A very interesting final issue of the LC News is out today. I counted 13 political ads in the Geneseo race. There was one each for me, David Dwyer, Patti Lavigne and Wes’s team, however, there were four for Will and/or the Republican team, three for the Democratic team and two for Hop.
One ad, paid for by Hop, is creating a lot of anger in the Democratic Party. The ad features a caricature of Hop looking like the Chaquita banana lady and bears the headline “Is this the man you want on the town board?” Underneath the ad claims to be “Paid for by the Committee Not to Elect Hop”
Insiders recognize that this is intended to be a joke by Hop, but Democrats are afraid that the unsuspecting may think it is a dirty trick placed by them. What makes it particularly nasty is that the cartoon could be seen as a racial slur against Hop’s Asian background, something politically correct Democrats take very seriously.
Is Hop just trying to have fun, or is he going for a sympathy vote from those who are fooled into thinking it is a real attack ad? Knowing Hop, I suspect the former, but it may work in the other direction as well.
The Geneseo Rental Housing issue continues to reverberate in this campaign, although I can’t imagine why. The Will campaign published a rebuttal by Craig Chiara to last week’s letter to the editor from Lizz Savard claiming that Will had “dropped he ball” on negotiations with the village. Will then devoted his entire final column to the same subject.
If it had been me, I would have let that one go and focused on the positive. I doubt the original letter from Lizz was that well-read or did Will much harm. Also, in the category of protesting too much, was Wes’s litany of complaints about all those who have sinned against him.
His enemy list includes PDDG, John Zmich, Bill Lofquist, Dick Gallivan and now Will, for refusing to disown Dick for his involvement in the Conservative petition investigation. Fortunately, as a good Christian, Wes is willing to forgive everybody, even me! I’m giving you the summary here because I’m sure most of you will be too sickened to get through the original.
Finally, the News amended their policy of not printing endorsement letters in the final week to print the letter from Betsy O’ Mara that was left out of last week’s issue. Editor Mark Gillespie assures me that it was not intentional, and since he managed not to take a shot back at me for printing the letter in the Pennysaver, I am prepared to accept his apology and put that episode to rest.
If only he had put the right page number for where the rest of the letter was spilled. You can find it on page A-11 (not A-13)!
