(9-11 am) We’re at the Candy Kitchen in Williamson (Wayne County), sharing coffee and politics. What a wild level of conversation, focused on Governor Spitzer, the Democratic Presidential Primary, how many weeks to the Williamson Apple Blossom Festival and warmer weather. Everyone cares. Everyone has opinions. And everyone has more than one question about our campaign.
(11:17 am) A Reporter calls – leaving a voicemail to get my comments about developments.
(11:20 am) WBEE says that it is going to interrupt programming for a press conference by Governor Spitzer.
(11:37 a.m.) As of next Monday, it will be a new New York. A huge development. The rest of the day is a blur of campaign activity as a result.
(11:02 pm) My opponent pops up on TV, already jumping in to criticize Paterson, saying that we need to concentrate on jobs and taxes.
12 years of Pataki (a Republican) with my opponent (a Republican), having a Republican majority in the Senate, with plenty of opportunities to do the right thing for jobs and taxes. Instead, we in this region suffered job loss after job loss after persistent unemployment and family moving away to find jobs elsewhere, along with the demise of historic town centers. Taxes went up again, and again, and again through votes taken by my opponent. Healthcare costs skyrocketed, while the “Health Committee” of the Senate did all of nothing.
Even Republican Majority Leader Bruno was today wearing a public face of being able to work with Paterson, who was previously the Senate Minority Leader.
I have never been more motivated to win this election to have the opportunity to work on our problems with Governor-in-Waiting Paterson. Paterson is all about people and their problems. Whenever we have talked these past three years along the campaign circuit, we have clicked in our priorities and concerns. His wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, of equal intelligence and compassion. Maybe this is the silver lining.
Still no updates.
Governor Spitzer makes his announcement. Within minutes, I am through the 55-page Affidavit of the FBI agent. Disbelief. Eight hours of news later, no new information.
It snowed. It sleeted. It rained. The highway crews were everywhere. The scrape of shovels punctuated the air. The hum of snowblowers, the contrapuntal rhythm.
But, boy was it hot at The Bee Skep in Marion. The windows were fogged with the steam of hot coffee and hot politics. People called from one table to another. Everyone adding his/her two cents worth. Party registrations flew like snowballs, with a consistent pulse that voting should be about the candidate and the issues not the party.
It took three tables to seat the Marion Democrats.
Coffee shop window table, downtown Rochester. A large café au lait decaffeinated, warm, promising comfort against graying skies. Working on my outline for remarks I will give in April at the Democratic Rural Caucus on issues affecting children living in rural poverty.
How to do justice to an issue that is at once quieter and grander than urban poverty. Even the myths that surround it are quieter, deeper, thought of as absolute truths. There are those who have challenged me as to whether it even exists.
I never even took my boots off. Politics from the moment I walked in the door with my arms full. Politics calling after me even as I left.
It’s only 4:30 am, but I need to squeeze extra hours out of the morning. I can feel us transitioning to that next level of busy, just before David comes on board as Campaign Manager.
By 6:45 a.m., I’m on the road to Auburn, driving due east, into a blue sky sunrise. The trees are coated in ice and it looks like a magical winter kingdom.
The contrast is sharp to the manufacturing plant that stands like a worn fortress, rusting at the edges, letters missing from its signage. The Bombadier Transportation factory in Auburn. Closed June 2006. Opened 1886. At its height, employing nearly 2,000. At its end, 160. Train tracks sliding under locked gates. A sad reminder to some. A reminder to push towards future production of renewable energies to me.
It’s like going home when I’m campaigning at a family restaurant I’ve been to before. The waitresses and I, at the Auburn Family Restaurant, are dancing around each other. “Hot pot comin’ up behind.” “Hot pot on the right.” They sing out as they pour, and we agree that next time, I’ll be putting on an apron and walking to pour. If I’m going to be treating for the coffee, I might as well be pouring it.
Good people. It’s what I think every time I’m at one of these “Coffee & Capanna” events. They allow me a moment to say hello. They share their curiosity of what it is to be a candidate. They share who they are and what matters to them.
Each time, there is at least one person who trusts me with their heart. Today, it is a man who apologizes three or four times for taking so much time, when he really doesn’t. His daughter was rendered quadriplegic in a swimming accident. Multiple insurance coverages, then nothing more for in-home nursing. I’ve heard this problem too many times since I was a college senior, writing my Senior Honors Thesis on care for those in persistent vegetative states or quadriplegic.
This is perhaps what I most do not understand about government, particularly here in New York: how can it go on, year after year, without a glimmer of response to persistent problems of people? We have to and can do better.
I know these trees best, the apple trees along Lake Road, on gentle slopes along the shores of Lake Ontario in Wayne County.
And where the shoreline arcs north, I turn south, follow the taller, hardwoods along Route 104. It is impossible to get lost in 54. It’s either east/west or north/south. One side of one lake or another.
Coast south on Route 414, past the sign for the Free Masons, not even the church lots contain cars at this hour. The roads are empty. The pink house in North Rose. Snow caps on the vats at Fleischman’s Vinegar. The sign hanging cock-eyed for Rose Hill Farm. The harness Shop. Thunderbird Welding. Fresh eggs at $1.25/dozen. Only a few horses are turned out, and they haven’t moved far from their barns.
80,000 acres of Montezuma. Icy shores of Cayuga, houses crowded to her shores like Buffalo of our ancestors.
I am lucky to arrive at our campaign event. The poet in me composes poetry that goes unwritten. The photographer in me itches my hands to reach for the camera equipment on the passenger seat. I have to parcel out the times I stop and wander off the roads of efficiency.
Destination: Be Happy Café in Union Springs (Cayuga County). I arrive at 7:50 am. The owner calls out sweetly, “you already missed the 6 am crowd.” It’s rural back-roads and agriculture. She isn’t kidding. I get introduced all around, and take note of a house rule of five cent penalties for whiners – a fine that has to be paid into a ceramic of a smiling pig. What else can I do, but smile?
Archive:
February 2008: One Ringy-Dingy...
January 2008: A Happy New Year
December 2007: The Snow Globe of Democracy
October 2007: Life In Upstate New York.
September 2007: Walk & Talk Kick-off!