Supporting Magnarelli

The Post-standard ran the headline "Ed Ryan Reluctantly Supports Magnarelli." I got a major kick out of this headline, but I am also announcing that I've made a decision, and I am supporting Bill. And not reluctantly, but rather with careful decision making.

As any regular readers of the blog may know, I did not start off in Bill's corner, but I have ended up there. I have listened to both the candidates, I have read what both of them have said, and I am finding that I agree with Bill. For one thing, although Joanie is definitely the more charismatic of the two, and although there are some posters on Syracuse.com who would disagree with me, Bill seems to state things more clearly on the issues. Most issues. For instance, I point out again that on the issue of arts, Bill specifically stated he would spend more money, while Joanie only talked about how adjusting how we'd spend it. In general, Joanie seems to be taking a "we should take advantage of private organizations that already do these things," sort of attitude on many issues. I would say we already seem to have that sort of attitude, as evidenced by the fact that Nancy Cantor has been the main source of substantial change in this area. I personally think it's time the government got Nancy's back and did some of this stuff on our own.

Additionally, I recently went to a 40 Below meet the candidates thing at Ambrosia. Since the group was 40 below, the 1st question they asked was about how young people would play a role in each's administration. Joanie, to her credit,put together a good reply, stating she wouldn't look at young or old, Democrat or Republican, but at qualifications, but Bill got major points by bringing his campaign staff to the forum, as well as one young woman that was both on his campaign staff and his legislative staff, and they were all young people. Since a major problem right now is that young people are fleeing the area, wouldn't it be a good idea to make sure there are some young people around that we're going to ask?

So it's almost election time, and I, like most of the young democrats, have committed to more campaigns then I should have, but I'm adding Bill to the list of campaigns I will get out for before election day.

One last note, back to the Post-Standard, their online guide to the election has expanded nicely to cover almost all the local races. Check it out, you've got no reason to say you don't know anything about the Lysander town council candidates. I do wish they'd asked a specific question about how they're going to keep young people in Syracuse, but it's still a mighty resource.