Sbaraglia and Morgan combined will barely finish third, so to blame Lee for "costing" Andy the election is ridiculous, since Sbaraglia was barely a contender to begin with. Pilchesky apparently agrees, as the posthas since been removed.
Cashuric coming in third. (The DD link connection comes back to hurt? Let's ask Hubbard. Is he going to even get halfway to 250? )
He'll claim resounding victory, though, I'm sure, because it looks like Joe Gatelli won't make the cut.
I'm sure that they will claim the Gatelli loss ...
Here is what I think ... I think that they do have quite a following over there ... but it seems it is not the type of following that they would like it to be as they have little or no political impact ... or do they ... people go there and they do the opposite of what Joey wants them to do. Or at least that's how it appears to be ... if he truly does have 1,554 registered members that are all on the same side of his political war. hmmmmm
I wish to send out my congratulations to all of the candidates that were successful in Tuesday's Primary Election ... and at this time I would also like to say thank you to those of you who did not make it through the Primary as it was a great service to you community to be so interested in the direction that the City is taking ... so thank you all for your efforts. And hey there is always next time.
Lus
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I want everyone to stop and think about one thing ... Joe Pilchesky is not a lawyer ... he's just a guy playing a lawyer on the internet. Please don't trust your legal needs to this man.
But...but...but...the DD endorsed slade WAS FOR THE PEOPLE*!!
(*) People being defined as those individuals who allow Joe Pilchesky to think for them. All kidding aside, I'm glad that Cordaro won his primary election (I did lodge my protest Democratic write-in vote for him). Now Pilchesky can continue to play his little legal games to try and get him out of office, with hopeful result that Cordaro will win and Pilchesky will be held liable for his legal fees. As for me, I now I have to actually start looking into where Corey O'Brien stands on the issues.
On the County Controller side, I'm thrilled that Mellow lost. Given the financial fiasco of the previous Commissioners and the current administration's fiscal habits, you get the impression that no one was acting as Controller. I did vote for Cashuric though.
City Council? I'm shocked that 1800 people actually voted for Lee Morgan. It makes you wonder how many votes, say, someone naned 'Zippy the Pinhead' would get if that name was placed on the ballot. My guess? About 1800.
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Free Speech does't require a multi-paragrah disclaimer Mr. Pilchesky.
Hey, everybody. Thought I'd drop by to give you my take on the whole thing.
1. The DD postings had little to no effect on the results. You give WAY too much credit to the board. 2. My primary objective was the defeat of John Mellow. I'm not saying every one of my votes would have gone to Mellow, but I think a good deal of my vote was Mellow's and not Kenny's. Add my votes to John's and the percentages get interesting. 3. I'm not Irish. Most of the new people who won in the city and county were Irish. If you don't have $100,000, you gotta be Irish. 4. I was outspent 14-to-1 by Kenny and don't have a famous last name. 5. Andy and Lee were not winning. Nothing personal. Greg Popil was not winning either. Who else was there? 6. There are apparently 12,000insane people running loose around the county who actually voted for John Mellow. There is NO excuse for that. 7. And if you guys want to talk about sleazy campaign tactics, call up Susan Patte and ask her why she and her mentally-challenged son were running a smear campaign against me at the county building for three days before the election.
This is great. Now I can post at TWO message boards.
GC
(edited only for font size) (cause I am old and can't see anymore LOL LOL )
-- Edited by IHavehadenoughofhaters at 14:15, 2007-05-16
Welcome Glenn. It is good to have you here. I am sure our Admin will send out the welcome wagon and roll out the proverbial red carpet for you, as she does for every new member.
Just watch your spelling - we're sticklers for spelling !
I've never agreed with the "If you take these votes and put them there, then this would have happened" argument. It's simply faulty logic in a bowl of sour grapes. To use a ridiculously simple analogy:
PB&J--100 votes Bologna--62 Grilled Cheese--37
Some would argue that if Grilled Cheese never entered the race, then Oscar Mayer would have won made it on the cafeteria menu. Or "add Grilled's votes to Bolognas, and the totals get interesting."
How come you never hear about most (even half?) of those 37 votes going to PB&J camp, and making the election even more of a runaway? Maybe at this point in time, the people just don't think the bologna or grilled cheese sandwiches are the sandwiches for the job, not that they aren't delicious in their own right. Maybe we're just sick of bologna (as has been known to happen), but a cheese sandwich just seems kind of bland.
"He's Irish and I'm not" is such an ignorant excuse. It amazes me that in 2007, we're still dismissing people purely on insignificant things like their last name, their accent, or the shade of their skin. Welcome to the 21st century, a global community. Given the number of people of Irish decent in NEPA, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that there are more Irish surnames in local government? There are probably more Irish names in teaching, or law, or the grocery business, too, percentage-wise. Where's the outrage there?
While many of your posts both here and at DD, including your letter to Ag, seem pretty well thought out and reasonable, the above two points you seem to be making just seem to be grasping at straws looking for an excuse, IMO.
Good luck in future elections, if that's in your plans. Looking forward to yoru insight here in the meantime.
I agree with Paul on the "Irish" thing. I'm not buying it. (I'm not Irish either)
Also, McDowell doesn't really have a famous last name - he's not like a political hybrid or anything. Not sure how or why he won, I honestly thought you'd do better.
I also look forward to reading your posts here. As I said before, you seem like a reasonable man.
A word of caution to you though - Joe hates when people post here and on his site. You'll probably get a warning from him and if you push him you'll get banned. Every poster here has been banned from that site for nothing more than disagreeing with him. I know you've said that you regularly disagree without any compalints from Joe, you should expect that to end now that you're posting here.
"He's Irish and I'm not" is such an ignorant excuse. It amazes me that in 2007, we're still dismissing people purely on insignificant things like their last name, their accent, or the shade of their skin. Welcome to the 21st century, a global community. Given the number of people of Irish decent in NEPA, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that there are more Irish surnames in local government? There are probably more Irish names in teaching, or law, or the grocery business, too, percentage-wise. Where's the outrage there?
Unfortunately, this is NEPA, and there are many boneheaded dolts in this area who still vote on ethnicity. Why do you think they always balance the county comissioner candidates based on ethnicity? You never see two Irish candidates, or two Italians, two Polish, etc.
Personally, I think anyone who votes based on ethnic background (or even uninformed straight party voting without first taking a hard look at the individual candidates) should not vote at all.
Don't suffer from the delusion that ethnicity is not a MAJOR factor (and sometimesTHE deciding factor) in county elections. As I said, Kenny had the money, but don't ever think that the last name doesn't work wonders in the city. Who won the school board races? Oleski? Matyjevich? Minicozzi? Nope. I also find it amazing that in 2007, such things matter. But they do, and I respectfully submit that it demonstrates ignorance of the political system to suggest otherwise.
That said, I lost, and the only reason for losing was not getting enough votes. But kindly show me where Kenny (or the incumbent) did ANYTHING but promote his name. Come on.
All he did do was promote his name. And that's all it took. Simple name recognition. Doesn't matter if it was Irish, or Polish, or Italian, or Greek, or whatever. No offense, but your involvement in this election was even less noticable than Mellow's. All we heard about was Kenny McDowell, for better or worse. His was the only name associated with the race. You seemed to run a low key, albeit honest campaign, on a sensible platform, but there was little, if any, self promotion. 300 signs countywide? Really?
You may have had the cure for cancer, but if you stay in the shadows like that, who's going to know who you are?
McDowell aggressively pursued that office, and it paid off. You campaigned as if someone was going to just hand it to you.
I'll say it again: you may be have been the perfect person for the job with all the right answers. But if someone's going to run a one dimensional campaign in NEPA, it better be a self serving one, or it stands no chance. Name recognition will almost always trump a good platform, regardless of the ethnicity of the name.
I'm not looking to split hairs with you here - so please don't take any of this the wrong way.
Once again though, I must agree with Paul. McDowell was a twice elected official, you knew that going in. You also seem to know the political landscape pretty well. That said, why would you spend one dime on a campaign you knew you were going to lose if all it comes down to is money? You needed to get in the trenches, have some fundraisers, have more fundraisers, then have a few more fundraisers. You needed to knock on doors, borrow some cash for TV ads, and call McDowell out on his poor performance. Paul was right, your approach was way too low key - almost non-commital.
People often ask "why would a guy spend (insert a large amount of money here) for a job that only pays (insert small salary here)? The answer is because thwey want that job really, really bad. I don't know why, but they do. If you want one of those jobs you're going to need to get your hair messed and take a few risks. If you don't you're wasting your time and money on a losing effort before you ever leave the gate.
I've been asking around about you. Word is that you're a very sharp guy - one that would have run circles around McDowell in any kind of debate or forum. Next time go after him, play to win.
That said, I can't beleive I'm actually discussing this with you on a message board. I appreciate your willingness to be upfront about your identity, but these boards (with all due respect to our fine host and fellow guests) seem to be a poor place to make any real progress on issues. IMHO of course.
Glenn Cashuric wrote:Hey, everybody. Thought I'd drop by to give you my take on the whole thing.
1. The DD postings had little to no effect on the results. You give WAY too much credit to the board. Not sure I agree completely with that statement.I agree they dont have enough influence to get someone elected, but I do think they can take away votes which could be a problem in a close race.However. I do not mean take away from the candidate they are working against, I mean lose votes for the person they want to win. I firmly believe they cost Gary Debileo many many votes in the Mayoral election.Gary was seen as being part of that gang and it hurt him big time in my opinion. 2. My primary objective was the defeat of John Mellow. I'm not saying every one of my votes would have gone to Mellow, but I think a good deal of my vote was Mellow's and not Kenny's. Add my votes to John's and the percentages get interesting. I agree that in a three way election the vote becomes very split.Would you have received enough votes who knows?However some of those votes would almost certainly have gone to you as would some to other guy whoever that was at the time.There seems to be little doubt (at least if I read the obit after the race clearly) that the entrance of a third candidate almost always changes the predicted outcome of a race.(i.e. the presidential race Bush / Clinton/ Perot 3. I'm not Irish. Most of the new people who won in the city and county were Irish. If you don't have $100,000, you gotta be Irish. I am not sure its because they are Irish (though Irish they maybe) I think its more a function of networking and the fact that the Irish ( btw I am Irish) just have a larger population in Scranton. Networking among the political people is essential to name recognition.Munchak is not an Irish name nor is Wentzel (as far as I know) and they both have won major offices.Soooooooo there is something else at play here. Oh and having money to spend is essential regardless of your heritage. 4. I was outspent 14-to-1 by Kenny and don't have a famous last name. See above 5. Andy and Lee were not winning. Nothing personal. Greg Popil was not winning either. Who else was there? AgreedI know nothing about Andy except he is one of the goon squads choices which was enough for me to say no.Lee?? please nuff said there!!Too bad about Popil smart guy not very personable but understands finance which would have been nice for change.I gave him my vote along with Mr. McGoff 6. There are apparently 12,000insane people running loose around the county who actually voted for John Mellow. There is NO excuse for that. LOL LOL 7. And if you guys want to talk about sleazy campaign tactics, call up Susan Patte and ask her why she and her mentally-challenged son were running a smear campaign against me at the county building for three days before the election. Nuff said on that also!!I have no time for smear campaigns.Run hard run clean run like you are a mile behind and 2 days late, then let the chips fall where they may.You may lose the election but you wont lose your good name. This is great. Now I can post at TWO message boards.
GC Glenn we are thrilled to have you.I sure hope you can post at two but Joey gets real cranky about any of his posting over here.So be forewarned. LOL LOL. We on the other hand wont ban you for practically anything.We may take down a post which is offensive (language, rumor or so forth) but thats about it.
People often ask "why would a guy spend (insert a large amount of money here) for a job that only pays (insert small salary here)? The answer is because thwey want that job really, really bad..."
Mostly, they fail to consider that the money being spent is contributed monies, not their cashed in IRA or kids college fund. Nobody's having garage sales to finance a run for school board, you know? (Hey...that's not a half bad idea.)
If someone was spending $100,000.00 of THEIR OWN MONEY for a $50,000.00 job, I'd have serious reservations about voting for them, and their ability to handle the checkbook. If, instead of trying to raise funds for months in advance to build up a war chest and get his name out there, their campaign consisted of little more than 300 signs scattered throughout the entire county and a few posts on a couple message boards, I'd question their commitment to the office and me the voter.
I've never run for anything, and I don't fancy myself a politician. But this isn't Political Science 101. It's more like Remedial Common Sense. You may be book smart, but you ran that campaign like you were street stupid. Stop making excuses and blaming the other guy for a poorly run campaign on your part. Learn from your mistakes and act like you want the job next time.
Welcome Glenn. It is good to have you here. I am sure our Admin will send out the welcome wagon and roll out the proverbial red carpet for you, as she does for every new member.
Just watch your spelling - we're sticklers for spelling !
Girl you know me so very well ... I sent the carpet out for cleaning and well I just got it back ... sorry Glenn I did not mean to wait so long to roll it out for you!
Welcome to PD Glenn
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I want everyone to stop and think about one thing ... Joe Pilchesky is not a lawyer ... he's just a guy playing a lawyer on the internet. Please don't trust your legal needs to this man.
I just have to say that this is one of the best threads I've read at any message board in a long time. This is what local political discourse should be...not the innuendo filled, Jr High schoolgirl rumor crap that passes for most of the discourse at DD.
Oh, I'd like to join everyone else in welcoming Glenn to the board. Feel free to post her and at DD for as long as Pilchesky will let you Glenn. The others are right though...he values loyalty to him above all else.
PS...couldn't agree more with the comments about Mellow. It was long time for him to go (well, for both elected Mellows to go...but I'll take one out of two).
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Free Speech does't require a multi-paragrah disclaimer Mr. Pilchesky.
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Welcome to PD Glenn
