Within the Margin

A quick one for tonight – I’m not linking to this James Hohmann piece to kick Romney when he’s a bit down, but rather because it includes some interesting historical background. I had a good sense of most of what Hohmann discusses, but I thought this description of the 1980 electoral map painted an intriguing picture of a somewhat unique moment in American politics:

“Virtually every state in the country was in play as of October 1980,” said Shirley. “Carter was campaigning in California, and Reagan was campaigning in New York City…Texas was in play. Now its routinely Republican, but Carter had taken it in 1976.”

Fewer electoral votes are in play for Romney now. The country is more polarized. Obama has a lock on certain demographics and states. There’s no chance Romney will come close in California or New York.

I think everyone knows that the map has undergone pretty significant changes over the last couple of decades, but 1980 is a great example of the extent of that. Four years earlier, Carter had won ten of the eleven states of the Confederacy. Only Virginia escaped him as he parlayed his home field advantage to almost completely undo the progress of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. By 1980, his grip on the South was fraying, and Carter could only hold onto his home state of Georgia. But most of his Southern defeats that year were quite narrow, whereas Reagan thumped him on the west coast and won most of the Great Lakes and New England, albeit by mid-single digit margins in most cases. It’s also interesting to hear of Reagan campaigning in places like New York City – not simply dropping in on a high-dollar fundraiser, but actually paying a visit to the bombed-out South Bronx in August 1980. That’s not to say Reagan was popular in the inner city, and he brought plenty of condescension with him (“Lady, I can’t help you unless I get elected.”) But he did carry the state of New York – twice – while simultaneously undoing Carter’s Southern firewall. A presidential campaign that tries to win in both the Deep South and the Empire State? Interesting times. There were no web sites where you could play with electoral math back then; it was pencil and paper stuff. But I imagine the political junkies had a good time imagining all the different scenarios to get to 270 that autumn.

Welcome. I’ll be keeping an eye on various races as they play out tonight. Polls closed at 9 p.m.; results should start rolling in around 9:45 or 10:00.

10:00 update: First returns have rolled in, and with them the first surprise: Saland leads DiCarlo only 56-44 with about 20% of precincts reporting. We’ll see if it stays that close throughout the night, but I fully expected a bigger margin there. Much bigger.

10:10 update:  Katz is cruising as expected in the 94th – rolling up a 2:1 margin over Dario Gristina in the Putnam portion of the district. Oddly, Saland is actually faring a bit better in Putnam (59%) than in his home county of Dutchess. I can’t imagine this will last. In the other Marriage Wars, Grisanti is comfortably ahead in western NY’s 60th in both primaries (Rep and Indy). McDonald’s ahead in the Capital Region’s 43rd, but he’s not out of the woods yet: 52%-48% with 30% of precincts reporting.

10:15 update: All of Putnam’s precincts in the Saland-DiCarlo races have now reported. Saland only carried the county 52-48. We could expect some difficulty as that’s all new territory for him, but that’s a much stronger showing for DiCarlo than anticipated. But Dutchess is not coming through in great numbers for Saland either – it’s a 51-49 race overall right now, according to YNN’s numbers – which are further along than the AP results.

10:20 update: Katz is in like flint; 65-35% w/ 81% reporting. That’s the last I need to check in there. We now have signs of life in the GOP’s 105th AD primary: Kieran Lalor is up big over Manning, 54%-27%, with Wager trailing at 19%. I thought Lalor could pull it out with his dogged ground game, but not by this margin. Crazy night in Dutchess County.

10:26 update: DiCarlo’s not quite going to get over the top. I’ve got two differing sets of totals to work with. According to the individual county websites, with only 9 EDs left to report in Dutchess, Saland leads by 38 votes there plus a 29-vote lead in Putnam. The YNN aggregate shows a more comfortable Saland lead of 98 votes. With such low turnout, I think Saland survives. But I’m eating plenty of crow. Never did I think the homophobes had this much strength with in the Dutchess Republican party.

10:30 update: Up in the 43rd, McDonald’s lead is down to 77 votes. It looks like Saland is going to win the machine county tonight, but the question on everyone’s mind is how many absentees are out there. Probably not many, considering how low machine turnout was – clearly voters were not terribly engaged here.

10:37 update: Out in Erie County, Grisanti is comfortably ahead in the GOP primary. On the Dem side, the race has been called for Mike Amodeo, meaning that Dems will have an actual Dem, rather than rogue operator Chuck Swanick, as their nominee. But Swanick remains in the race on the Conservative line. That’s going to be a hard race to call come November: where do the Stocker voters go? Grisanti (to avoid a Dem winning)? Swanick (over the marriage vote)?

10:40 update: All EDs have reported in the 105th. Lalor wins the GOP nomination going away. There are a huge number of write-in votes on the Conservative line, so perhaps Lalor has united the belts and will have all three lines (Rep/Con/Ind). But will voters prefer the moderate Democrat over the volatile Republican in this red-leaning district?

10:45 update: All EDs have no reported in the 41st. Saland carried Dutchess by 13 votes and Putnam by 29. There’s 45 write-ins, which could be for either candidate or neither. And then absentees. This one’s headed to the courts.

10:57 update: In the Albany-Troy 44th, Neil Breslin is dispatching his latest primary challenger with ease: 74%-26%. I thought Morse had more juice, but I was wrong. McDonald’s lead is now up to 102 votes in the 43rd. In the Kingston-to-Amsterdam 46th, Cecelia Tkaczyk is comfortably ahead, 54%-31% so Dems appear likely to get their strongest nominee in that one.

11:00 update: So of the races I’m focusing on, two are too close to call right now. In the Saland-DiCarlo race, we await recanvass, write-ins and absentees. In the McDonald-Marchione race, we await the actual, you know, results. Things are moving slowly in Renny and CoCo tonight.

11:05 update: It took a while to get new numbers out of the 43rd, but when they came, they were awfully good to Marchione. She now leads by 75 votes with about 74% of precincts reporting.

11:10 update: Marchione doubled her lead with the addition of a few more precincts. Up by 150 votes with 76% of EDs in.

11:20 update: There’s been an adjustment to YNN’s numbers in the 43rd: same number of precincts/EDs reporting, but only a 134-vote lead for Marchione.  By the way, she easily won the Con primary, so no matter what happens here, she’s on the ballot in November.

11:27 update: The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that there are 553 absentee ballots to be counted in Dutchess County for the Saland-DiCarlo race. Typically, these follow the machine count, but if a good number of tonight’s write-ins were for DiCarlo, the race may essentially be tied rather than the 42-vote margin we’re seeing right now. One thing is certain: Saland will have an ace legal team. The Senate GOP has been through plenty of close counts in recent years…though usually not in September. Elsewhere, Marchione’s lead has expanded to 198 votes with 82% of precincts in. It’s getting harder to see a path for McDonald. Is Robin Andrews ready to rumble? She’s the first-term supervisor in the Town of Claverack, and the Dem candidate for this seat. She’s probably still better known than Marchione or McDonald in her base of Columbia County, but can she scale up to a district-wide fight?

11:48 update: The great result out of NYC tonight is that the corrupt Shirley Huntley of Queens, charged with helping relatives to steal taxpayer funds and steering them toward the nonprofit she runs, is going down in defeat. James Sanders leads 55%-42%. Always good when Dems take out the trash. Sadly, they have to do it a couple times a year with their city caucuses. Sadly, Assemblyman William Boyland of Brooklyn, who gets charged with bribery every few months or so, is surviving. He only has 36% of the vote but that’s plenty against a split field of six challenger who couldn’t figure out how these things work: don’t divide the vote against an incumbent!

11:50 update: Also in NYC, challenger Mark Gjonaj leads Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera by 137 votes. Rivera is another one accused of misusing taxpayer funds. I’ve been ready to see her gone for years.

12:15 update: Two precincts still outstanding, and a 138-vote lead for Marchione. She’ll have two ballot lines in November, with one for McDonald and one for Andrews.

Not all of today’s intriguing primaries revolve around the Conservative Party’s opposition to the 2011 marriage equality vote. Plenty of other assembly and senate primaries are on tap today. I’ll focus here on those in and near the Hudson Valley, which I know best. We start with a rollicking Republican race in southern Dutchess County.

Assembly District 105: Southern Dutchess County 

Those who follow New York politics know that Democrats draw the Assembly map every ten years, and Republicans draw the Senate map. In the most recent redistricting, the Assembly effectively eliminated Joel Miller’s district, using pieces of it to make the old 103rd into a new, bluer 106th while conceding a likely-Republican 105th district in southern Dutchess County. Naturally, that attracted a host of GOP candidates:

• Former six-term 103rd district Assemblyman Pat Manning jumped in, seeing a good opportunity to stage a political comeback after the dramatic events of 2006: that year, Marc Molinaro narrowly defeated him in a bitterly-contested primary. It was a victory made possible by Manning’s abortive run for governor and by controversy surrounding Manning’s marriage and mistress. Before that, Manning was a rising prospect: elected as a young man to the county legislator, re-elected with ease to the Assembly term after term, and father of the state’s popular STAR program to aid seniors with rising property taxes. He’s been itching to get back in the game, sniffing around a county legislature bid in 2011 but ultimately deciding to pass. The chance to return to his old haunt at the state capitol was too good to pass up – but the local GOP establishment has little love for Manning these days. The county committee was remade by Molinaro ahead of the 2006 primary, and some still feel a general “ickiness” over the public fallout from Manning’s personal life.

• Kieran Michael Lalor (also my high school economics teacher, a night watchman and Iraq War veteran) originally intended to primary Joel Miller, but the latter’s retirement rendered that moot. The new district lines mean that Lalor could conceivably win a general election, but he is a deeply conservative and volatile figure who appeals to the party base but frightens its establishment. This is Lalor’s second run for elected office: he lost to John Hall by eighteen points in a 2008 Congressional race. Lalor’s reputation as a bomb-thrower limits his appeal, but that might not matter in a low-turnout, base-fueled race: remember that Carl Paladino fared rather well in the 2010 primary in Dutchess County.

• Richard Wager is a former Bloomberg aide who ran for Molinaro’s assembly seat in a special election in March. Wager was heavily favored, but lost to Didi Barrett for the first Democratic win in that seat in living memory. He lacks local ties and his surprise defeat has removed some of his luster. He doesn’t come with the baggage of Manning or Lalor, but does he have enough going for him to break through?

• Fishkill mayor and county legislator Jim Miccio wanted the seat, but dropped out before petitioning amidst the wrangling over party endorsements and third-party ballot lines.

There has been no public polling of the primary, but it was implied to me by one insider that Manning has the edge and Wager sits in third, but that Wager could take enough of the vote from mainstream Republicans that Lalor is able to squeak out a victory.

The story doesn’t end there, however. Wager has received the Conservative endorsement, so he’s on the ballot in November…unless he is defeated by a write-in candidate (either Lalor or Manning) in today’s Opportunity to Ballot primary. Lalor is unchallenged on the Independence line, so we’re definitely seeing him again on November 6. Meanwhile, the district is a Republican vote sink…but it’s actually not impossible for the right Democrat to win. And Paul Curran might be that candidate: he’s an MBA with who started his own company that develops renewable energy projects on brownfield sites. Whereas there could conceivably be three different Republicans on the general election ballot – and even if there’s only two, ill-will may linger from this campaign – Curran has the party united behind him. So this race is really just getting started with today’s voting.

Assembly District 94 – eastern Putnam, northern Westchester

When Greg Ball moved up to the state senate in 2010, his old 99th seat was captured by Steve Katz, a veterinarian from Mohegan Lake. A firm Tea Partier, Katz’s district was changed slightly by redistricting (trading Pawling for Putnam Valley) but remains a strongly Republican district. He flirted with a challenge to Ball, but opted to stay in the Assembly, where he has his own primary challenger in the form of Dario Gristina. A businessman who emigrated from Italy as a young child, Gristina has an interesting narrative and an interesting ex-wife who used to run a lucrative prostitution ring. He has raised a substantial warchest, though much of it was a $200,000 self-loan of which he has paid back about a third, so read into that what you will.

I think it’s pretty hard to get to the right of Steve Katz, so I suspect the incumbent is safe here. Gristina is also mounting a write-in bid to take the Conservative line from Katz, but I doubt that will be successful, either. Additionally, Katz’s wife has become a mini-celebrity for her video denouncing Ball’s Facebook censorship and for posting pictures of herself with firearms. I think people want to keep her around as much as they do the assemblyman himself.

Senate District 44 – Albany/Capitol Region

Neil Breslin has represented the Albany County senate district since the mid-1990s, and has become accustomed to primary challengers in this safely Democratic seat. This year, he’s facing strong opposition from firefighter and Albany County legislator Shawn Morse. Morse has raised a respectable sum of money – enough to be competitive with Breslin. The incumbent also faces a new map: Republicans decided to break up Albany County, even though it has the right population for its own standalone district as has historically been drawn. The new district removes a healthy chunk of Albany County towns and replaces them with Troy and Rensselaer across the river. These towns are sufficiently entwined with Albany that they are surely familiar with Breslin, but that differs from having habitually voted for the man. And it’s not like Breslin’s made his own life easier – struggling in past campaigns to discuss legislation, a situation which repeated itself at a debate earlier this month when he forgot that he co-sponsored pay raise legislation. Morse has also hit the incumbent on a lack of progress in mandate relief, public safety issues and campaign finance reform. It’s not a purely ideological primary; it’s more that he’s taking on an incumbent he feels has been in too long. Finally, Morse has the endorsement and financial backing of the Independent Democratic Conference, the quartet of breakaway Senate Dems led by Jeff Klein. Their ideology and priorities have proved inscrutable thus far, but claiming Breslin’s scalp would be something of a breakthrough.

Breslin has the endorsement of Governor Andrew Cuomo, and in a low-turnout primary that could prove decisive. Cuomo does not always generate a great deal of enthusiasm among the party faithful, but impressions of Albany are improving under Cuomo’s governorship so anti-incumbent sentiment is probably not running high enough to take out Breslin. So I think Breslin survives, but I wish I had followed this one more closely from the outset.

Senate District 46 – Kingston to Amsterdam; parts of Ulster,  Albany, Schenectady counties; all of Greene and Montgomery counties

It has become a decennial rite of passage: Republicans look at their Senate map, fear for the sanctity of their majority, and use the arcana of the state constitution’s reapportionment formula to create a new senate district. They used one set of numbers in 2002 to arrive at a 62nd district, and a completely different set of conditions to conjure a 63rd in 2012. And this seat, the sprawling Catskills/foothills/Mohawk-based 46th, is the new seat. It’s designed for Republican Assemblyman George Amedore to win in November, and indeed, he’s a pretty good bet to win it.

But Democrats haven’t given up hope. After all, though designed by Republicans for Republicans, it’s still a district that would have given Barack Obama 53% of the presidential vote in 2008. Three challengers are competing for the right to take on Amedore. The Ulster county portion of the district is the largest segment, and the Ulster Dems have endorsed Cecilia Tkaczyk, the school board president in Duanesburg (Schenectady County). She has a diverse background: a degree in Agricultural Science, and work as a legislative analyst in the state senate, and in the field of affordable housing before that…and she owns a flock of sheep on her small farm, so obviously I’m a fan. Geographically, she comes from the rural part of Schenectady County, so she does not necessarily cede that area (part of which is represented by Amedore in the Assembly). Also in the race is Tom Dolan, a Coeymans town councilman, and Monica Arias Miranda, an activist from Schenectady County.

Tkaczyk has raised the most money of the three primary candidates, in excess of $100,000. Arias and Dolan have raised much smaller sums. I would assume that Tkaczyk wins the primary fairly easily and gives Amedore a competitive face in the fall. She would be exactly the sort of upstate senator that Democrats to offset some of NYC’s dominance in their caucus.

***

I’ll be back tonight after polls close to offer some commentary as results roll in.

Thursday marks the third statewide day of polling in New York so far this year, thanks to our insane legislature’s bipartisan inability to agree on a consolidation plan. We’ll have a fourth come November, obviously. And in my home town of Red Hook and in a scattering of others across the state, we had an special election in March, too, to cover Assembly vacancies. On tap for today: primaries for the state senate and assembly. I’m going to cover the interesting ones, with a particular focus on the Hudson Valley, but I’ll separate them into two categories: this post will cover those inspired by the June 2011 passage of a marriage equality bill, while a later post will look at the rest.

Four Republican state senators cast votes in favor of marriage equality last year. The state Conservative Party promptly promised to find primary challengers to each. It hasn’t played out quite that cleanly, and the respective challengers vary widely in skill and funding. One, Jim Alesi from the Rochester area, chose not to run for re-election to his seat amidst other problems back home. We’ll take a look at the other pro-marriage equality Republicans and the challengers they face today. They are varying shades of delightful, with two of them offering plenty of drama.

District 41 (parts of Dutchess and Putnam) – Steve Saland

Saland has held down this seat with ease since 1990. Redistricting removed Columbia County and gave him more of Dutchess (he now has the whole county save Beekman and Pawling) and three towns in western Putnam. This – well, this and the marriage vote – inspired Neil DiCarlo of Brewster to get into the race. No, DiCarlo still does not live in the new district. But he lives close enough to make a run and move into the district if he has to, post-election. DiCarlo’s previous run for office was a primary challenge to presumed frontrunner Nan Hayworth for the 19th Congressional District seat in 2010. His campaign focused on abortion, rather quixotically for a district known for sending pro-choice Republicans to Congress. Hayworth outspent him significantly and beat him 69%-31%; I assume he blamed the gays for his defeat. Now he’s back to challenge Saland for his marriage vote and his pro-choice views, while vaguely referencing taxes and Saland’s lengthy tenure in Albany as another reason to ditch the incumbent. And this time he’s packing an endorsement from Carl Paladino – never one to shy away from a challenge to the GOP establishment.

Anecdotally, I’m told Saland had a bit more trouble than usual in gathering petition signatures this summer, with the marriage vote regularly cited as the reason why. The question is whether DiCarlo can tap into that minority of Republicans and get them to the polls in significant numbers to topple the incumbent. I will answer that question for you: he cannot. DiCarlo has barely raised any money – $31K in total as of his 11-day pre-primary filing. Most of that seems to be spent on signs of various kinds. Normal-sized signs, which he or his supporters have been known to place in front of roadside memorials to victims of car accidents (I moved one last month in Hyde Park). Enormous signs, like the banner a supporter (or hostage) was awkwardly hoisting by the side of 9G in Hyde Park yesterday. Signs saying “RETIRE SALAND” with no accompanying information as to why one might be inclined to do so. Signs referencing DiCarlo’s support of “Faith. Family. Country.” – the third of which I’m sure was enlightening for anyone who thought he might be a hip-hop or electronica fan. Signs, to DiCarlo’s chagrin, cannot vote, and in fact his signs are so plentiful that they may exceed the number of votes he receives today. That hasn’t stopped him from focusing on them in the final days of the campaign, though: click here for some amusing local shenanigans and a Chuck Palahniuk reference while we’re at it.

Seriously, though, the reality is that Saland is a giant in these parts. No high-profile Republicans have endorsed his challenger. Most Hudson Valley Republicans are motivated by fiscal issues, not social issues. DiCarlo has no real connection to the district and nothing to distinguish him besides a set of starkly conservative views on social policy that will net him, I suspect, no more than 30% of the vote today. There’s also an Opportunity to Ballot election for the Conservative line in this race in which voters can write in either man’s name (or technically anyone else’s). One would think DiCarlo could do a little better with these folks, but I doubt he has the organization to actually beat Saland on this line, either.

District 43 (Columbia, parts of Rensselaer, Saratoga and Washington) – Roy McDonald

Joe Bruno’s successor in the state senate saw his district stretched out a bit – it used to be more focused on the capital region, but now it reaches south all the way to the Columbia/Dutchess border, while taking in two towns in Washington County and fewer people in Saratoga than previously. His challenger is Saratoga County Clerk Kathy Marchione. She’s an experienced candidate running a more professional campaign than DiCarlo; it helps that she has raised a great deal more money – about $175,000 as of her pre-primary filing. McDonald will comfortably outspend her, but that’s certainly enough money for her to break through.

The issues page on Marchione’s campaign website makes no explicit reference to marriage – but it’s definitely her lead line of attack, as seen during the only debate between the candidates. McDonald notes, quite rightly, that it wasn’t a matter of selling out, as Marchione says; after all, Democrats haven’t come close to winning this seat in past years so by casting this vote, he was making his life more difficult by inviting a challenge from the right.

McDonald does seem to be scrambling a bit, offering an attack on license plate issuance that resulted in a smack-down from several of Marchione’s fellow county clerks. More compelling is his attack on Marchione for potentially double-dipping if elected. This is because her pending retirement as county clerk will commence pension payments for this longtime public employee – and these would be on top of her state senate salary if she were to win in November.

Curiously, there is also a Conservative primary here, but it’s not between Marchione and McDonald: it’s between Marchione and Edward Gilbert, a first-time candidate who, according to Marchione, was placed on the ballot by McDonald operatives as a stalking horse.

A delightful race. I don’t think the Gilbert Gambit will succeed, in which case Marchione will appear on the November ballot regardless of what happens in the GOP primary. And as for that…my gut tells me Marchione has the momentum, but admittedly, it’s a damn hard thing to predict a state legislative primary (well, unless it’s Steve Saland obliterating Neil DiCarlo).

District 60 (Part of Erie) – Mark Grisanti

I’m not sure it gets much tastier than eight candidates competing in primaries across four different ballot lines. Grisanti defeated a scandal-plagued Democratic incumbent in 2010 by an ultra-narrow margin. He was a Democrat running on the Republican line, but he re-registered with the GOP for 2011. His speech in favor of marriage equality was the most touching of the four Republicans, but that does him little good in the primary. Since that day, his district has been radically altered as the Senate GOP attempted to shore him up for November: no longer is the seat based in inner-city Buffalo and Niagara Falls; now it features only a sliver of Buffalo, Niagara Falls is gone, and it stretches south into the suburbs and exurbs along Lake Erie. It’s not nearly the Democratic stronghold that Grisanti managed to conquer last time around. It’s still not a lock for Reps to hold in November, but Grisanti has to navigate the primary first. There, he faces Kevin Stocker, a Tonawanda attorney who ran a competitive underdog race for state assembly in 2010.

On the surface, Stocker’s campaign is not about marriage: he takes no specific position on the issue, other than saying it should be left to voters in a direct referendum, which New York does not actually have for matters other than constitutional amendments. He focuses instead on Grisanti’s “broken promises” and reform issues like term limits and legislative pay cuts. But marriage has worked its way in the campaign in ways so ostentatious as to draw national attention. I’m primarily referring to this mailer. Yeah, pretty amazing stuff. Homophobes are a gruesome lot, but bizarrely, this might not be coming from a homophobe per se, but rather a bisexual man who simply hates Grisanti and wants to tap into other people’s bigotry to get rid of the man. Then came news Wednesday of this letter, which condemns both Grisanti and Stocker on the marriage issue and appears to be an attempt to suppress primary turnout – a phenomenon which I assume would aid Grisanti as the incumbent and better-known, better-organized candidate.

It should be noted that Grisanti has faced other controversy, in the form of his involvement in a casino brawl; no charges were filed but Grisanti’s image was tarnished.  But all things considered, the ugly turn this race has taken, the murky battle lines surrounding it, and a significant money advantage make for a situation where I think Grisanti squeaks through.

On the Democratic side, there’s no incumbent but marriage is still an issue. That’s because Erie County legislator Chuck Swanick received the Conservative endorsement as a foe of marriage equality and is assured of appearing on the ballot in November. Can he also claim the Democratic line? He faces Michael Amodeo, who supports same-sex marriage and advertises himself as the endorsed Democratic candidate. He claims to have knocked on over 5,000 doors. I believe him, because he certainly didn’t spent that time raising money – Swanick is outspendng him by a considerable margin. But that”s not all. The race also features perennial candidate Al Coppola. But this is a different sort of perennial candidate…because he actually once won this seat, or at least its precursor! He captured the seat in a 2000 special election, before losing the primary later that year for a full term. Coppola has gone on to lose many primaries since then, some against his cousin Marc, who also briefly held the seat. Sometimes he has run on the Republican line, and lost. His campaign didn’t come back to life until recently, and he has only raised $19,000 this cycle. But he has some name recognition and presents an interesting wild card. My guess is that Swanick wins, after months spent using his money advantage to, remarkably enough, knock Amodeo’s progressive credentials.

Grisanti also faces an Independence Party challenge from Marie Clark and Brian Siklinski. As near as I can tell neither of these are real contenders, so Grisanti should hold onto the IP line with ease.

And then there’s a Working Families primary, where Gregory Davis appears on the ballot but the opportunity for write-ins is presented. He’s our eighth candidate in this zoo of a race. I can’t begin to guess whether the three or four WFP voters who show up today will vote for him or write someone in.

***

I checked in with Matt about this menu of internecine warfare, and we’re in agreement that Saland cruises, Marchione takes out McDonald, and Grisanti survives. I’m looking forward to watching the results come in for these.

The political press is moving on from talk of speeches and messaging and production values, in favor of polling bounces and job numbers and debate preparation. But I wanted to offer a final wrap-up of my convention experience in more detail than my final missive to the Poughkeepsie Journal last week allowed.

I’ve already talked about how the Rural Council, aside from letting me laugh and clap along with the incomparable Brian Schweitzer, rekindled my spirit and helped me remember why I was even in Charlotte in the first place. I’ve written about the excitement of Bill Clinton’s take-down of four years of myth-making by the opposition. I want to close out my ramblings on the convention by talking about 6 or so minutes  from the first night – the Kennedy tribute.

Now, I’m not as enamored with the idea of the Kennedy family as many Democrats. I never have been. In part, that’s simply generational; in part, it probably owes to the reality that I’m a largely abstemious person with less time than some for the personal dramas associated with the Kennedys over the years. But I’ve always had a healthy respect for Ted Kennedy’s legislative record, and more so after this convention. On Tuesday night, the first night of the convention, touching tribute was paid to the senator’s life and work – and it was all tied in to the accomplishments of the Obama administration. The video – worth a watch if you haven’t seen it – hit on so many key points, opening with the famous “the dream shall never die speech” from 1980*. It then launched into a chronicle of Kennedy’s legislative achievements and leadership on so many progressive causes, and praise for his place in history from Bill Clinton. Then came a show-stopping clip from Kennedy’s 1994 debate with Mitt Romney when the latter challenged him for his Senate seat. Romney’s vagaries and shifting positions, we were reminded in living color, are a longstanding phenomenon.

From there we saw his endorsement of Obama in 2008, and then – and this brought down the house – a smooth segue into Barack Obama’s achievements in the last four years. So many of these represented the next step forward from things Kennedy had worked on; these parallels were powerful in both an intellectual and emotional sense. Sitting in the audience, I could hear people’s breath catching as the video rolled and illustrated Obama’s place on this historical trajectory. Eyes were welling up all around. It was a powerful moment. Sometimes, the glitz and pomp of the political convention actually has something behind it, some real emotional and historical heft, and this was one of those times.

It’s the sort of moment that helped me understand why so many people were so happy for me when I was selected as a delegate. Conventions today are largely rallies – as delegates we’re not battling for our preferred nominee via floor demonstrations and closed-door arm-twisting; the official nomination is a formality by the time the convention rolls around. But there’s something to be said for rallying one’s spirit, and there’s real value in helping party leaders and activists to take stock of where they’ve been and where they’re going.

I was able to see first-hand the almost-spiritual connection so many of the delegates have with Michelle Obama, not just applauding but talking with her as she gave her speech, helping her along, praising her as she went. I was able to see the fire that burns in Cory Booker, who spoke hours before the networks were broadcasting on Tuesday. I was able to feel the energy on the streets of Charlotte, from store clerks excited by good speeches to the goodwill evident in so many local volunteers who wanted to make this work and help out in any way they could. I was able to enjoy great conversations with delegates from the around the country – Pat Jansen from Otsego, Minnesota; Wayne Manske of Mesa, Arizona; Bill Bonner of Meridian, Idaho.

So I’m energized again and looking forward to hitting my nearby swing states – Pennsylvania and New Hampshire – to lend a hand this fall. I will even try to make it out to Ohio one weekend to knock through a packet for Matt Clausen, the other man whose name appears on this blog, as he devotes himself to the OFA cause out there in the Buckeye State – where, thanks to people like him, there’s a palpable sense on the ground that Obama is opening a lead in the state perhaps most critical to his chances for reelection. Yes, everything feels a bit different this time around. Believe me, few are more  acutely aware than me that it’s not 2008 any more. But that different feeling exists because we’ve already done some of the hard work of governing – making difficult choices and tirelessly defending them from well-meaning and spiteful foes alike. In a few months, if we’ve done our job, we’ll have the opportunity to make more of those tough choices.

* Perhaps more interesting to me than the words Kennedy spoke in 1980  is a simple but powerful gesture: after Kennedy finishes speaking, he offers a brief, confident, authoritative nod – one which signaled that he meant exactly what he was saying, that he had much work ahead of him, and that he looked forward to completing it. He had made his run for the presidency, it hand’t worked out, but he was ready to move on and continue his work. It’s such a subtle gesture, and maybe I’m projecting something onto it, but I think it resonates as much as anything he was saying that night. Of note as well is the grandfatherly nod he offered at the end of his 2008 convention speech, when he spoke of new lights continuing the work. He conveyed a different sort of confidence now – the confidence that others could carry on the work and see it to completion.

Coming into Wednesday night, I mentioned to my collaborator, Mr. Matt Clausen, that I had a specific tack in mind for Bill Clinton’s nominating speech. I wanted the Big Dog to give us a little compare and contrast with regard to partisanship. I figured he was equipped with enough of a reputation as bridge-builder that he could ably talk about how Republicans were different when he was president, and to be able to say that Newt Gingrich was a more willing partner than today’s Congressional Republicans.

He didn’t hit on that point specifically – though he did allude to Republican attacks on him in the mid-1990s. But the speech did even more than I had hoped for: it dissected, attack-for-attack, myth-for-myth, misdirection-for-misdirection, the Romney-Ryan case against Obama. It did so in the way that Clinton has become famous for: enough policy to please those of us who know this is actually about governing in the end, and enough folksy charm to keep it accessible and engaging to the widest audience possible. He was dying to give delegates and viewers the tools to present the same message back home in their communities, on the front lines of the campaign. I readily acknowledge my bias, but the contrast between the vagueness of last week’s Republican convention and the point-by-point Clinton onslaught made for a devastating takedown.

But the speech had an impact after the considerable applause gave way to the formality of the delegations casting their votes to renominate President Obama. Bear with my for a moment. You see, we  have all been rained on continuously this week in tropical Charlotte. My clothes were running low, and I wanted to keep it a little less formal today, but I needed to buy some shorts, given that the mix of long drives, Carolina heat and lots of rain earlier in the week had rendered my existing options unwearable. First stop: TJ Maxx. Unsuccessful, but it didn’t feel that way because as I walked in, I came upon workers and customers raving about the Clinton speech – its moxie, its pointed detail. Note that I was in a section of Charlotte’s South Park neighborhood, pretty far from the hotels and quite a distance from Uptown. Next stop: Target, a considerable ways further south and therefore nowhere near any delegates but myself. I walked in…and found another conversation about staff, talking about how Clinton gets it done like few can. Having secured the sought-after apparel, I made my way to Uptown. I scored a burrito from Qdoba, where the young lady on the register sported a Hope button and asked me about the speech. We agreed it was exactly what we needed: a full rebuttal of the bullshit.

It’s a few conversations. But these are all pretty regular folk – not delegates, and not the upscale types inhabiting much of this rather suburban city. I suspect that not all of them voted in 2004. But I’m now certain they’ll be there this November. The question becomes whether it’s amplified in Charlotte because of the convention’s proximity, or if word is traveling with the same joy and fervor elsewhere.

I’ve been in North Carolina since Sunday night, but it wasn’t until Tuesday afternoon’s Democratic National Committee Rural Council meeting that this convention really got started for me, and that I figured out why I was here. Briefly, it’s been a brutal summer for me on a personal level. And let’s face it, Republicans have spent four years offering a lot of hyperbole, spite and resentment. That wears on me. It takes a lot out of me, which is exactly what they want, sadly. So politics simply hasn’t been fun for me for a while. I’ve had people telling me daily how wonderful it is to go to a convention, and how lucky I’ve been, but for some awfully legitimate reasons, I haven’t felt that way. But yesterday, some of the magic came back, thanks to the folks at the Democratic Rural Council meeting.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, “BK, Red Hook is a small town surrounded by farms, but you’re across the river from Kingston and a half-hour from Poughkeepsie. How rural is that, really?” Fair enough. Red Hook is not isolated. It’s not suburban, either, but you might call it some version of exurban. I barely get cell service on my back porch, yet I’m only a five-minute drive from a grocery store.  But I attended the meeting for two reasons. One is that as a delegate, I represent more than just semi-rural northern Dutchess County. My current Congressional district stretches north and west to the Adirondacks and Catskills, with many small towns and isolated settlements, and a large number of farms of various sizes along the way. After redistricting it well get more rural, losing mostly-suburban Saratoga County but gaining Ulster, Sullivan and Schoharie with their mountains, foothills and extensive farm acreage (of note, it will also be more Democratic as a result). The other reason I wanted to be there is that I have an intense interest in agricultural policy and smart growth. Both are incredibly important to our rural communities: the former is a huge part of the rural economies, and the latter preserves the character and geography of our rural communities rather than encroaching upon them with sprawl. These are things I know a little about and seek to study in greater detail. This was my chance to connect those interests with the politics of the moment.

And so there I sat in the council meeting room with about 100-150 other folks, with Nebraskans and Alaskans in front of me, an American Indian delegate sitting to my left, and a collection of Texans to my right. Things got off to a rousing start as Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer was introduced. I was thrilled because beforehand I didn’t even realize he was up there on the stage – I was busy looking at everyone’s shirts and pins (the rural Dems dress down a little more and bring more flair than the New York delegation, so I fit in better in that respect too. I’m a big fan of Schweitzer, who I first learned about in 2004 when I stumbled upon a gubernatorial debate on C-SPAN. That day, it took about 30 seconds for me to think, “Wow, we’re going to win the Montana governor’s race.” That’s how good Schweitzer was. And yesterday, when he took the podium and launched into a story from his first 4-H steer competition as a nine-year old, it took about 30 seconds for the crowd to be enraptured, laughing along at each twist and turn.

But Schweitzer isn’t just about the laughs. There’s always a bigger message. In this case, he wanted to capture the connection between land and government. Like many states as one travels westward, Montana was long ago divided into townships and then sections, with certain sections set aside in trust to generate revenue to finance local public schools. In a state where so much of the land is publicly owned, it is vital that fair value be extracted from federally-owned lands, or the legislature has to appropriate greater and greater amounts from the general fund to pay for schools. And he described the cultural and economic importance of keeping Montana’s public lands open for hunting, fishing and camping. Along with minerals, these conservation-related activities form the backbone of the state’s economy.

Former Iowa governor and current Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack followed Schweitzer to the microphone. The Montanan is more fun to listen to, but Vilsack arguably provided more to work with in terms of this election. He related an enormous laundry list of the Obama administration’s accomplishments in rural America. These include often-historic investments in farm/ranch loans, crop insurance, disaster relief, credit to rural small businesses, water treatment facilities, highways, and broadband access. One of Obama’s first actions as president to issue an executive order forming a Rural Council (not to be confused with the party subset of the same name) composed of various cabinet members whose policy spheres impacted rural areas. Four years later, we’re looking at record agricultural exports, a record agricultural trade surplus, record levels of conservation acreage, and record farm income – all despite severe drought conditions in many parts of the country.

Vilsack described a conversation with President Obama, as the magnitude of the drought began to sink in, in which the president told him to “do whatever you have to” to help farmers and ranchers. The problem was insufficient tools, and a Republican-led House that was unwilling to expand these tools. New tools had to come from the executive branch – and come they did, in the form of a streamlined disaster classification system, increased loans, and more lands opened for grazing. Crop insurance companies agreed to offer a grace period before charging interest on overdue payments. $170M worth of product was authorize to be purchased in pork, lamb, chicken and catfish to offset the high cost of feed caused by the drought.

And then Vilsack talked about the impasse in the Farm Bill. Republicans keep saying it’s about nutrition assistance cuts – i.e. SNAP, more commonly known as food stamps. That allows them to claim it’s a matter of cutting handouts and eliminating government reliance. Well, Vilsack noted that 90% of SNAP recipients are children, seniors, the disabled, and workers. Interesting categories to condemn as reaching for a handout. But beyond that, Vilsack also said it’s never just been about food stamps. The Republicans are highlighting that in order to cover deeper cuts to other key facets of the Farm Bill: crop insurance and disaster relief, for example. He also noted that farmers will ultimately lose billions in income if these SNAP cuts are enacted, as farmers receive 14 cents of every dollar from the program.

Vilsack ended by saying that these four years of investments, and the continuance of them for four more years, will mean that today’s rural children and grandchildren won’t have to leave their communities. This resonated with me: every ten years, the census reveals fewer and fewer people living in rural areas, leaving behind abandoned farms and shuttered Main Street businesses. It should go without saying that these are beautiful places which can touch a person deeply, and which can sustain wonderful communities. We’ve been losing them for decades, and the incredible level of detail Vilsack offered about the White Houses’s investments to sustain them energized me – and fellow audience members. Even many of the president’s supporters are likely unaware of all of these efforts; I didn’t know the half of them. The irony, of course, is that Republicans enshrined in their platform a condemnation of the Democratic party’s supposed attempts to engineer mass urbanization – ignoring everything Obama and Vilsack are doing to preserve rural America.

Then we heard from a senator: Alaska’s Mark Begich. Here the conversation turned from “rural” to “extreme rural” as he described a state where milk often costs $10/gallon and where 80% of towns are unconnected by roads. He praised the cabinet’s 2009 rural tour, in which 4 cabinet secretaries came to his state to get a sense of what was needed – paving the way for a total of 13 cabinet visits to Alaska during the Obama administration, an unprecedented figure. The stimulus was huge for Alaska, particularly in terms of improving the telecommunications on which so many of Alaska’s schools depend for a complete education in a land where populations are spread out and teachers are sparse. He also talked about the status of veterans’ health care: previously, veterans could not make use of the excellent Indian Health System facilities, even if they were in their home town: they had to fly to Anchorage or Seattle to visit the nearest VA facilities. Well, that’s changed now: veterans now have access to IHS facilities, saving them thousands on airline costs. Begich reported that the cabinet has readily understood that one size doesn’t fit all in federal programs; they’ve been very receptive with rural set-asides to meet the special needs of rural communities.

Next was a charismatic third-generation farmer from Turtle Lake, North Dakota, Roger Johnson. He served several terms as the state’s elected Ag Secretary before becoming president of the National Farmers Union. He noted that the administration has offered enormous bipartisan outreach, but that it’s all for naught “without a hand reaching back” from the other side.  In terms of policy impact, he observed that as ag commish, he heard most frequently from farmers and ranchers about access to health care in rural areas. These areas are high-risk in the insurance world – the populations are older, working in a financially-risky occupation. The Affordable Care Act’s provisions to expand care will make it easier for these people to get access to the care they need.

Wrapping up the proceedings was John Carson, from the Office of Public Engagement. He talked about his Wisconsin farm – in his family for a hundred years – and talked briefly about the 2008 election. The story of that election, he said, is often said to be the engagement of college students, minorities, suburban moms. Less well-known was the unprecedented organization in rural America, with field offices in towns that had never had them before. North Dakota comes instantly to mind for me, with at least ten Obama offices open in 2008 in a state that Bush had carried by close to thirty percentage points four years earlier. The edge was cut to a little over eight points in 2008.

***

So I was left with a couple of things. One was a great deal of knowledge of how this administration has invested in rural communities, supporting agriculture and infrastructure to help them through a difficult climate – in both the economic and meteorological sense. I’m an information guy. I like details. I like them more than rhetoric. I was also left with the awareness that there were a lot of like-minded people in that room: they’re pragmatists who want to know what we’re doing and what we have to do to win a campaign and govern well – and who have a connection to the land that I envy and which grounds their thinking. Overarching was the sense that we’ve done great things, that there’s much more to do, and that if we can articulate those things with specifics – not rhetoric and hyperbole – that we’ll be able to do much more. And that’s just for rural America.

Being here, then, as a delegate has clicked for me. It has more of a meaning now. It allows us me to affirm that the last four years have mattered, and it gives me tools to help win an election so that the next four years can matter too. I didn’t know I was going to get that yesterday, and I’m glad I did.

Politico is the embodiment of the 24/7 hyperactive news cycle that has contributed to the sharp-edged political environment we all so frequently lament. And yet, if you geek out on this stuff, you’re amused by entries like this from yesterday’s Playbook email:

2016 WATCH – RESPECT MUST BE PAID: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner will address the Iowa delegation’s breakfast on Wednesday. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand speak on Thursday. All five are potential presidential candidates in 2016. (h/t JMart)

In Politico’s mind, of course, no one talks to Iowa unless they want to win the Iowa caucuses for years from now. Iowans, they presume, are so wrapped up in the caucuses that they’ll forget to vote this November. But I’ll play along, because after all, there’s a reason I receive the Playbook email, isn’t there? Let’s take a look at those folks:

• Martin O’Malley is on everyone’s list as a “dude who’ll probably run” as a successful two-term governor who’s telegenic and currently heading up the Democratic Governors Association, the campaign committee tasked with winning governors’ mansions for Democrats this fall. O’Malley speaks at the convention tonight, so I’m looking forward to my first in-person glance at a contender.

• Amy Klobuchar is a first-term senator headed toward a landslide re-election win this fall. She’s frequently among the top few senators in terms of favorability polling. She’s known as a diligent, serious senator with impeccable progressive credentials but without the sharp partisan elbows of so many of her colleagues. By all accounts, she’s just a good person who happens to be a really effective senator. As a good-government-first guy, I would give serious thought to supporting a Klobuchar presidential bid. But the cynical side of me wonders if America is ready – ok, I’ll invite criticism: deserving – of a president like her. After all, Obama based his first term on the premise he could work with both parties, and that has proven a tad idealistic. Maybe she’s just talking to Iowa because they’re neighbors. But maybe she’s keeping her options open, too.

• Mark Warner remains popular in Virginia, where he was previously governor. I seem to recall that he preferred a senate bid to a presidential/vice presidential bid in 2008 because he didn’t want to deal with the enormous level of scrutiny involved, but I’m in a rush today so I can’t link to anything to that effect. Warner brings a slightly different profile than some major Democrats, as a hugely successful businessman who has performed very well in parts of rural Virginia that have been trending away from other Democrats in the last decade or so.

• Brian Schweitzer is a personal favorite for his style and effectiveness, including his ability to win big in Montana. I’m a staunchly pro-gun Democrat, so I’m happy to have a “more guns than I need and not as many as I want” national candidate. But I acknowledge that Schweitzer’s views on the issue would give him trouble in urban state primaries. His views on energy policy would do the same, and I might have to part with him there. But it seems like he should really be in the national discussion, to make sure Democrats are hearing from, and working with, extraction-based states as we develop a national energy infrastructure.

• Kirsten Gillibrand was my Congresswoman before she became a Senator; I knocked on oodles of doors for her in 2006 and 2008. She has supported – with actions, not just words – our local candidates in the Hudson Valley, even profound underdogs, and always remembered my brother from her first campaign in 2006. Responsible writing requires that I acknowledge  that KG is a not an abstract political figure for those of us in northern Dutchess County. I think she would have strengths and weaknesses as a national candidate, with the foremost strength being a legislative record that’s quite impressive for someone who’s been in the Senate for under four years. I also think she would defer to fellow statewide official Andrew Cuomo, who everyone expects to run in 2016. But speaking to the Iowa delegation allows us, with the help of Politico’s framing, to wonder if a run is in the offing for the junior senator from New York