21st Congressional District Debate

Eight candidates to replace Mike McNulty showed up for the debate sponsored by Democracy for the Mohawk-Hudson Region and the RFK Democratic Club:

• John Aretakis,
Local lawyer representing kids who were victims of child abuse by priests. Scourge of the local diocese. Made a point that he'd committed $200,000 of his own money for the race and his family had committed another $100,000.

• Tracey Brooks.
Kind of got swamped. No mistakes, but didn't stand out.

• Craig Burridge.
Formerly with a pharmacist trade association. OK, but didn't stand out.

• Lester Freeman.
Charming and funny. Young.

• Darius Shahinfar.
Favorite of a number of DFMHR members, probably going back to the Kirsten Gillibrand race, when she beat John Sweeney. Gillibrand left an Albany County job to run Gillibrand's local office. Not a polished speaker yet, but rebounded with humor after suffering a brain cramp. Seemed like he memorized his speech, forgot a major point and then couldn't go on. But he handled the follow up well and with humor. It did highlight his relative youth and inexperience. This probably should not have been his first electoral race.

• Paul Tonko.
Former Assemblyman and head of the State's Energy Research and Development Agency. Did well and probably the heavy-weight in the room, but did not overwhelm his opponents. The emphasis on energy issues played to his experience in the field.

• Phil Steck.
Current Albany County Legislator. Emphasized his labor and civil rights oriented legal practice and his political skills in finally beating the Republicans in Colonie.

• Arthur Welser.
Showed up in a t-shirt. His big idea is to have a separate draft for school drop-outs. The evening's comic relief.

Pretty good event with a big crowd. Folks in the audience that wouldn't typically show up in these meetings, McNulty the elder, McEneny.

Number of the candidates that are former Republicans of fairly recent vintage surprised me. Only two have held elective office (Tonko and Steck). Given that it's a Congressional seat we're talking about, most of the candidates here are pretty green.

Lots of discussion of energy policy, maybe even more than health care. Also energy discussion had more variety than that on health care which except for a couple seemed pretty pro forma support of HR 676, the single-payer proposal.

Lots of opposition to the war, but far from unanimous on how to get out. All opposed restoring the draft, but Freeman mentioned Cong. Charlie Rangel's proposal to start it up again. Tonko made a point about the racial and ethnic mix of the current army, suggesting that it's minorities that are bearing more than their share of the cost of the war. True and proper that he noticed. But opposing the draft and having raised the mix issue, he didn't propose any response.