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The
Green Lining
‘You’re
the only reporter who’s been nice to me.” It was 2005, and
I was interviewing candidates for Albany’s Ward 7 Common Council
seat. This was my first conversation with Brian Scavo. He
was not making a great impression, having apparently not thought
of any answer to the question of how he was going to “not
increase taxes” while dramatically increasing police presence,
two of his main platform points. But apparently he was just
pleased that someone was listening to what he had to say at
all.
“Can
I take you out to dinner?”
“Well,
that would be inappropriate,” I told him, expecting him to
say “Oh right, of course. Oops,” and then finish answering
my most recent question.
“What,
are you married?” he replied.
Well, as it happens, yes, I answered, but that wasn’t the
point. I was a journalist covering a race in which he was
running. We were, in fact, in the middle of an interview and
I would later be weighing in on the paper’s endorsements.
So him buying me dinner, or promising to, constituted a conflict
of interest, albeit a small one.
Even with that explicit explanation, he never understood.
He persisted in talking (at length) about my being “offended”
by his offer and insisting he’d be happy to “buy my husband
dinner too.”
As it happens, I don’t find people asking me out to dinner
offensive, even when I don’t want to go. But I do have a problem
with the idea of elected officials who can’t grasp the concept
of conflict of interest. So when Metroland wrote its
endorsements, we included this story as one reason we were
not endorsing Scavo.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. I happen to live in
Ward 7, and when I went to vote in that election, Scavo accosted
me outside the polling place to tell me he was “disappointed”
by the endorsement, which he thought was unfair, but that
we could still be friends. He tried to hug me. On my way out,
he began shouting at me from across the parking lot: “Hey
baby, give me a kiss. Hey, reporter lady.”
Allow me to repeat that. The candidate for office was shouting
“Give me a kiss” at a reporter outside the polling place on
Election Day. I couldn’t have made this up if I’d tried.
What’s worse, there are plenty of people in my neighborhood
who were not surprised to hear this. Plenty of them have their
own similar stories about Brian Scavo, some worse than mine.
So you can imagine that I was not thrilled to find that this
fall Scavo had handily won the Democratic primary for District
7’s Albany County Legislature seat.
And you’d be right. Mostly.
After the head-smacking eased off, I came to think that it
might not be such an awful thing. On a sort of meta-level,
it’s always nice to be reminded that old- fashioned door-to-door
campaigning really can make a serious long-shot into a winning
candidate, even in the land of entrenched incumbents (and
even when one would have preferred he stay a long-shot). Working
the doors is something Brian Scavo does know how to do.
On a more immediate level, since the incumbent chose not to
run on a third line, it means that what we have going into
the general election is basically a two-way race between a
Democratic candidate with, ahem, serious flaws, and a stellar
Green Party candidate, David Lussier. (There is also an independent
candidate, but I haven’t seen much presence from him.)
(This is, perhaps, an appropriate point to make perfectly
clear to those who don’t always pay attention to their newspaper
sections, that this is an opinion column, and not a news story.
Anyone wanting something other than my opinion should check
the Newsfront pages and/or the endorsements.)
Even putting social maturity levels and grasp of ethics aside
(which we shouldn’t), Lussier is a much better candidate.
You can look up the details, but let me give one very basic
example: He knows what office he’s running for. He has a platform
and plans that have to do with county issues, such
as reforming our miserable city-county foreclosed buildings
process that is hamstringing the city in trying to deal with
vacant properties and creative approaches to Medicaid spending.
Scavo on the other hand, is still talking about issues that
belong to the Common Council (increased police) and the school
board (increased school security guards).
I fully expected to come to this election knowing Lussier
was the best candidate, and knowing that most voters would
be too scared of the specter of Scavo on an independent line
to do anything but vote for the not-bad Democratic incumbent.
Whatever one’s personal feelings about the whole “spoiler”
issue, it doesn’t take too much work to see that with Scavo
on the Democratic line, the Green candidate has the chance
to capture all those people who would never have voted for
him in that first scenario. (Delaware Avenue is in fact sprouting
Lussier lawn signs left and right.)
About two years ago (Nov. 17, 2005), I speculated in this
space that Albany might be slouching toward a true multiparty
system, with the assistance of the Working Families Party
and the Greens. Even though the outcome of the District 7
county legislature election is not a sure thing, and it could
lead to someone not fit for office taking office, it’s still
actually pretty exciting to see that I was not entirely blowing
smoke.
—Miriam
Axel-Lute
www.mjoy.org
www.albanyplanningblog.org
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