New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Rochester Supervisor Carl Chipman.
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Recycling of waste products is a good idea but recycling of former elected officials to run as candidates is a bad idea. Those former officials do carry political baggage from their past experiences. Many times that baggage is of a negative nature and that is why that person might be a “former” elected official in the first place.
The Republican Party does nothing to foster and nurture quality candidates for elected offices. Old Re-Runs especially with deep pockets seems to be what the party runs mostly for county and state offices out of institutionalized laziness. Our candidates do not get the support they need. This starts at the local level and works its way up to county and local representation at the state level. Most of the time candidates are on their own when it comes to their campaigns. Many times it is only those who have the financial means are able to run at the county wide and state assembly and senate levels. The Democrats on the other hand work much harder to support their candidates. Fundraisers are held from the bottom on up and contributors are vested in ownership of campaigns no matter how small the contribution. This creates broad support for their candidates and success at the polls. Whereas we depend much more on larger contributions by a few and this translates to failure at the polls.
Quality candidates are reluctant to run for office because of the current lack of support they might receive for their efforts. Writing of this reflects my own situation and experience. I am a life-long Republican fiscally conservative elected official who could very easily be labeled a Libertarian on social issues with a sound record of leadership. I’ve lowered taxes in my town during the 6 years I’ve been in office and I believe in minimal government involvement in our lives. I’d love to bring about necessary change and run for higher office but I do not want to be a sacrificial lamb running into slaughter.
The formula for success is not that complicated. There is a lot of dead wood out there that do nothing to support the ideals first espoused by Thomas Jefferson. All too often 2% of our people do 98% of the work while the “do-nothings” share in whatever good comes from those who labor (Sounds a lot like communism doesn’t it?). It’s time to clean out the dead wood from the local level up to the county by recruiting hard working people dedicated to furthering our ideals concerning good government. Now is the time to begin canvassing for candidates to run for committee. Run these new faces against the dead wood. Most of the do nothings won’t be difficult to knock off as they will be too lazy to work for reelection to the committee.
We should be able to reinvigorate our party with our newly formed committees. We need to broaden our base. Doors should be knocked on and phones rung by our committee members inviting members of the community to regularly scheduled events and fundraisers, as well as for recruiting new party members. This should occur year-round and not just at election time. We should always encourage involvement by our membership by creating ad hoc committees for special projects and programs. Much of these activities should be training grounds for our future candidates for elected office and we should encourage our best and brightest workers to run for office starting at the local level.
Support for our elected officials should begin at the local level and continue on up to higher office. The important thing to remember is that our emphasis should be from the bottom up instead of support being from the top down as I see things being done currently. Successful locally elected officials should be encouraged to run for higher office if they choose to do so and properly supported when they do. By building from the bottom up, with candidates who successfully demonstrate our values, will we ever achieve the goal of good government.
Carl Chipman
Supervisor – Town of Rochester
Town of Rochester 
Recently, we had a very clear example of such recycling when a candidate who held all possible offices in town government for 20 years and does not even belong to the Republican party, was recruited to run for Town Board despite approaching the respectable age of 90! (Rochester would have set up a record, electing a 90 years old to office).
Four years ago this gentleman said in the Daily Freeman that he had no clue about town issues but “was asked” to run. So, who asked him to run? you can be sure it was O’Halloran or Bernardo and neither of them had the town’s best interest at heart.
So it appears you are taking the leap Carl. http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20140114/stone-ridge-forum-to-focus-on-regions-power-grid-issues
Who are you going after, Cahill or Tkaczyk?
My intent with my involvement with this forum has nothing to do with political aspirations. Quite honestly I am involved with this as I have been working to build a framework for a locally controlled energy consortium with Citizens For Local Power. My goal is to have local control over our energy needs and to protect our residents from rate increases. I never really thought about any political aspirations being linked with this. I am just trying to be the best leader I can be for our people. There is a push to group the Mid-Hudson area with the NY Metro Area as far as electric transmission rates are assessed and to relieve the transmission bottleneck between upstate and downstate New York which could result in substantial rate increases for our residents. I don’t want to see our citizens paying for downstate’s electrical needs both financially and environmentally. This forum is to inform the public of what is going on and what options are being considered.
I consider my involvement in this forum as just doing my job serving the people I am elected to serve. This is no different than when I spoke out against a Central Hudson rate hike before the PSC a couple of years ago. As a matter of fact Kevin Cahill and I were the only elected officials to do so. By the way Senator Tkaczyk is not our senator in Rochester. We have been gerrymandered into the tip of Repubican Sen. Seward’s district who is close to the Bernardos.
As far as Cahill goes, I have never really thought of running for his seat. Personally I like and respect him although we are miles apart philosophically in many areas. I do however think he might be vulnerable this election for a couple of reasons. The sales tax issue and his rift with Mike Hein has cost him some support within his own party. My gut feeling is that he will face a challenge from his own party by someone like Sue Zimet which could possibly morph into a 3-way race with a Republican challenger running. Cahill’s vote for the SAFE Act could then come back to haunt him as the high emotion against him amongst those who strongly support their second amendment rights organize to support a Republican Pro-Gun candidate. One would think it would be a great opportunity for a strong Republican to emerge as a candidate. Just imagine what a strong Republican candidate could do. But the reality is that we do not have a party which properly backs its candidates, which creates a reluctance for good people to run for office. Therefore we remain the party of missed opportunities while the Democrats grow stronger. As for me, I’ll just concentrate on doing the best job I can for all of the residents of our town.
Hi Carl,
I appreciate you doing the work you are doing on the power issue and hope you are successful.
A legitimate question with your theory on the Republican being backed by the 2nd Amendment folks is that the Bernardo’s courted them and she was their darling in a very strong pro 2nd district. It did not work against the Liberal Archer. Cahill’s district is far more Liberal with Kingston, Woodstock, New Paltz and of course northern Dutchess County. Zimet will never take the chance of being humiliated by Cahill in her own town. She barely won re-election in one of the most Liberal towns in the County against a virtual unknown. I also do not believe there is that much resentment on the Safety Net issue outside of some politicians and party people. I am not saying it is irrelevant, I just don’t see the average voter giving a crap about 2 politicians fighting with each other. No ones taxes went up, no one was laid off, there was literally no impact to voters over the whole thing and Cahill is smart enough to know how to remind the voters of that.
I agree, the Republican party is a mess. Rudderless and with no improvement on the foreseeable horizon.
This is a funny picture. It is all about Andrew. Is Chipman even in the picture? LOL!