The Erie County Executive Race Today

1. Mark Poloncarz’s first TV ad is up and on the air. Check it out:

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2. In concert with what I wrote on Monday, Collins and his fumbling divisive crew have exposed their central electoral strategy of suppressing the vote in the City of Buffalo.  The Buffalo News’ editorial page is not amused, calling it “dirty politics”,

We can find nothing good to say about this practice. It is cynical and sinister. Party hierarchies that play this game— and candidates who go along—show they are not about democracy and fair elections but about subversion as their means to an end. They lose any moral authority to demand fairness elsewhere or to claim the high ground.

3. Rod Watson also addresses suppression of the city vote, but instead of targeting Collins, he goes after Mayor Byron Brown.  Addressing Brown’s apparent reluctance to endorse Poloncarz, Watson asks incredulously,

Given how bad incumbent Republican Chris Collins has been for poor and working-class people, how can the Democratic mayor of America’s third-poorest city not come out strongly for the Democratic alternative?

Good question. But when it comes to just about anything not involving a ribbon-cutting, his name on a sign, or a photo op, Brown routinely shrugs off his power and responsibilities as a leader.

Even Collins’ reaction to the poll highlights his disdain for the city. First, the GOP strategizes to suppress turnout in Buffalo, then his minions complain that the poll is off because city residents won’t turn out. This takes “brazen” to a whole new level.

Watson basically calls Brown out as a chump who is more interested in settling age-old, idiotic political scores than doing what’s best for his city and his constituents. Brown’s critics have, of course, known about this since about 2006.

4. Tonight at 9pm, Collins and Poloncarz face off in the only debate between the two that is likely to be televised. We’ll have some sort of live blogging here at WNYMedia.net, so stay tuned.

5. On the issue of money, a commenter very aptly stated,

Is it only me? The media keeps reporting that Collins has $1.2 million and Poloncarz has raised $225,000. If Collins loaned himself $800,000 and got the rest from his appointees and millionaire friends that is saying something. 1st Collins only raised 2 x’s as much as Poloncarz and a very select few of the wealthy want to control our county government with Collins at the helm. 2nd Poloncarz has about the same ratio of funding to run a campaign as Hochul did in defeating Corwin another well to do friend of Collins. Maybe the rich can’t always buy an election.

Indeed, that’s often omitted from the reporting on fundraising. Collins’ campaign is overwhelmingly self-funded.  Now that the Siena poll shows that Poloncarz is well within striking distance of winning this thing, expect the fundraising and big-money campaigning to accelerate for the Lackawanna Kid. The UB Spectrum is reporting that the UB Foundation – a 501(c)(3) charitable foundation – is listed as having donated over $2500 to Chris Collins’ campaign in apparent violation of federal law, threatening its charitable status. The head of the foundation claims it was a minor accounting error, but the record speaks for itself.

6.  Would you consider this to be an “indirect” disclosure of polling data by the Collins campaign to promote Collins’ success or Poloncarz’s defeat? According to Paladino/Collins ally Rus Thompson, Collins sent him a text message that read as follows:

54-37. News oversampled City , union households and under sampled suburbs. We are wining suburbs by 20, Republics 85-15, independents 67-33 and winning 30% of dems. If you want a tight race go to the city which is 7:1 but doesn’t vote in CE races. It’s all BS to help Poloncarz.

7. By way of full disclosure to the Bob McCarthys of the world, I have not been paid a cent of money from the Poloncarz campaign – directly or indirectly – to write favorably about him or his campaign. I have been friends with Mark since the Kerry campaign of 2004, and I support his candidacy because he is the better, more competent candidate, and because his opponent has raised taxes, engaged over and over again in petty politics, has played make-believe with “running government like a business” and “getting government out of” certain businesses, pitted the city against the suburbs and vice-versa, set back regionalism by leaps and bounds, hired his cronies for do-nothing 6-figure jobs while blaming the county’s rank and file for being too greedy and lazy, implemented Six Sigma at enormous taxpayer cost with absolutely zero quantified, proven taxpayer savings.