This is how it should be in every race and every election. I despise the LIES, the mudslinging and twisting of facts. Chris Collins is a genuine man that is concerned about the future of Erie County, he wants to take his experience of turning around bankrupt businesses and bring it to county government. I am looking forward to working closely with him and the legislators to bring hope for the future.
Personal traits, not party politics, dominate in county executive race
Keane struggling to tap into Democratic enrollment advantage
If the polls are right and Christopher C. Collins leads James P. Keane in the race for Erie County executive, a whole lot of unconventional wisdom is dominating local politics one week before Election Day.
It doesn’t make sense, veteran political observers say, that the Republican leads the Democrat in a county where GOP voters are outnumbered by 120,000.
Nor does it support the pundits who pronounced 2007 a “down year” for the GOP on the national, state and local levels.
While Keane gained the often crucial advantage of landing on the Conservative line, Collins failed to entice even a whiff of interest from the leading minor parties.
So what’s wrong with this picture? Why is Keane struggling to regain the upper hand in what should be the friendliest of friendly turf?
“Nothing is Democratic or Republican anymore,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Manhattan-based political consultant who briefly worked on the Keane campaign. “These are contests about individuals and the arguments they carry at this time in history. It’s all individual politics.”
Indeed, the Keane-Collins race carries all the earmarks of just such a personal showdown. The two have acrimoniously tangled in recent weeks over Collins’ assertion that he can run county government as successfully as the business investments that made him a millionaire.
Keane, meanwhile, stresses his experience as second in command of what he calls the halcyon days of the Gorski administration. He derides the notion that the profit motive can guide Erie County, contending that government is about “people and not profit.”
But a Zogby International poll conducted for The Buffalo News and WGRZ-TV Channel 2 in October shows Collins with 38 percent and Keane with 29 (with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points). Though 28 percent were recorded as still undecided (with 5 percent expressing support for Paul T. Clark, who is no longer in the race), the results show that Collins is obviously connecting in a county still reeling from red and green budgets, a budget crisis and a state-imposed financial control board.
Republicans on every level say Collins’ timing is part of a perfect storm that so far allows him to be competitive in one of America’s bluest counties.
“People are just fed up with the direction of the county and the city, and they want something different,” said a top Collins backer who asked not to be identified. “If Collins had a ‘D’ behind his name, he’d be just as successful.
“The ‘career politician’ label stuck, and the ‘R’ didn’t. It’s the right person at the right time.”
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Tags: Erie County Insanity
[...] post by Rus Thompson This was written by . Posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2007, at 9:58 am. Filed under [...]
In 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for re-election, everyone said this too…its about personality, not politics/policy stance.
Bill Clinton won by a landslide. Be careful what you wish for…