February 22, 2008

Word

The post-standard ran a piece stating that NY state is in fact planning to crack down on empire zone abuse. Good. That's all I got to say about that.

On the local Republican news front, Randy Wolken has officially put his name into the mix for the race for Jim Walsh's spot. For those who don't know who he is, the post-standard states he is "a Central New York business and civic leader." More specifically he is the president of the Manufacturers Association of Central New York, which seems a better qualifier than a certain other Republican candidate's credentials.

We had another Young Democrats meeting last night. Big plans in the mix, including a potential Democratic candidate symposium thingy in the summer, which we hope could lure some big names and not just locally, the posibility of doing some community service stuff as a group, maybe even doing some joint stuff with young Republicans. Sounds like good things to me, I'll try and do a better job of keeping everyone posted on all events (IE telling you about the meeting before I go to it instead of after.)Also there was a candidate for Surrogate Judge. I'll consider coming back to this topic if I can form more of an opinion of him and also read up on exactly what Surrogate court does.

It seems perhaps 2 guys are running for a State Senate seat in the 48th. I don't know a lot about either, but Will Barclay has been my assemblyman, and of what I know, I am not a fan. Either way though, if you live in the 48th, make sure to vote Tuesday.

Spitzer says he won't put state tax on the federal rebates that should be coming, which is the kind of good common sense thing you can usually expect NY not to do.

February 10, 2008

edits and editorials (further editorials of course)

Seems I was incorrect in stating Capucilli was running for Walsh's spot, he's only announced interest. This makes Dan Maffei still the only one to have officially announced. Everyone else is letting the suspense linger. I personally have decided I'm definitely maybe going to consider thinking about a run.

Elliot Spitzer has been proposing alternate taxes lately. First he wanted to tax fruity alcoholic drinks like liquor, raising the tax on a 6 pack of Smirnoff from 6 cents to over a dollar. Now he wants to tax things we buy on the internets. Taxes seem to be high enough already in New York State. Also with the economy the way things are, I think the idea right now is we're supposed to encourage people to start buying things, not stop.

An engineering firm has suggested that because not enough people are using the garages, the city should up the price of parking. Uh, yeah. As a former engineering major I am not surprised that it's a group of engineers that came up with this. This won't make people use the garages, it'll make people go somewhere else! Which is already the problem.

Anyway, I have to go ponder a congressional run.

February 7, 2008

Big goings on

Although mostly nationally.

I meant to put a post telling all registered Dems and Republicans to vote on Super Tuesday, but I didn't get a chance to come online until like 8, which seemed a bit late.

Bill Fitzpatrick has decided not to run for Congressman Walsh's seat, which means I can't vote against him this year. Peter Capucilli is the first Republican to announce a run for Walsh's spot, because running the State Fair is a good proving ground for helping run the country. If only he could run against Dan O'Hara.

State Senator DeFrancisco's office sent me info on the school bill he proposed. I've yet to have time to decipher it. Once I do I'll post again.

Now to venture into national news for a moment, and give some reasons why Barack Obama will be better against McCain than Hillary: 1)Momentum: Barack's is up, Hillary's is down, and it's because most people have already formed an opinion of the Clintons, while Barack is conatantly bringing new folk to his crowd. 2)Reaching across divides: It's the strength of both McCain and Obama, but Barack can do it better because McCain had to sacrifice his party's base. Might some conservatives vote for Clinton? Probably not. Obama? More likely. At the very least, McCain might have some conservatives who just don't vote if they don't feel a true conservative choice is available, but Obama manages to reach across the aisle while still appealing to his base. Anyway, that's what I got. Go make your own informed decision.