PlanetAlbany

Pataki and NY-23

Fred Dicker said on his Talk 1300 radio show this morning that George Pataki's endorsement of Conservative Doug Hoffman in the 23rd Congressional District must mean the former governor will not run for U.S. Senate next year against Kirsten Gillibrand. I think the opposite -- or at least that it depends on what happens Tuesday in the congressional vote. Dicker's reasoning is that Pataki's abandonment of the GOP congressional candidate, Dede Scozzafava, will alienate his fellow Republicans to the extent that they would refuse to hand him the nomination for Senate. But maybe his analysis is clouded by his enmity to Pataki .

If Hoffman wins, he is likely to become a more reliable Republican vote in the House than Scozzafava, and will very probably be the Republican nominee in 2010. And even if he loses to Democrat Bill Owens, he is still likely to wind up ahead of Scozzafava, demonstrating that it was a mistake for party leaders to give her the nomination. Pataki, who moved to the dysfunctional middle of New York politics during his 12 years as governor, won back some conservative street cred with the endorsement. That will be politically helpful if he goes after the Senate seat.

Is the Guild's TU boycott working?

This TU story today on newspaper circulation figures says, "For the Times Union, the numbers were a mixed bag." Not really. The partly positive spin is possible because "Sunday circulation grew during the six-month reporting period, to 143,424 from 143,261 a year earlier." OK, that's nice, Sunday circulation is up 163. The Sunday has circulation-boosting gimmicks such as linkages to other weekly newspaper subscriptions, and maybe they're bearing some fruit.

Meanwhile, "the newspaper's Monday-through-Friday circulation decreased to 73,444 in the most recent reporting period, which concluded at the end of September, from 83,496 a year earlier." So, daily circulation is down by more than 10,000. That sounds more like an unqualified disaster than a mixed bag to me, despite the ludicrously positive quote attributed to Publisher George R. Hearst III. It's a lot worse result than at the still sinking Daily Gazette of Schenectady, which "had weekday circulation fall from 47,452 to 45,241 and Sunday circulation drop from 47,766 to 45,357."

And here is a possible explanation.

PIC right to close Kennedy leak case

I have no particular objection to bashing the NYS Public Integrity Commission for mishandling ancient scandals, but I can't share the outrage of the normally sensible Blair Horner and David Grandeau on the Caroline Kennedy affair. Nor did I ever quite get the faux-chivalrous media kerfuffle on behalf of Poor Princess Caroline, which seems like an excuse to keep bashing the governor. No doubt the Paterson administration should not have leaked whatever it leaked regarding her employment of a nanny -- or whatever the hell was or was not at issue. But if Troopergate was a pretty weak scandal, with the cover-up worse than the crime, this one is dishwater thin, and well past its sell-by date.

Another budget-cutting idea NY leaders will ignore

Our would-be fiscally responsible Gov. Paterson asks today: "Did you know that New York spends more per capita on Medicaid ($2,283) than any other state and twice the national average?"

The governor is right that there is room to cut Medicaid. But I don't think he'll be pointing out that unlike most states, New York currently covers the full costs of Medicaid abortions. (The Hyde Amendment bars the federal government from funding abortion through Medicaid, although it won't stop the new public option from paying for the procedure.)

New York leaders seem no more likely to cut abortion funding than they are to restrain the creation and destruction of human embryos at taxpayer expense, a pet project of Paterson's.

The TU on drugs

Paul Grondahl's ongoing Times Union series about "Poppy," a homeless drug and alcohol addict in Albany, is gripping and well done, and even better when combined with the online videos. But this piece of contemporary conventional wisdom grates, in a Sunday sidebar paraphrasing what "scientists" say: "Addiction is not a character flaw or sign of moral weakness."

No doubt that's what Grondahl was told, and I realize that the structure of people's brains may predispose them to addiction, which then reinforces itself by altering brain cells. I'm aware that bravely vowing to beat the drug may just set the user up for relapse, and that Poppy himself had a horrendous childhood which obviously damaged him.

But disparaging any talk of character or morality as blaming the victim skates past less visible victims, such as the former brother-in-law almost beaten to death by Poppy. Grondahl shows the humanity of Poppy and his companions, that their fates are significant and that like everyone else they make moral choices for good or ill in day-to-day living. Their circumstances are harder, and I'm not interested in pronouncing judgment. I just affirm the existence of an inherent human capacity to demonstrate good or bad character. To deny that to Poppy is to demean and condescend to him. Nor is it a promising treatment strategy to trade in the possibility of redemption for deterministic hopelessness.

Scientists can measure the effects of this brain disease. Addiction is not a character flaw or sign of moral weakness, they note, and it's not the exclusive to humans. In experiments with lab mice, the rodents will continue to take ever-increasing amounts of alcohol and drugs until they die.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?category=&storyID=857105&BCCode=&newsdate=10/25/2009#ixzz0V4o4SzRZ

Scientists can measure the effects of this brain disease. Addiction is not a character flaw or sign of moral weakness, they note, and it's not the exclusive to humans. In experiments with lab mice, the rodents will continue to take ever-increasing amounts of alcohol and drugs until they die.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?category=&storyID=857105&BCCode=&newsdate=10/25/2009#ixzz0V4o4SzRZ

Scientists can measure the effects of this brain disease. Addiction is not a character flaw or sign of moral weakness, they note, and it's not the exclusive to humans. In experiments with lab mice, the rodents will continue to take ever-increasing amounts of alcohol and drugs until they die.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?category=&storyID=857105&BCCode=&newsdate=10/25/2009#ixzz0V4o4SzRZ

Gimme gimme gimme

Among the special interests complaining about Gov. Paterson's budgeting are a bipartisan collection of Saratoga Springs elected officials. They are not protesting some new proposed cut, but demanding a restoration of funding that was cut previously, a $3.8 million annual gift that state taxpayers used to pay the small, prosperous city because it is host to a harness race track. There's no rational reason why that should entitle it to state subsidies, but local leaders have a point when they say state politics are involved. They never would have lost the money back when Joe Bruno (whose district included Saratoga) and his Republican majority ruled the Senate, and the Senate's current Democratic chiefs have been busy redirecting the pork flow to their own members' districts (which are mostly downstate).

Still, the Saratoga leaders deserve some kind of chutzpah award. With the governor issuing repeated warnings about looming fiscal peril, their reaction is to present a preposterous petition demanding more money from the state. Good luck with that.

This time, open the front door

Talk 1300 right-wing radio guru Paul Vandenburgh latched on to this story in today's Times Union  to sound his familiar theme about how it's time to tear down old buildings in city downtowns. I don't agree, and am hopeful a new tenant will be found for Kiernan Plaza, which once upon a time was Albany's Union Station. Now there is no railroad station in the city, and Vandenburgh is right that they never should have moved it to Rensselaer. But putting a new station in the city was floated a decade or so ago as part of a plan to start a commuter rail line to Saratoga Springs, which was opposed by Vandenburgh and his friend then-Rep. John Sweeney, and unfortunately never got off the ground.

Despite the recession, it shouldn't be hard to find a better tenant for Kiernan Plaza than the Bank of America. There is the parking garage out back, by I-787, through which bank employees came and went and which will be convenient for their successors. A few years ago, after hearing something about the impressive interior of this old building, which had been refurbished at considerable public expense, I wandered up to the front door on Broadway and was surprised to find it locked. It was always locked. Apparently the bank didn't want people wandering in, and didn't want to pay a security guard to staff the entrance.

"It was kind of closed up," the TU quotes Mayor Jerry Jennings as saying, along with good stuff about how he aims to find new tenants and have the building do more for downtown. Maybe Jerry's thinking has evolved in this area. He's done a lot for downtown Albany, but it could have been done better.

Paterson puts cards in play

Gov. Paterson may seem like Rodney Dangerfield these days, but he's making legislative leaders aware in advance of tomorrow morning's public meeting that until the Legislature actually make cuts, he's the one in charge of the budget process. Budget Director Robert Megna issued a statement this evening saying that if nothing is done the state will likely run out of money in December, when the executive branch will decide which scheduled payments will and will not get made to school districts, local governments et al. Here's the statement:

"“Unless action is taken to address New York’s current-year budget deficit, our State government is likely to face significant cash-flow difficulties beginning in December. During that month, several substantial local assistance payments are scheduled to be made, including $2.5 billion in STAR and $1.6 billion in School Aid funding for school districts, $500 million in funding for city governments, and $500 million in funding for county governments, among others.

“Based on current revenue trends, the state may not have the resources necessary to make all of those expenditures. If no corrective action is taken, we will have to begin to make difficult choices about which payments to delay. These delays could create a trickledown effect on local governments and service providers across the state as those organizations continue to face similar cash-flow difficulties of their own. And if revenues further deteriorate beyond current projections, the State’s cash-flow difficulties may become even more severe.

“New York also faces the possibility of a credit rating downgrade. A credit rating downgrade makes it more expensive for the State to borrow money, which means that fewer tax dollars will be available for critical priorities like education, health care, and other policy areas. In 2002-03, when the State delayed $1.9 billion in payments because of a mid-year deficit, its credit rating was lowered from AA to AA-.

“Across the nation, we can see the potential consequences of failing to address our fiscal problems in an expeditious manner. California was forced to issue IOUs and saw its credit rating downgraded to BBB -- the lowest in the nation and one notch above junk-bond status. In Pennsylvania, school districts were forced to turn to short-term borrowing when the state delayed nearly $1.5 billion in school aid payments during a 101-day budget impasse. Governor Paterson has said we cannot and will not allow New York to face a similar fiscal calamity. He believes that we need to act and we need to act now.”

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How to cut budget, irk governor

Oh so predictably, everyone from public-employee unions to newspaper editorialists to pious environmentalists are bemoaning Gov. Paterson's proposed budget cuts without suggesting any alternatives that might make the numbers add up. Here's one, which would have the additional advantage of annoying the governor: Stop contesting this lawsuit, which seeks to block the state from paying women to donate their eggs for the creation of human embryos to be used and killed in stem cell research. New York is the only state planning to spend money for that purpose.

Pooh-bahs throw Sozzafava an anvil

Watertown Mayor Jeff Graham, who has gone along with his Independence Party in backing Republican Dede Scozzafava for Congress, seems increasingly disillusioned with his candidate and her prospects. Meanwhile, what passes for the Republican establishment in New York, from Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb to his predecessor Jim Tedisco, have gotten behind Scozzafava's sinking candidacy in the 23rd Congressional District.

Tedisco tells Jimmy Vielkind: "It can't be a coincidence that her contrast ads are not perceived well just like my contrast ads were not perceived well. There's a reason for that--she's an elected official who's got a record." No, Jim, that may be why the Democrats' lying ads worked against you in the 20th district in March, but it doesn't explain why her own ads drive voters away, just like yours did. Here's why: Your ads attacking Democrat Scott Murphy were transparently phony, as are her attacks on the Conservative and Democratic candidates. She tries to tie the Democrat to the liberal policies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when Scozzafava's own record on major issues lines up with Pelosi's. She's more liberal that you, Jim, but like you is trying to b.s. the voters. And as a great Republican once said, you can't fool all of the people all of the time.