Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Les Roberts Campaigns Around the District

Lately, Les Roberts has accelerated the pace of his campaigning around the district, making appearances here and there. Speeches at Cortland and Cornell have focused on the experience Roberts has researching civilian deaths in Iraq.

A week from tomorrow (March 2), Les Roberts will be having a more politically-focused meeting with the Lansing Democrats. The meeting is open to the public, and will take place at the Lansing Community Center at 7:00 in the evening. If you want to know more about what the Les Roberts campaign stands for, please attend. I've found that the Lansing Democrats have a nice and easy casual attitude, and provide a good environment for discussion of the issues.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are a few things that bother me about things blog. First of all, it is WAY too early to say Les Roberts is the front-runner. Second of all, Bruce Tytler just declared, Mike Arcuri has not, to any ones knowledge, declared, most likely because he is waiting to see if Sherry is going to. And no prominent democrat has endorsed Mr. Roberts. He's been in the race the longest, and has yet to really impress anyone, save you. Now, I am not an insider, but I do know that Mr. Tytler is going around, meeting with people, and making speeches. He was at a fundraising breakfast for Mr. Spitzer Saturday and made a speech, but you didn't mention that, did you? It was in the Cortland Standard, and I have talked to people who were at the breakfast, Republicans and Democrats, and were impressed with the fact that Tytler was the only one who showed up, making excellent remarks about the need to make public education work in this country, and college more available so that working class teenagers don't have to fight Bush's wars.
I have only this qualm with your blog. Personally, I think you are doing a good job, but you need to, if you are going to be unbiased, contact ALL the campaigns and report on ALL of them, I am sure they will work with you. As an informed voter, I am pleading with you to do this.

Anonymous said...

publius1789 - there is always a frontrunner. The basic problem with Bruce Tytler as a candidate is he started way too late and he can't provide the time or raise the money to catch up.

Did the Cortland County Democratic Committee invite any of the other candidates to speak? Did they notify them of this hastily scheduled fundraiser? Mr. Tytler's wife is the Treasurer of the Cortland County Democratic Committee is she not? I think that explains the picture pretty well.

Anonymous said...

Why does everyone have to center on stupid things like that, publius was talking about a fair blog, not about Cortland County Democrats not inviting other candidates, its not their job to invite them, it was a fundraiser for spitzer. And no, I think Kathleen Hennessy is Treasurer, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that this blog is only, for the most part, reporting on Les Roberts’ movements and knit-picking on every other candidate.

24thIndependent said...

Okay, I was going to correct you by saying that the correct spelling is "nit-picking". But damn, that would be nit-picking of me, wouldn't it?

24thIndependent said...

Folks, I HAVE been in touch with the other campaigns. I've contacted Bruce Tytler, and given him my email so that he could send whatever documents he wanted to my way. I'm out of town on serious top-secret business projects, but he and I will talk again when I get back, probably next week.

I've also gone to Michael Arcuri's speech in Lansing, and given people some specific ideas of what he talked about there. I'll give more of that information out in days to come. Just last night I sent an email to two professors from Utica College who are helping Arcuri on his campaign, asking for an interview with Arcuri, and helping them to arrange a meeting for Arcuri with voters in my village, Trumansburg.

Leon Koziol, I have dismissed as a serious candidate. He's announced his candidacy, and said that he's got over 20,000 dollars raised, but hasn't even filed with the FEC. He's either a liar, or he's breaking the law. Besides, Koziol has clearly identified himself as a right wing Democrat far outside of the Democratic mainstream. I wouldn't support him even if he were well organized.

I have given more coverage to Les Roberts, but that's because there's more to cover. The Les Roberts campaign makes information easily available in ways that the other campaigns don't.

If one of the other candidates gives a speech, how do you find out about it? A newspaper might cover it, or might not. More often than not, newspapers are not covering this race.

Because Bruce Tytler and Mike Arcuri do not have campaign web sites, there is no central place to go to for information about their campaign activities. This isn't just true for me - it's true for curious voters and donors as well.

I've got to work with the information that I've got. I'm not a campaign insider. I'm not buddy-buddy with powerful Democrats in Utica or Cortland.

I ask for information, and I report on what I've got. What I have to work with from Arcuri and Tytler is not much, and I hope that changes soon, but I'm not about to run around begging for scraps of information.

The Les Roberts campaign understands that, and they make it easy for me to report information about what they're up to. That's why more voters are getting hyped up about the Les Roberts campaign, and the other campaigns are sleepers.

It's a self-fulfilling thing. Roberts is getting more support, and that enables him to be more active, which enables him to earn more support...

That's why he's the frontrunner, and it's why, at that poll over at WKRT, he's leaving Tytler and Arcuri in the dust. Roberts has energized his suppports, and Tytler and Arcuri are leaving their supporters waiting. They ought to be coming onto this blog and begging me to cover their campaigns, throwing information in my lap. I would gladly write about that information for them. But, they haven't. They're neglecting the online portion of the campaign, and it's causing them trouble. That's not my fault.

Anonymous said...

Kathleen Hennessy is Treasurer of both the Cortland County Democratic Committee and Tytler for Congress? And none of the other candidates were invited? And you are looking for fairness?

Anonymous said...

24 Democrat - one possible additional reason why you aren't getting anything from Arcuri and Tytler is that both have full time jobs and are running for Congress in their spare time. Neither have any staff apparently and while they may have some volunteers, those folks likely have full time jobs too.

If a candidate can't put his time into the race, why should anyone else?

You can't be in the race to win if you don't know how to win. This isn't like running for a local seat against a mediocre opponent.

24thIndependent said...

Anonymous wrote: "24 Democrat - one possible additional reason why you aren't getting anything from Arcuri and Tytler is that both have full time jobs and are running for Congress in their spare time."

Thanks for that thought, Anonymous.

I've got well more than a full time job, and a wife and kids to boot, and I find more time to communicate online with voters about this campaign than Bruce Tytler and Michael Arcuri have. It shouldn't be that way. I want candidates who are willing to reach out to voters. If they won't do it as candidates, they won't do it as representative in Congress.

There is still time for Arcuri and Tytler to turn it around. Come on guys - reach out and talk.

Anonymous said...

well, I'm from the Arcuri campaign, whats an email we can reach you at?

24thIndependent said...

oakgall@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

Arcuri's the front runner, no question. He has the money and the local party support. I don't get Roberts's campaign. He can eat quiche and sushi at joe academic's house until September but it won't get him enough votes. How much money has he donated to the Chenango Dem Committee? How many local candidates has he worked for? Why doesn't he have the support of Chenango County?

Anonymous said...

aronymous - the reason you don't get Robert's campaign is that you can't control it. The Chenango and Cortland county committees are controlled by inept boss wannabes.