;)
Red barn and politics in Wayne County
;)
Roger Legg, candidate for Ontario Town Board
;)
Cheryl Legg at the proverbial grassroots kitchen table
;)
Jerry Santangello, candidate for Ontario Highway Supervisor
Big, Beautiful brown eyes. Leggy. Thick hair. At once shy, but, at the same time curious. Five, 5-week old calves at an area dairy farm were the gentle wonder of my morning, their mothers patiently looking on. The farmer now lives in the house in which he was born, 70 years ago. His sons work with him.
The air outside the barn, still sticky sweet from the smell of apples. Near all have been picked and are being fresh bagged or trucked to cold storage or processing. Wooden apple crates, branded like beef cattle, farm names I know as well as streets.
This morning it’s the math of farms. Calculations of gross revenues in acres of trees, in gallons of milk. Computations of feed and fertilizer, of labor and equipment, and, always of off-road diesel and property taxes. The time lag between harvest and payment. Lifelong farmers, experts all. Teachers, each one.
A farmer’s toughened hands show me how to graft an apple tree. A two-slice method with a knife he complains isn’t the right one, yet his hands, the knife, and the clipping are fluid. The cuts that he makes to two shoots fit together as if they were grown as one from the Earth. Twelve hours a day, six days a week, at a certain several weeks of the year, for more than thirty years.
When you are running for public office, you answer questions, questions, and more questions.
Each person frames their question from a different perspective. Questions are rarely simple, such as what is your favorite food. Questions are asked because the person cares about the issue and is sufficiently informed to recognize a problem.
The content of questions tends towards hot media issues and constant concerns. For weeks, there were questions about Governor Spitzer’s driver’s license program. Then, one or two days of questions whether I thought the subject was closed for good. Then, no more questions on that subject.
Constants are simply that: questions about constant and common problems. Jobs. Education. Property taxes. The timeless macroeconomic questions, effecting every generation across nations and time.
The person who turns out to these early political events cares a great deal, not only about their immediate circle of family and friends, but also about the greater good. I see it in their eyes. I hear it in their voice.
The audience can be four people, fifty people, or more than one hundred fifty people; everywhere I feel that heartbeat of our humanity.
These questions are the voice of The People. Even as their words end in an
upward cadence to form the “?,” they speak out on the issues they
want me to address.
Golden leaves adorn the décor of the 50th Anniversary Gala for the Newark-Wayne Community Hospital. A founding donor describes that "major surgery" cost $20 - $50 dollars in 1957, and a "minor surgery" cost $10 - $15. The room breathes a gasp at how the rates have climbed and the system has changed. Conversations are sprinkled with complaints of regional reimbursement rates for physicians and difficulties with recruitment and retention of physicians and nurses.
In an era of service aggregation, in a rural region, it is a celebration at having not only survived but having served.
A scrumptious house party fundraiser for the campaign, hosted by my friend, Sonali. Indian spices flavor the air. Red roses dance in water upon silver trays, bearing designs of peacocks. Guests are carried to another time and place.
The "house party" is a campaign tradition of inviting together family and friends of the host and the candidate to raise money and build enthusiasm. From coffee mugs and desserts to catered foods upon fine china, it is a fun part of the never-ending quest for campaign funds.
The Wayne County Democrats host a showing of "The Ground Truth" movie at the Ohmann Theater in Lyons. People turnout from at least three counties. An intense film, followed by an intense conversation. Dan Maffei and I respond to audience questions for a good long while. [Dan is the Democratic Candidate for the 25th Congressional District, which includes all of Wayne County.]
The most difficult question we are asked is what people can do to effectively impact Congress and the President, to get their message through. Work on and contribute to campaigns of candidates running for Congress on platforms you support. Write and call the current Congressional Representative and Senator. Write letters to the Editor of local newspapers. Organize and speak out at rallies.
Slowly, surely, the tree of democracy yields to the prevailing winds.
Most civilians are detached from direct connection to an active service member. Most are all too used to media-produced war, to hardware with names like "smart bombs," to tactics dubbed "surgical strikes," to unaggregated counts of civilian deaths amongst foreigners. There is respect for the women and men of the military, but not a penetration of consciousness impacting daily life.
For those civilians who are directly connected to an active service member, days take on different meaning. News broadcasts of unnamed deaths in the field are too difficult to listen to and are ever so unavoidable. An e-mail, another e-mail, then silence for a day or two pushes the capability to believe that your loved one is safe.
The journey of the soldier is too powerful for a civilian to even begin to understand. The intensity. The suspension of life as it was daily lived. The distance from the voices and the touch of the loved ones at home. The singular focus on life while causing death and destruction.
Silently, or so it seems, the US death toll in Iraq climbs to near double the death toll of those from 9-11. Silently, seemingly so few understand how many wounded are returning with physical and mental injuries and impairments. Silently, the suicide rate among service members and veterans serving in Iraq is stated by The Wall Street Journal at 26%.
"About one-third of the adult homeless population has served their country in the Armed Services. Current population estimates suggest that about 195,000 veterans (male and female) are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. Many other veterans are considered near homeless or at risk because of their poverty, lack of support from family and friends, and dismal living conditions in cheap hotels or in overcrowded or substandard housing." United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
What we have asked Veterans to do for our country. What have we asked ourselves to now do for them?
2007 Democratic candidates: I applaud you! From one end of this District to another, you have been glorious in your victories and in your defeats. You are what democracy was founded to do and you are why democracy endures.
I cannot remember a year that so many new candidates stood up, determined to make a difference. You ran with your hearts wide open, running to raise issues, debate issues, and seek out solutions.
When, in 2005, Dan Maffei, Eric Massa, and I began the separate journeys that would bring us together in congressional races, people said we were foolish to think we could win. It was our belief that sustained us after many a discouraging day on the road. How different the mood of our region this time around as we set off on the 2008 campaign trail, the very day that you count your votes.
Perhaps, each of us, in some small way, breathes life back into our region.
Win or lose at the polls. Victorious, one and all, for our beloved democracy.
The first day of the 2008 election season sees headlines in every newspaper of the District signaling change. Some Democratic winners, especially in Town Supervisor and Mayoral positions, but also some Democratic Incumbent losses. One race is tied at 509 votes each - the absentee ballots will determine the outcome. One race is lost by less than 20 votes, with too few absentee ballots to swing the outcome.
I spend hours on the road today. Drive through the first snowflakes, falling in North Rose, Clyde, Savannah. Even the thick-coated horses along Route 89 look put off by sharp winds and low, grey cloud ceiling. I am grateful for each independent coffee shop I know along the way, one still hanging my Walk & Talk poster on its front door. (Thank you, Judy!)
With every day on the road, I meet new people. It is both the consistent work and the surprising joy of running for public office.
The kitchen table is the heart and sole of the grassroots campaign. Dogs that bark for doorbells and compete for attention. Hugs, and smiles, and banter. Who said what to whom and when about which piece of campaign literature? Where is so-and-so who said he would be here, when? It is like a big family dinner without the turkey.
It’s time to get out and vote 2007!
What a fantastic line-up of Democratic candidates for this year’s county and local races. Throughout the region, Democrats are challenging incumbent Republicans in races from Town Clerk to City Mayor. In Wayne County alone, 39 Democratic candidates are running – a new record.
Do you have an hour for democracy? We can put you to work on last minute mailings and especially on phone banking. Call us at 585-615-6115 and we can get you connected to your local party chair and candidates.
Do you need to know where to find your local voting machines? Call your local Board of Elections. Or call us; we have them at our fingertips.
Not registered to vote? Pick up a form at your local County Clerk’s Office, Department of Motor Vehicles office, or local library. Or call us; we’ll mail one out to you.
It’s your right to vote. It’s your responsibility to vote. It’s one of our obligations as Americans to ensure the good health of our democracy. In 1788, James Madison wrote a letter to the editor in which he wrote: “Who are to be the electors…? Not the rich more than the poor; not the learned more than the ignorant; not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscure and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States.”
Election Day should coincide with the Fourth of July, so that we could celebrate
at parades and with fireworks, walking about with our stickers “I voted
today!” Take pride. Get out and vote.
It is the eve of the 2008 election year. For just these few days, the intensity focuses near exclusively upon the 2007 candidates. Then there will be a week or two of political hangover for the politicos, until the last absentee ballots and all recounts are counted and shelved.
The politically-charged will come briefly back into focus for a week or two or three, looking over the rims of their coffee cups to see if there are any early campaigns of interest. Then their families at the holidays win them back.
The silence of the last week of the year.
New Year’s Day.
And then it is a ten-month sequence of events to Election Day 2008.
I visualize the track. See the gate I will break from.