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Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Candidates Forum What an interesting debate on issues last night among the Mayoral candidates. Eric Lerner, Carolyn Peterson, and Beau Saul were on hand to answer submitted questions to a mostly packed room full of 2nd Ward voters. Two things happened last night at the forum... 1. I am more convinced than ever that I would NEVER, under any circumstance vote for Beau Saul, and 2. I think I am leaning towards supporting/voting for Eric Lerner for Mayor. First off, if you bother reading my posts about Ithaca politics, you know why I'm not even considering voting for Beau Saul. He's been endorsed by city republicans and has secured their line on the ballot. I attempted to go into last night's forum with an open mind, but when his excuse for accepting their endorsement was simply, 'allowing a place for republicans at the table,' I was completely turned off. Mr. Saul, there is a huge difference between republicans and Democrats, even at the local level. And it is one thing to include people with varying opinions at the table and quite another to run on their platform and mislead individuals into thinking you hold those same values and beliefs. Had I been on your campaign, I would have advised you to politely turn down their offer. And I am thankful to Eric Lerner for finally putting similar sentiments into the debate. I think it is misleading to represent yourself as a republican when you claim to be a lifelong democrat. And if the republicans were so quick to endorse you, I imagine that says alot about your values and the goals you have for the direction of the city. Goals and a direction which I am sure to not agree with. And while we're on the subject, there was also this little nasty issue about the republicans challenging petitions because of trivial, VERY TRIVIAL, mistakes on them. And of course, Mr. Saul stood up and practically defended the action by saying that the Democrats most certainly would have done the same thing had the republicans not done it first. Nice try, Mr. Saul. So for me, this all boils down to a two person race between Carolyn Peterson and Eric Lerner. Both candidates are fairly progressive Democrats, and both have their pros with very few cons. The thing that struck me last night was Eric's presence and eloquence when discussing issues. He also seemed to be very knowledgeable about a whole breadth of issues. After the forum, I talked with him briefly about local gay and lesbian issues and he seemed to be very interested and at the same time had some interesting ideas about next steps for our community. All that said, I'm still torn, even though I'm leaning towards one particular candidate. The most interesting encounter by far, was when I got stuck talking to this guy that wanted to discuss all of his 'issues' with Ithaca. He was basically a big development supporter and took issue with people who complain about Wal Marts but not about Wegmans, and he obviously doesn't mind endless strip malls stretching out along the horizon. I think at one point he was even advocating ripping out the commons in favor of locating the Target right downtown. (Yikes!) I was actually able to have civil conversation with him for about ten minutes until he said, 'Well, what we really need to do is make our downtown safe by getting rid of the blacks and the gays.' (Double Yikes!) I told him I thought there were more pressing safety issues than protecting our downtown from 'the blacks and the gays' and excused myself from further conversation. | private feedback | |
Hey! I'm Shane... a proud gay progressive Democrat who has recently relocated to New York City from Ithaca, NY. As I am no longer in Ithaca, I haven't quite decided the fate of this blog. Drop me a line!
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