Copyright NYSERDA
Note: Click here for a longer, updated version of this post.
Is he or isn’t he? Like Mario Cuomo, who vacillated about running for president until it was too late and was dubbed Hamlet on the Hudson, Paul Tonko is beginning to look like Hamlet on the Mohawk.
It’s been almost a month since the Daily Gazette’s Michael Lamendola wrote a piece on Tonko’s potential run for Michael McNulty’s 21st Congressional seat, but speculation has been going on for even longer.
In the Daily Gazette article, Lamendola reports, “Tonko said he is not a candidate but is “considering a candidacy because I believe we need a new direction.” He said he would announce his intentions soon.”
The idea that Paul Tonko will take us in a new direction is ludicrous.
Like Barack Obama, the only change Paul Tonko will bring to New Yorkers will be the few coins jingling in our pockets after we get done paying our taxes.
Upstream will be following the 21st Congressional District race in more detail as the race develops.
For the time being, however, Paul Tonko stands on the banks of the Mohawk River, near his native city of Amsterdam and says to himself:
To run, or not to run: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous Republicans,
Or to take arms against a sea of Democratic candidates,
And by opposing end them…
Coin image provided courtesy of www.pachd.com/free-images/
2 Comments
March 27, 2008 at 3:38 pm
In Hawaii, they call it the ‘Alamihi Syndrome’. The alamihi is a native, black crab that always manages to pull down its fellow crabs who attempt to climb up and over the sides of the bucket. Here we have a native son (Tonko) who has managed to position himself (and his community) for a small share of the national spotlight-and his fellow Amsterdamians insist on pulling him down. He represents the first city resident (and most probably last) since the turn of the century to become a US congressman, and yet we look inward and assume our natural, self-deprecating pose as losers who couldn’t possibly be worthy of sending up a noble candidate.
Like the neighbor we once liked and admired 30 years ago, we now focus on all of his familiar foibles- we interpret his ubiquity at potluck dinners, funerals, and church gatherings as political groveling rather than genuine care for his fellow constituents and friends. This is the same jaded mentality that would rather send $16 million of grant $ down the river to Manhattan to fix a pothole on the westside highway, than spend it on our lowly, creaking industrial wasteland of a city. Amsterdam has been suffering a long, steady decline to the peripheries of irrelevance, and men like Paul Tonko (imperfect or not) may represent our last great connection to the halls of influence.
For a change, I suggest my fellow Amsterdamians embrace our last great hope, recognize his innate ability to personally connect to democrats and republicans alike, and most importantly his ability to show that Amsterdam is not a provincial backwater that cares more about pinching its last pennies than taking a shot at turning things around.
March 27, 2008 at 4:07 pm
You make some good points, and I think Paul Tonko is basically a good man. However, he is a “spend and tax” liberal. He knows how to take our money and give it away to everyone else. That, and getting re-elected, is what he is best at and why I won’t support him.