One of the few state races I’m excited about:
Category: Elections 2014
Oneida County Executive primary race
Incumbent Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente will be in a three-way Republican primary next Tuesday with David Gordon and Michael Hennessy.
As to where the candidates stand on 2A:
- Picente has supported gun control in the past.
- Gordon is making a strong push for gun rights supporters to back him in the primary, promising changes as to how the county issues pistol licenses and making Oneida a “sanctuary county.”
- Based upon an old candidate questionnaire from his attempted Assembly run in ’14, Hennessy supports gun rights.
When in doubt, vote the incumbent out. With low turnout gun owners have an opportunity to push Picente off the cliff.
Time to endorse
Ed Cox is not happy with Congressman Katko:
“Rep. John Katko (R-Camillus) still hasn’t publicly endorsed Republican Donald Trump for president, and state party officials aren’t too happy about it … New York State Republican Party Chair Ed Cox says he understands Katko’s reluctance. “Circumstances are different in Onondaga [County] than they are in a national election this and that. And that’s basically a discussion of policy issues, things like that. But the bottom line is, you’re a Republican, you endorse a Republican candidate.” …”
Where were you Ed when the Senate Republicans screwed over Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino back in ’14?
Lone pro-gun Democrat Senator bows out
Marc Panepinto, the lone pro-gun Democrat State Senator, has announced he will not run for re-election this fall. It is not entirely clear why. The Buffalo News story seems to indicate his need to put his family and business first.
SD-60 is a heavy majority Democrat district so I do not see it as being a likely pick-up for the GOP. Panepinto’s predecessor Mark Grisanti was a Democrat turned RINO who lost in a four-way free for all in ’14. Grisanti supported SAFE so Panepinto was a definite improvement.
SAFE cost Byron Brown #2 spot
Interesting bit in this article from the Buffalo News:
“… The Buffalo mayor [Byron Brown] has taken great pains over the years to maintain his spot on the Conservative line, even losing a party primary to new best friend Kevin Helfer in 2005. Brown can only wonder what might have been without that “C” behind his name. His reluctance to embrace Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s SAFE Act gun control law may have very well cost him a shot at becoming lieutenant governor last year …”
The fallout from SAFE will go on for years and years.
They never learn
I have seen this many times before:
“… “Every time a Democrat starts talking about guns, they lose numbers because it is the Second Amendment,” said Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, a Democratic strategist and lifelong gun owner. “How many gun owners are there in America now? Look it up. There is a bunch of them, and anytime you start talking about guns, you are going to take from your numbers. So there is just less talk [about gun control] now than there has been in forever.” …”
The problem here is that while Democrats aren’t talking about gun control, that does not mean they have given up on the idea.
“… Gun control groups, powered by potentially tens of millions of dollars from former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, vow to press the issue and force candidates to take a stand …”
Who was the last Democrat to listen to Bloomberg? Governor Cuomo. The result of him listening to Bloomberg effectively ended his presidential aspirations.
Will Hillary (and others) learn from this? I wouldn’t count on it.
Trump was never going to run
Donald Trump acknowledges he was never seriously considering running for Governor.
This is going to be a big surprise for some supposedly pro-gun “activists” in WNY who spent last spring pushing for Trump instead of getting behind Rob Astorino from the get-go.
Excerpts from Cuomo’s second inaugural address
Some gun excerpts from Gov. Cuomo’s second inaugural address:
“… we made New York safer by passing sensible gun control … After Sandy Hook when we saw the massacre and we saw the children killed and we said, enough is enough with this lunacy of guns, and you needed a big state to pass sensible gun control who did it? The State of New York did it. We did it first. That is who we are and that is what we come from …”
Um, no, we’re not actually safer:
“The number of shooting victims has skyrocketed across the city this year — up 43 percent in just the last month — while fewer guns are coming off the streets, NYPD statistics reveal … In the last month alone, 129 people were shot, according to the latest CompStat figures, or 43.3 percent more than for the same period last year. Since January, there has been an overall 13.2 percent increase in shooting victims, while 10.2 percent fewer guns have been recovered compared to 2013 …”
Bloomberg came up short
Remember when Mike Bloomberg said he’d spend $50 million to challenge the NRA in this years elections?
He ended up spending half that:
“… The second biggest donor, billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also spent much of his cash — about half of his $27.7 million total — through his own PAC, Independence USA PAC. And, like [Tom] Steyer, Bloomberg had mixed results that raised questions about the effectiveness of his strategy, which sometimes seemed in conflict with itself …”
Karma visits the Republicans
Rob Astorino said he would allow fracking. Senator Young, along with almost all of her Republican colleagues, fucked him over.
Instant Karma is going get you ….
State Sen.Cathy Young:”Gov. Cuomo’s decision to ban exploration of our natural gas resources is a punch in the gut to the Southern Tier.”
— Fredric U. Dicker (@fud31) December 17, 2014