Stories from

How many voters haven't paid close attention to the election, just saw the negative commercials and then decided to vote for the third-party candidate?

Blogger Lauren, from Rochester, suggests she was planning to vote for Jon Powers:

The problem is that I've been watching Rochester TV for the past two months and can recite word for word all the low budget smear campaign commercials of local political hopefuls there.

I know all about Alice Kryzan and Chris Lee and how Alice accuses Chris of sending jobs to China and only caring about his small business making money, and Chris likes to constantly remind everyone how Alice is a "liberal trial lawyer". Truth be told, I side with Alice because at least she's acquainted with the law. Chris owns some electrician business or something equally unrelated to politics and is probably just trying to get in office so he can vote against Joe the Plumber taxes and maybe lower minimum wage. If I voted in Rochester, I'd probably vote for a third party guy simply because he didn't subject me to ominously voiced-over shitty commercials for two months, and leaving me the hell alone during It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is what I truly value in a candidate.

Despite every effort to get Kryzan on the Working Families line, the courts kept Powers, who reportedly moved out of state, on it.

It will be interesting to see how many votes that line gets and then speculate whether it could have made a difference.

We're going to get a little air time on WHAM tonight. Evan Dawson has invited me to appear on the the station's 10 p.m. election coverage.  I'll be there to talk about the 26th District Congressional race.

For anybody visiting The Batavian for the first time from the link on Evan's blog, you can check out our congressional race coverage on this link or this link.

And Evan called me a Libertarian.  I'd never use the big L -- being non-partisan, or the slightly insulting "blank" in New York political lingo  -- and I think more apt is decentralist and localist, and of course a strong belief in individual liberty.

Thanks to my friend Rottenchester of the Fighting 29th blog for arranging this. It will be the first time 16 years that I've been on TV as a journalist to talk about elections.

The NY Department of Elections has release final voter registration totals for 2008 (PDF).

In Genesee County

In the 26th Congressional District:

The Batavian is not endorsing candidates in any race, but there's no reason you can't take a moment to post your own personal endorsements.

Use the comment space on this post to tell us who you're voting for and why. Try to polish up your best argument in favor of your preferred candidate.

You can write about just one race, or all of the races from the President on down to county coroner.

Make your case well enough and maybe you'll change another voter's mind.

Try to avoid criticizing or questioning another voter's endorsements -- let's make this thread about who will vote for and why, not about debating with other posters the merits of their picks.

If either Chris Lee or Alice Kryzan are looking for a long career in the House of Representatives, they might be sorely disappointed, according to Buffalo Business First.

In four years, the Legislature will redraw legislative boundaries, and because of an ongoing population decline in Western New York, the state is likely to lose two seats.

“Either one of them would be at the mercy of Albany,” says Kevin Hardwick, a Canisius College political science professor. “But then, in a way that’s true for every congressman involved. Reapportionment is the only time in 10 years that a congressman ever sucks up to a state legislator. They hold all the cards.”

...

“The nation has had a long westward and southward expansion, so House seats are going that way, too,” says Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based research group. “New York’s loss is Arizona’s and Nevada’s and Florida’s gain. I don’t know when it’s going to end.”

Certainly not soon. New York is likely to lose two more congressional seats after the 2010 census, according to a new Business First analysis of U.S. Census Bureau projections.

The prime target for those cuts will be the eight counties of Western New York, which lost 56,000 residents between 2000 and 2007, based on federal estimates. The rest of Upstate added 10,000 people during the same span, and Downstate added 347,000.

The article says the winner of the NY-26 race will be vulnerable to losing the seat because both candidates will have little seniority within the delegation and fewer friends in Albany.

While this could be bad news for Lee or Kryzan, it's certainly bad news for WNY.

The Auburn Citizen reports:

In the 61st district in Genesee County and part of Erie County, Republican Michael Razenhofer has overtaken Democrat Joseph "Baby Joe" Mesi for the open seat. Sunday's poll gave Razenhofer a 47-42 lead, with 11 percent undecided. Razenhofer had trailed 38-40 in the September poll, although both margins are within the poll's margin of error so the candidates are in a statistical dead heat.

The seat had long been held by Republicans and was vacant because of a retirement.

Democrats also just received an infusion of cash for these last days of campaigning.

(Updated by Philip at 7:50am): Ranzenhofer released this statement following the announcement of his lead in the poll:

"The Siena poll clearly demonstrates that voters share my concerns about jobs, taxes and spending. They also share my concern about what will happen should the New York City special interests take complete control of state government. Momentum is now on our side."

(Updated by Philip at 8:07am): Interesting, but not at all surprising, Joe Mesi released a similar statement following the poll results claiming that the momentum is on his side:

"With the polls showing a neck-and-neck race, Joe Mesi's campaign is heading into the final 48 hours with a wave of momentum from endorsements by Senator Hillary Clinton and Governor David Paterson. Joe Mesi will be fighting to the finish - talking to families across Western New York - with a marathon 'Countdown to Change' campaign blitz through each of the 17 towns of the Senate District in 17 hours on election eve."

A reporter from WNYMedia.net attempted to get a video interview with Chris Lee, and here is the result.

Once again, Nick Langworthy, running interference. Previously, Langworthy wouldn't let The Batavian do a video interview with Lee.

We didn't push the issue then, but the pattern that is emerging of Lee's unwillingness to be forthright and open with the public is disturbing.

Note: I'm not anti-Chris Lee, not by a long shot.  But there's no excuse for public officials for hiding from the press, or picking and choosing which press they will talk with. Doing so is fundamentally anti-First Amendment. It robs people of their right to make informed decisions.

UPDATE: Here's the Buffalo News coverage of yesterday's WBEN debate.

It looks like both the Chris Lee and Alice Kryzan campaigns were busy yesterday trading shots over revelations that Lee was fired from a job in 1989 for allegedly hacking into his employer's computers (we say "allegedly" because Lee has only admitted to a "mistake" not the specific act).

Lee's campaign manager Nick Langworthy told WROC that revelations of his boss's dismissal was just a smear from the Alice Kryzan campaign.

"If there's one thing that can be learned from this 11th hour stunt, it's that Alice Kryzan is willing to say and do anything to elected to congress."

Kryzan responded by saying, "I was even more disappointed to hear that rather than admit the gravity of his actions, he instead once again, attacked me and my campaign."

Lee took up the charge against the Kryzan campaign himself when speaking with the Buffalo News:

Asked about the incident on Saturday, Lee said: “It’s not a commentary on my character. I was a young man, I made a mistake, I broke a company policy, I recognized that, I was let go, and I moved on and turned out to have a successful career.”

Lee pinned the revelation about his firing on his opponent — even after being told that e-mails detailing his firing arrived at The Buffalo News independently of the Kryzan campaign.

“It’s frustrating that three days outside the election there’s a desperate attack by Alice, who’s down in the polls, to continue to smear my name,” Lee said.

Lee spoke shortly after Kryzan tore into him at a news conference, saying he was ducking responsibility for his own failings.

“He has made this an issue in this campaign by blaming me for his bad behavior. I didn’t tell him to hack into his employer’s computer system,” said Kryzan, who added: “This issue speaks to Chris Lee’s basic integrity.”

The theme was repeated in the Democrat & Chronicle:

"Chris Lee's first response was to blame me," said Kryzan, 60, during a news conference at her headquarters in Williamsville, Erie County. "Be very clear about this, I did not tell Chris Lee to hack into his employer's computer system for his own personal gain. I did not tell Chris Lee to break the rules."

When reporters caught up with Lee, 44, at a Republican rally in Amherst, he said he did not gain financially from his "mistake."

"I broke a company policy. I've gone on and had a very successful career creating jobs," he said. "Unfortunately there's this desperate attack three days out. ... That's frustrating when I'm trying to do something positive for this community."

Lee's campaign, without Lee present, held its own news conference outside Kryzan's headquarters immediately following Kryzan's news conference. His campaign brought supporters waving campaign signs.

"Alice Kryzan knows that the voters of western New York are prepared to reject her job-killing agenda," said Lee's campaign manager, Nick Langworthy.

It's disappointing that to this point Chris Lee has failed to come forward with a full and transparent accounting of his actions at Ingram Micro.  Lee and Langworthy are dragging themselves down into the mud by trying to turn this revelation into an attack on Kryzan. It's a smoke screen and completely irrelevant to Lee's responsibility to tell the voters the full story before Tuesday. If he isn't willing to do that, how can he possibly be a trustworthy representative of Western New York?

UPDATE: Buffalo Pundit live blogged the radio debate between Kryzan and Lee this morning. No mention of the "mistake."

UPDATE II: Here's Buffalo Bean's assessment of the debate.

We just received this notice from the Alice Kryzan campaign:

On Sunday from 10:30 - 12:00 a.m. Alice Kryzan and Chris Lee will face off one last time before Election Day on Kevin Hardwick's "Hardline with Hardwick" radio show on WBEN channel 930-AM. 

Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour!

The Alice Kryzan campaign issued a press release this evening slamming Chris Lee for his admission that he made a mistake while working as a salesman in 1989, which led to his termination from that job.

We posted about this previously.  Lee allegedly hacked into company computers and changed the credit limits of customers.

The press release contains these five questions for Lee:

1. Could Chris Lee or his attorney at the time explain why this wasn't prosecuted?
2. Was there a fine involved and who paid for it?
3. How much did Chris Lee defraud his company of?
4. How seriously was the company put at risk?
5. How much money did he stand to gain if he hadn't gotten caught?

Whether Lee answers these specific questions on the topic, he does owe voters a full explanation prior to Tuesday.

I wrote this morning about not rushing to judgment of Lee on this. It was 20 years ago. He was young. There is no evidence of a pattern of behavior. We all make mistakes and deserve second chances. Also, there are important issues at stake in this race that voters should focus on (and it is perhaps a bigger concern that Lee has said little of substance about these issues).

But, it is exceptionally important that our public officials be held to standards of full transparency about their conduct in and out of office.  Lee should give a complete and full accounting of the events that led to his firing.  This isn't a test of his conduct 20 years ago, but a test of his conduct today. Is he ethical enough to come clean?

UPDATE: Here's a question I think Mr. Lee needs to answer: Did Mr. Lee ever apologize to his former employer? Did he say, "I'm sorry"?

So far, in looking over the latest campaign commercials uploaded to YouTube for the 26th Congressional race, they're really just a variation on a theme: Chris Lee shipped jobs to China (false) and Alice Kryzan is a "liberal trial lawyer" (silly).

Here's the latest from Lee's campaign:

The funny thing is, there is scant evidence from Lee, either in his campaign commercials, his web site or his public statements that he's anything other than just another Big Government Republican.  He hasn't named one wasteful federal program he would cut, said how he would reign in the out-of-control Pentagon budget or scale back the federal bureaucracy. On his web site makes a veiled reference to pork, but railing against earmarks is just nonsense.

Given that earmarks make up less than 5 percent of the federal budget, eliminating them will do little to end deficit spending.  Bigger, more drastic cuts than that need to be made. At least with earmarks, some of the wages convisicated by workers get returned to the districts the revenue came from.

The latest DCCC's ad attacking Lee is even less honest.

One line in the commercial that stands out: The press has called Lee's attacks on Kryzan "fiction."

My question is: Where? What press? Not any press I've been following.  For ourselves, we've bashed Lee for his trite attack ads, but we haven't used the word fiction.  It's hard to call something fiction that has no real substance to it.

UPDATE: Buffalo Bean interviewed Chris Lee. There isn't much to report from the Q&A. As usual, Lee doesn't say much. He doesn't divert from his talking points. 

If you found out a candidate for office had been fired from his first job out of college some 20 years ago, would it impact your voting decision?

What if the candidate admitted to "making a mistake" that led to the termination? What if that mistake involved breaking into company computers?

Well, those questions are more than theoretical in the 26th Congressional District race, and they apply to Republican Chris Lee.

The Buffalo News:

Lee was a young salesman with Ingram Micro, a computer products distributor that in 1989 was known as Ingram Micro D and operated from offices on Elmwood Avenue.

Lee, according to his co-workers at the time, somehow obtained a company credit manager’s password. Then, with that password, he raised the credit limits for some of his customers and the customers of other sales people, the employees said.

That way Lee could sell the customers more of the company’s products, on credit, before the billing system would flag their accounts for payment and halt further purchases.

It might have helped with sales, but it also put the company at greater risk if those customers failed to pay.

Since Lee has not admitted to the specific allegation, just that he made a mistake, let's be careful about taking the charges at face value. That said, if Lee did hack into a company computer, that's a crime (at least it is now, I don't know what the law was in 1989), and it is certainly unethical to falsify company records. Any employee who commits those acts deserves to be fired.

But what does a 20-year-old mistake tell us about Chris Lee today? Does it mean he is and forever will be an unethical person? Or is it possible that he did, as he says, learn from his mistake? If so, he might have evolved into a much more ethical person because of that transgression.

It's really impossible for us to look that deeply into another person's soul.

My recommendation is vote for the candidate that best represents your values and aspirations and not get too caught up in the character assassination games political parties like to play.

The relevance of this particular issue is tenuous at best. 

Yesterday, it looked like Jon Powers would be removed from the Working Families Party line, and Democratic congressional candidate Alice Kryzan would take his place.

Late last night, a Federal judge overturned the previous ruling, according to the Buffalo News.

The battle over the third-party line is significant because Powers garnered 36 percent of the vote in the September Democratic primary — and if he is barred from the ballot, those voters wouldn’t see the Iraq War veteran’s name on the ballot. In addition, voters turned off by the sharply negative campaign between Kryzan and Lee wouldn’t be able to cast a protest vote for Powers.

Kryzan and Lee campaign officials said they had not seen the details of Arcara’s decision and could not comment on it.

Interesting take that voters would cast protest votes for Powers if his name appears on the ballot.  Wouldn't it be just as likely that such voters would simply abstain in the race?

And why is this such a difficult issue for the courts? Powers moved out of state, so isn't it obvious his name should be taken off the ballot?

A recent poll gives Chris Lee about a 14 pecentage point lead in the race. I'm not sure the Powers line is going to add or substract that many votes for Kryzan.

Another bit of Alice Kryzan news: She'll be attending a roast beef dinner this evening in LeRoy. It's at the United Methodist Church at 5 p.m.  We know this because Kryzan campaign sends us a notice when Alice makes public appearances in Genesee County. We never get such notices from Lee's campaign, so we have no idea where you might go today or tomorrow to ask him any questions.

The Buffalo News reports that money has been pouring into both campaigns of the hotly contested 61st State Senate District race.

Joe Mesi, the Town of Tonawanda Democrat running to succeed retiring Sen. Mary Lou Rath, a Williamsville Republican, has received about $47,000 in donations the past 10 days or so. His biggest contribution — $9,000 — came from Robert Soros, son of billionaire liberal activist George Soros.

Michael H. Ranzenhofer of Amherst, Mesi’s Republican opponent, brought in $39,000, with big donations from New York City landlords and the National Rifle Association.

The Buffalo News reports that John E. Stocking, 48, of Pembroke was fatally shoot while hunting pheasant in Darien Lake State Park.

The shooting occured around 3 p.m. yesterday.

Authorities are investigating.

The political newsletter Cook Report now lists the NY-26 race between Republican Chris Lee and Democrat Alice Kryzan as a toss up. The blog of the College Democrats of NY has a quote purportedly from the report, but no link to the source document.

The Buffalo News has a story up about the misleading campaign ads from both sides. It's mostly stuff we've covered before, but you get some new quotes from the candidates. The new bits would be that attorney's from the other side of the Love Canal law suit have come out in support of Kryzan defending her against Lee's attack ads, and the employee's of Lee's company are defending Chris Lee against charges that the company has outsourced jobs to China.

The 26th District Blog has the text of the full letter from Enidine employees.

Jill Terreri of the Democrat & Chronicle runs down area House races. She suggests that Kryzan is doing well in the district by riding Barack Obama's coattails. While that may be a part of it, I think it misses the fact that there are significant differences in campaign styles, which we discussed previously. Terreri's report runs through the candidates stands on various issues and some of the mudslinging.  If you haven't been following the race, it's a good primer.

An attorney from the Northwest is traveling the country blogging about America's county court houses.

Recently, he was in Batavia and did this post about our historic structure.

His goal is to document about 150 a year.