time loser Dick Bebe to run against Fred Ancello again?
His excuse for leaving was family illness rather than abject failure on his part.
Now, everything is undone again, leaving the door open for Molly Clifford's boy toy, Ken Warner, to reactivate his campaign for MCDC chair. Warner stood down last year when it became obvious that their notoriety was more than most Democrats would stand.
They are good at reactivating campaigns, just like with Tom Richards.
It will provide a real circus for Rochesterians of all political stripes to watch over the next few months, complete with shits and giggles.

The Gantt-Warren faction have chosen their candidate for the north west city council race.

Her name is Lashana Boose.
Apart from the fact that she is a black woman who resides in Rochester's north west district, nobody knows anything about her.
She is the candidate the Gantt-Warren faction have pitted against Molly Clifford. They are counting on her sex and the color of her skin alone to win outgoing city councilmember Carla Palumbo's seat.
Scott Gaddy, one of Gantt's numerous "children"  and leader of the PAC ( political action committee ) that got Warren elected, entertained the possibility of running other candidates for that seat, including Republican county legislator Tony Micciche.
That would not have made the Gantt-Warren faction popular with other Democrats.
Micciche is a piss-poor choice for any elected office, anyway.
Another potential candidate was Mayor Warren's own executive staff member, Andreas Rau.
Rau never said he would run, but as a long standing neighborhood advocate for the north west, he seemed to be the most logical candidate.
Perhaps he was bought off with the promise of a pay-raise. They need him at City Hall as window dressing, the only white male among the mayor's intimate staff members.
So Boose was chosen to run. The others were simply too white for Gantt's taste
Boose is merely a cypher, a tool of the Gantt-Warren faction to prolong the racial split among Rochester's Democratic committees.
She is no match for Clifford, an old pro in evil political practices.

LaShay Harris to run for county legislature.

Every seat is up for grabs this year in the Monroe County Legislature.
Incumbents who haven't been termed out will run for re-election.
Whether or not they have been useless morons will not be considered during their campaigns.
Incumbents who have been termed out and can't run again will have to give way to new blood, such as it is.
This is the case in LD 27.
LaShay Harris has announced that she will run for that seat.
Ms. Harris is an ideal candidate.
She grew up and still resides in the 19th Ward.
She has been a tireless advocate and spokeswoman for her neighborhood.
She has been her neighborhood association president.
Ms. Harris' passion for her neighborhood suits her for elected office.
This is in stark contrast to Molly Clifford ( running for the northwest district city council seat ), a carpetbagger if there ever was one.
The deck is subtly stacked in Ms. Harris' favor, so she should have an easy victory.
She has the support of Willie Lightfoot, the current incumbent.
No Republicans will offer at candidate for LD 27, so she has nothing to fear from that quarter.
The white, elitist Morelle-Clifford wing of the Democratic party cuts no ice in the southwest, and they aren't stupid enough to attempt running a candidate against Ms. Harris.
Ms. Harris also has the support of City Councilman Adam McFadden.
That can only help her.
While McFadden might be notorious and disliked by many in the city of Rochester, he is well loved in the southwest district.
There is no accounting for taste.
At least Ms. Harris is a good candidate.

New candidates for the northwest city council race.

If Molly Clifford thought that she would be the only candidate running in the northwest district's city council race, she was mistaken.
Pam Davis from the Lyell-Otis Neighborhood Association is mulling over running in that race as a Republican.
Dorothy Paige from the Jay Street area, one of the poorest sections of the city, is running as the Green Party candidate.
There is no word that Andreas Rau, from the Maplewood Neighborhood Association, will be running.
Rau's candidacy is a distinct possibility.
Davis and Rau have long been active in their neighborhood associations.
They have lived in their respective neighborhoods for decades.
Clifford only moved to the northwest district last year to meet the residency requirements for such a run.
Clifford has no real connection to that quadrant, apart from the fact she grew up in in Maplewood.
She left Maplewood decades ago.
Clifford will undoubtedly get the designation from the northwest Democrats as their candidate, since her clique controls that committee.
That would make her the party favorite.
If Rau runs, it would force a Democratic primary election for that office.
Duffy and the current mayor. Lovely Warren, were not the party favorites. The primary elections in both of those cases guaranteed their victories later on.
In the case of Mayor Warren, Clifford paid no attention to her victory at the primary.
Undoubtedly, Clifford would like to avoid a Democratic primary, in case history repeats itself.
Rau remains silent on the subject of running. For now.

Poor Dave Garretson.

Right about now, Dave Garretson should be wondering why he was so desperate to become Monroe County Democratic Committee chairman.
In the scant three months since he was elected to that post, Garretson has presided over disaster.
Certainly, it has not been his fault.
Garretson inherited the situation from Joe Morelle. Morelle, far more clever and slicker than Garretson, saw the handwriting on the wall and announced that he would not run for re-election.
That left Garretson holding a very large, empty paper bag.
The Republicans regained control over the New York State senate; Democratic sacred cow Lulubelle Slaughter narrowly defeated a Republican unknown; and a few days ago District Attorney Sandra Doorley announced that she was changing her registration to Republican.
To be sure, Garretson wanted to be Democratic chairman. He claimed that he would be a unifying force in the party, which is hopelessly divided here.
Garretson has been no such thing. He clearly doesn't understand the Realpolitik of Monroe County in general and Rochester in particular.
The Republicans control the county towns; the Democrats, the City of Rochester and the town of Brighton.
Garretson's Town of Greece is overwhelmingly Republican. During his tenure as leader of the Greece Democrats, Garretson was unable to win any elected office for himself, nor was he able to run any victorious campaigns for other Greece Democrats.
In LD 7, which is mostly in Greece with a tiny slice in Rochester, Garretson couldn't even find a candidate to challenge the appointed Republican incumbent, a snot-nosed kid still wet behind the ears.
It is hard to see how his lack of leadership skills in his own backyard would translate to effective leadership in the county committee, especially with the political pendulum swinging to the right.
Worse is Garretson's lack of understanding of the Democratic Party's situation in Rochester.
Rochester Democrats are divided into two factions: the white, elitist Morelle-Clifford wing and the black Gantt-Warren wing. Racism, real but covert, is a factor in both wings.
Since Republicans are dead in the water in Rochester, the two Democratic factions are trying to destroy each other.
Garretson mistakenly claimed that he could unify the party. At the same time, he claimed he was a better candidate than another contender because the mayor didn't hate him. He was appealing to faction.
Mayor Warren never openly came out in support of Garretson.
Three months ago, when Garretson was elected as chairman, Gantt's supporters promptly walked out in protest before the votes were tallied.
Gantt, behaving like a spoiled brat, realized that he can never be the power behind the whole Democratic Committee, had to have his little temper tantrum.
Never mind the fact that there were two suburban black candidates for chairman.
This action reflected the racial division within the city Democrats.
Garretson owed his election to the white elitist wing of the party.
This was not a good start.
What is clear is that while Garretson is a jolly, likeable oaf, he is out of his element as chairman.
That can only benefit the Republicans.

No big secret that Molly Clifford would run.

Molly Clifford announced that she will be running for the northwest city council seat.
Big deal.
She's been angling for that position for over a year.
Clifford established her "residence" in Charlotte last January, in order to meet residency requirements.
Whether she really lives there is anyone's guess.
Clifford and boy-toy Ken Warner are two of the most divisive personalities in Rochester's Democratic party.
Leading the elitist wing of the party, she, Carla Palumbo and Cindy Kaleh control the northwest Democrats. Not because they are so good, which they are not. It's just that nobody ever had the balls to challenge them.
Carla Palumbo, the current incumbent, announced that she wouldn't run for re-election.
That has been an open secret for over a year.
It is also an open secret that she and Kaleh have been rooting for Clifford.
Clifford is best known for being on Duffy and Richards' city payroll; for screwing up NET so badly that Duffy had to create a new six figure job in the fire department for her; and for continuing to run Richards for mayor after he had been defeated by Lovely Warren in the Democratic primary in 2013.
That came with Clifford reiterating her Democratic "credentials," which need to be reviewed. Certainly, they are questionable.
The knuckleheads in her cheerleading squad will continue to shout that she has done so much good for Rochester.
She hasn't. Clifford has always been about Clifford, and has schemed and scammed to promote herself for years.
The sad fact is that there are no potential candidates to run against her.
Regardless, she won't get my vote

Election year 2015.

Every year is an election year for some office or another.
This year, the Rochester area will be concentrating on local offices.
The campaigns won't be very important, interesting or exciting.
That is because the results will be a foregone conclusion in most cases.
Monroe County is unequally divided into two camps: the Republicans, who control most of the county towns; and the Democrats, who control most of Rochester and Brighton.
Incumbents will be re-elected to office. In most cases they will be running unopposed.
In those cases where term limits apply, and the incumbent can't run again, someone from their own party will scarf up their seat.
Of course, this means that there won't be any changes, especially where the City of Rochester is concerned.
The city likes being flushed down the toilet.
The only new factor this year will be Dave Garretson, the recently elected chairman of the Monroe County Democratic Committee.
All Garretson will be providing is a new face.
As head of the Greece Democrats, he has been unable to win any elective office for himself, or run any successful election campaigns against Republicans for anyone else.
As a likeable oaf, he cannot provide any strong leadership for the Democrats this campaign season.

The County Executive Race.

Maggie Brooks has reached her term limit and can't run again. She will be succeeded by County Clerk Cheryl DiNolfo.
DiNolfo has long been understudying for the role.
Republican DiNolfo is prominent county-wide. The Democrats have nobody important or prominent to challenge her.
DiNolfo, a tiny woman, has great stature, which is evident when she marches in every parade wearing three-inch high pumps.
She will be a shoo-in ( or is it "shoe-in?" ) for the office come November.

The County Legislature.

All of the incumbents will win re-election, meaning Republicans will continue to be dominant in the County Legislature, but not having a "super majority" that would permit them to ignore Democrats entirely.
A loose-fitting stone in this structure is LD 26, which is mostly in  Rochester with some slices of Greece and Gates thrown in.
It has always been a swing district, changing hands between Republicans and Democrats every few years.
Its current incumbent is a Republican, who won by the skin of his teeth in 2011.
MCDC chairman Garretson has no suitable candidate to challenge the incumbent with ( Garretson has no suitable candidates to challenge anyone with ), so the incumbent will probably win by default. The fact that the incumbent is a moron will not harm his chances for re-election.

Rochester City Council.

The district incumbents will all win re-election. They will not be opposed by Republican candidates whose party only concentrates on the suburbs now.
Nor does City council have term limits, which has allowed numerous morons to have a comfortable second job for as long as they want it.
The work is easy, a few hours per month,  and they rarely show themselves to their constituents, except at election time.
They might have to fight other Democratic hopefuls during a primary election because the party is divided into two mutually antagonistic camps which hope to destroy each other.
They only question is in the Northwest district.
The rumor is that Carla Palumbo will not run for re-election. It was also rumored that she planned to resign this year and have longtime political ally Molly Clifford appointed to City Council and have her run for the office.
Molly Clifford has established residence in the Northwest, forsaking her expensive penthouse ( really? ) in downtown Rochester to meet eligibility requirements.
This was discussed in depth in the now defunct Smugtown Beacon.
That Clifford is a divisive factor in the Democratic committee is well known throughout Rochester, and her domineering elitism will be sure to provide an alternative candidate from the Gantt wing of the party to challenge her.
It will probably be the only interesting campaign this year.

The pendulum swings to the right, part II.

Locally, Republican resurgence has been more subtle.
That is because it has occurred behind the backdrop of the continued fratricidal strife within the Monroe County Democratic Committee. It has been an endless source of mirth for those of us who no longer take most politicians seriously.
The combatants are the elitist, pseudo-liberal Morelle-Clifford faction of the party, opposing the black oriented Gantt-Warren clique.
The split was best illustrated by the mayoral election of 2013.
Lovely Warren won the Democratic primary election. Joe Morelle, then chairman of the MCDC, was downright bitter after her victory, and less than gracious during the remainder of the campaign. Molly Clifford and her boy-toy Ken Warner continued to support Tom Richards, who was on the ballot as the Independent candidate.
Warren won, and many people questioned whether or not Morelle was fit to remain as Democratic chairman, given his behavior during the campaign.
Amid such criticism, Morelle chose not to run for re-election as chairman, and the race was on to grab his tarnished crown from the gutter.
Dave Garretson, leader of the Democrats in the Town of Greece ( where Republicans are dominant ), won the chairmanship.
Dave Garretson needs all of the introduction he can get.
A friendly, likeable oaf, Garretson never won an elected office in the Town of Greece, nor had any Democratic candidates he ever supported won, either. He knows nothing about the power-politics within Rochester other than the Democratic Party controls the city.
The Democrats also control the Town of Brighton.
It has been said that Brighton, with its large Jewish population, would more easily elect an Adolf Hitler with a "D" in front of his name rather than a Moses with an "R."
That statement might be vile, but vileness doesn't make it any less true.
Within weeks of winning the chairmanship, it was evident to all that Garretson had been left holding a very large, empty paper bag.
Democrat Ted O'Brien lost his state senate seat to Republican Rich Funke, giving the Republicans control of that body.
It could hardly have been otherwise.
In 2012, O'Brien only won against Republican Sean Hanna because people personally disliked Hanna, not because O'Brien was the better candidate.
In office, O'Brien wasn't very convincing.
In 2014, O'Brien's handlers resurrected their campaign against Hanna, only Funke wasn't Hanna, and their methods didn't work this time. Moreover, they forgot that the state senate seat in question had been Republican for years, and O'Brien's election to it in 2012 was the anomaly.
Even more telling was the case of  Democratic Congresswoman Lulubelle Slaughter. She had been in Congress for three or four thousand years without accomplishing anything for this area. That didn't stop the Democrats from making her a sacred cow and elevating her to sainthood.
"Saint" Louise was opposed by a Republican dark horse, Mark Assini from the Town of Gates.
Assini was an unknown quantity, hardly supported by the county GOP and underfunded, yet it took a count of absentee ballots to determine that Lulubelle won re-election on by a scant six hundred votes.
It catapulted Assini to national prominence even if he lost the election campaign. And if the county GOP had been really supportive of Assini, he would have sent Lulubelle packing.
That fact has been a source of embarrassment to "Saint" Louise, and even Democrats are questioning whether or not it is time for her to pack it in.
As I have stated, Republican resurgence in this area has been subtle.
A second Republican state senator from this area has given Republicans control of the state senate; a new Republican star was narrowly defeated by a Democratic sacred cow; and the Democrats have saddled themselves with a chairman who really doesn't know what he is doing.