24th District Campaign Web Assessment

It's time for an update on the status of the 24th District's congressional candidates' web sites.

As has been the case for many weeks, Democrat Les Roberts has a web site up and active. The other Democratic candidates do not.

Bruce Tytler and still-officially-unannounced Michael Arcuri have registered domain names for their campaigns, but they have not put any web sites online at those locations. Leon Koziol, who personally told me one month ago that he was working on his campaign web site and it would be up soon, has yet to even purchase a domain name.

Koziol did run campaign ads on television even way back in January, of course. Oh, he didn't call them campaign advertisements, at least not in public. They were a weird amalgam of political imagery with a kind of campaign-free promotion of Leon Koziol. Was it for Koziol's law firm, or for his congressional campaign? Who could tell? One wonders if this entire congressional campaign thing is just another way for Koziol to get his name out in public view, so that he can get more clients. If that's the case, I'm doing you a big favor, Mr. Koziol. I just mentioned your name five times. Oops, there I go again. Six.

Sherwood Boehlert is also not online with a campaign web site - though he does have a private web site promoting his legislative agenda that will presumably swing into campaign mode if he decides to run for re-election. That's a big if, as we're all watching Congressman Boehlert play a kind of pathetic game in which he's threatening the Republican congressional leadership with not running for re-election unless he gets a new committee chairmanship after being kicked off the Science Committee next year. Boehlert is betting that the Republican leadership cares about his tantrum, when in fact, it's quite likely that they could care less.

Boehlert's Republican rival, Brad Jones, has a campaign web site up, though I won't give him the aid of a link to it. It's easy to find on Google. Candidate Jones uses his campaign web site to make useless statements such as "I believe in life" while running away from the really important issues of the day. Brad Jones doesn't even list the Iraq War as an issue of importance on his web site - a slap in the face of the soldiers of the 24th District who are fighting in that war. Jones doesn't want to talk about the Iraq War because he's supported every wrong decision in that war - not a record to be proud of. Keep it up, Mr. Jones.