Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Am I Curious? Well, not THAT Curious.

There are people who know how to play hardball politics, and then there are people who try to play hardball politics, but just end up being silly.

It's in this second category that we have to place Robert Hyde, webmaster for the Oneida County Democrats and writer of the pro-Arcuri Weekly Democrat blog. Bob Hyde is a pretty fervent Arcuri supporter and he gets pretty enthusiastic about promoting Michael Arcuri's candidacy at any opportunity.

So, it seems, Bob gets pretty upset at independent bloggers like myself who feel free to ask questions and make criticisms of any candidate we choose. So, Mr. Hyde comes on over and reads through the blog looking for anything he can get outraged about. He's even placed personal messages about me on the Oneida County Democratic Committee web site, promising to expose me.

Exposing me for what? For writing on blogs. Big shocker, I know. But, that revelation was supposed to make it "all over", to force me to stop writing on blogs... because no one who writes on blogs should be... um... writing on blogs.

Well, apparently Bob Hyde is now going after other people online, including someone who leaves comments here under the screen name "Curious".

Curious left a message here this afternoon that reads as follows:
"24 Dem--Bob Hyde has gone off the deep end to the point where he thinks I'm you (being apparently incapable of imagining that anyone else might disagree with him). I have communicated to the Arcuri campaign that he is not doing their candidate any favors and that they should consider distancing themselves from him. We'll see if that has any effect. And he never WAS able to explain to me what he liked about Mike Arcuri, which is even more of a handicap to that campaign than his general berserk tone. I hope a sensible Arcuri blog starts up soon, so we can actually learn something about the guy before we're forced to pull the lever."


Look, it's okay if Robert Hyde wants to get silly and write alarmist stuff about people, and confuse who I am with who they are, but I know very well that very few people are interested in my identity.

What people are interested in is the campaign for Congress in New York State's 24th District. They're interested in the issues of the day - war and peace, freedom and Big Brother spy programs, global warming, jobs, energy, and so on... you know, important stuff. They're interested in the differences between the candidates on these kinds of issues, like the differences between Mike Arcuri and Les Roberts in health care policy that I wrote about this morning.

These personality conflicts are kind of fun, but let's try to focus on the personalities of the candidates, and their performance in this great race.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hm. I found this comment about you written over at Bob Hyde's blog: "He has a teenage girlfriend who posts herself on the net in her underwear and he think others are jealous because she's "his"."

These guys are really over the top in criticizing anybody who dares to say anything bad about Michael Arcuri.

I also see that Bob Hyde is deleting all the comments on his blog that he doesn't like.

Anonymous said...

What you don't seem to understand is that all those Arcuri people just LOVE to talk political gossip about people. You've given them someone new to cut apart. How tempting!

thingwarbler said...

While I can certainly understand a certain bravado and posturing from someone sipping the Kool-Aid as fervently as Bob it's odd and sad to see a self-proclaimed politically savvy player make comments like " [...] this race has been run. All that remains is to win in November [...]" as if to offhandedly dismiss the very real democratic process of a primary. It may sound great at his local chapter of chest-beaters anonymous up in Utica, but it's kind of inappopriate at a time where we're trying to find the best representative for the district, not?

But Perhaps Bob really would prefer a setup where the DCCC's Rahm Emmanuel simply annointed "his" candidate from afar and made it "all over" for the Democrats in NY-24 to have their say? I mean, it seems that positions and facts about the issues get Bob and his man all flustered, so a quick coup would be so much easier, eh?

-- And now I guess I will take my place in line behind Joe and Curious and the others who have dared to disagree with Bob and received the lashes of his not-so-righteous keyboard.

Anonymous said...

Talking political gossip is one thing; calling me a "brownshirt" is another! What are these guys going to do when the REPUBLICANS start hitting them?

Anonymous said...

This is hilarious. Oh, no... Will someone think that I'm you too?

Why can't the Arcuri people just accept an open primary contest? Why must they be so nasty?

Anonymous said...

Maybe those idiots over in Oneida County haven't figured this out yet, but the rest of the Democrats in this CD are not sheep. If Mike Arcuri wants my vote, he'll have to get it the old fashioned way - he'll have to earn it.

I was thinking that their ineptness might doom Arcuri's chances. Now I'm becoming convinced it's their arrogance that will be their downfall. It's one thing to not know what you are doing but it's quite worse to be inept and arrogantly think you are capable.

Christ, no wonder they ended up with Ed Hanna as Mayor of Utica.

Anonymous said...

Les Roberts dropped out of the race. He has endorsed Mike Arcuri. No Kool Aid was shared at the time.

Anonymous said...

Well, since Les bowed out at the request of the DCCC, apparently, he wouldn't have been much of a leader in Congress. Frankly, if I were in his position I would have told Rahm Emanuel I wasn't backing out and that his guy would have to earn the right to face the Republican candidate.

A long primary would have been good for this race because it would force both candidates to work for votes, it would test their ground game, and it would keep their name recognition up for months on end. Now, that's not going to happen.