Primary Day is Finally Here!

Over the past several weeks I've been bombarded by political phone calls, the majority of them encouraging me to vote for one of the many Dems running for Attorney General.  I say 'many Dems' because I'm really not sure how many there are, I think five, which is typical of our party.  Why not put up a whole mess o folks, spend a whole mess o money, do a whole mess of character assassination, and then rally round the standard-bearer after the primary and on into November. Fortunately tomorrow is Primary Day, I can vote, and move on.

It's interesting to see when they were calling, and what it may mean about their momentum, their money, or their chances. Sean Coffey I heard from early and often, at least seven calls in the last week of August and into the first week of September, but basically nothing since about September 4th. Kathleen Rice left me a few phone messages, and she's had the most ads on TV, but it's been a few days since I heard from her last. Eric Schneiderman has been the big bell-ringer of late, with a call a day for the past four days. To his credit, his supporters at least seem human; they do more than mumble their candidate's name and ask if I'm going to vote for him. Today's caller mentioned the new voting machines with the giant paper ballots we get to slide into the scanners, and she was the second one to ask me if I had any questions about her guy. That's much more than any of the others have done. Some of Sean Coffey's supporters I couldn't even understand, and had to ask them to repeat his name a couple of times.

Until today, I had not received a single call asking for my support for Richard Brodsky - but today my mayor called me and asked me to support him.  And I also received my first and likely only call from Eric Dinallo, former head of the NYS Insurance Department. While I'm not likely to vote for him, he gets my vote for the most original campaign call: Hi, this is Eric Dinallo-- WAIT, Don't Hang Up! -- and then goes into his speech. 

I question how much impact the AG can or should have on 'reforming Albany' or 'reforming Wall Street' -- that's Steamroller Spitzer's old line (emphasis on old) and it may be time for us to move on -- but that's about all the candidates talk about. There must be something for NY's AG to focus on, something that has meaning for the average New Yorker -- after all, there are five of them running...

In the overall scheme of things, I don't think this will be the most important vote I'll cast this year.  Mostly I'm just looking forward to some peace and quiet during the dinner hour.