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Politics Western New York Style

Tuesday Sept. 9, 2008, was Primary Day across New York State. Wednesday Sept. 10, 2008 elected officials, Democratic Party County Chairmen, the Buffalo News, radio talk shows, Union leaders, Retired U.S. Army Generals, Bloggers, et al, across New York State were shaking their heads and asking themselves, “What the hell just happened.”

What happened was testimony to the fact that a person with intelligence, a legitimate plan, and a desire to stick with the issues can win an election even though they had been considered a minor irritant in the big congressional picture.

Victory sure can be sweet.

At approximately 10:40PM Tuesday night, the Associated Press called the Democratic Party primary for the 26th U.S. Congressional District seat for the state of New York. Alice Kryzan was declared the winner. Western New York and National Democratic Party politics had been shaken to the bone.

Let me tell you about Alice. Alice is a 60 year old retired Environmental Lawyer. She is soft spoken, carries a big smile, is intelligent, concerned, imaginative, hard working, confident and fearless. She has a message of hope for one of the most depressed areas of not only the State of New York, but, the United States as a whole.

Lined up against her was locally popular industrialist and two time endorsed Democratic Party standard bearer for this same congressional seat, Jack Davis. Mr. Davis promised to spend up to $3 million of his own money to win this race.

The third candidate was the 30 year old Jon Powers. Mr. Powers was the media and blog darling of the campaign. He was in Newsweek magazine for starting a kids charity while a serving in Iraq, War Kids Relief. Every single time he was written up in the media it was, Jon Powers, Iraq War Veteran. A piece of free advertising from an adoring media who like most had come to the conclusion that service automatically qualifies you for politics and guarantees your success.

Powers was endorsed by Viet Nam and other Veterans groups, members of the U.S. Senate John Kerry and Bob Kerrey and Pennsylvania Congressman Patrick Murphy, retired Generals Wesley Clark and Paul Eaton, all 7 Democratic Party County Chairmen in the congressional district, the minor Working Family Party, the New York State AFL-CIO and over 30 individual labor unions, four large PACs, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Red to Blue Program, and nearly every Democratic/Progressive blog in the state one of who routinely cross posted on the Daily Kos and Huffington. His campaign had raised over $1,000,000 for this primary run.

As for miss Kryzan, she had her family, her friends, her neighbors, her law associates, local environmental groups, a respected now retired long time Congressman John LaFalce, the National Organization of Women PAC, and two small local blogs - Buffalo 14228 (Amherst, NY) and Women With Opinions (Rochester, NY). The total amount of money she had raised and was prepared to used for this campaign, $444,000. That was less than half the money Powers controlled and roughly one-seventh Davis commanded.

What happened that caused her to win. In the end the voter found out that she was the only candidate in control of herself and her campaign. Davis and Powers took a battle axe to each other. As the campaign wore on they became more and more childish and more and more self-destructive,. Near the end it became obvious that neither of them offered much and neither belonged in Washington. There's was a battle of imagine and "form over substance" The voters of the district would have none of it and decided enough is enough. They chose Alice. She was the statesman amongst the group. She had control of the situation.

What really makes this refreshing is that both Mr. Powers and Mr. Davis have only recently become Democrats after being lifelong Republicans. Mr. Davis switched 4 years ago as a result of his disagreement over federal trade policy. Mr. Powers changed 3 years ago over Iraq. Not that he was against the war in Iraq. He was against the way the war in Iraq was being handled.

In the end a Democrat won a Democratic Party primary.

If you are interested in helping Ms. Kryzan campaign against a Republican by the name of Christopher Lee click on KryzanforCongress.com. By the way. Mr. Lee has a personal fortune of over $100 million dollars and will try to spend his way to victory.