Sometimes campaigns just put out statements to keep their candidate's name in the news... and by sometimes I mean often.

Today I received a release from Kathy Marchione's campaign for the 43rd Senate seat currently held by Roy McDonald.

The race for the Republican line has already been contentious with strange phantom endorsements in their race to the right.

Today's statement from the Marchione camp is also about a phantom vote.

Responding to a New York Post report by Fred Dicker, Marchione blasted the politics-as-usual back-door deals that she suspects are happening (and probably with good reason, knowing Albany) where word is legislators have been discussing giving themselves a raise (wish I could do that).

"This is typical Albany: secret meetings and shady deals that we don't know about until leaked," she said in a statement. "If Albany politicians want to give themselves a raise, they should propose the idea publicly prior to the election but I for one don't believe one is warranted."

Pointing to high taxes and unemployment and the sentencing of "yet another state senator" for tax evasion, Marchione said she thinks the last thing that politicians need is a raise (here here).

Then comes the political plug: "Roy McDonald needs to clearly and publicly promise that he will not go along with this proposal," she said in the last line of the release.

And so he did (when I asked his campaign manager).

"Senator McDonald has consistently expressed his opposition to pay raises for legislators," said McDonald spokesman Mike Veitch, who then upped the ante. "He's even gone as far to say that the amount of time spent in Albany, along with pay, should be reduced."

I personally think they should pay us, but I don't know if that would pass in either chamber.

Anyway, not a bad thing to get McDonald on-record with opposing the imminent pay raise... if that's even happening.

Until next time, stay classy Saratoga [and I don't know if John Tighe stole that from me (who stole that from Anchorman) but I'm launching an official inquiry].

And cue the political fallout:

Wednesday night, John "Jasper" Nolan told me there would be no Saratoga County GOP Committee endorsement because they did not want people outside the 43rd Senate District voting.

Instead, the previous Friday, he declared Roy McDonald the winner based on 59 percent of the Saratoga County GOP Committee members WITHIN THE 43RD SENATE DISTRICT voting for Sen. McDonald.

Nolan said it made more sense than having the entire committee -- half of which (Clifton Park, Ballston, Charlton, Milton, Galway, Providence, Edinburg, Corinth, Hadley and Day) will not eventually be included in the 43rd district -- vote on the endorsement.

He said those on "the other side" want the whole committee to vote on who the Saratoga GOP Committee endorses, something he called "kind of crazy."

By "other side" I took him to mean supporters of Kathy Marchione, the other Republican candidate running for the 43rd District, not Democrats.

Thursday, Chairman of the Wilton GOP Committee Scott Kingsly said he is "deeply troubled by and disappointed in the leadership of Chairman Nolan by his recent decision not to call a meeting of the Saratoga County Republican Committee."

Perhaps most intriguing about this statement is the fact that Kingsley says he personally supports McDonald, meaning the lack of a vote is not just alienating those on "the other side" but also those who were on Nolan's.

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.

Later in the day, the Marchione camp shot off a press release welcoming Nolan's withdrawal of "fraudulent McDonald Endorsement."

I forwarded that release to McDonald's camp and asked for a reply, but haven't heard back yet.

“After the events of the past week, I think it’s more apparent than ever that we need to have a fair and open meeting to decide who our party will support for State Senate,” Marchione said in the release. She is now calling for "a fair and open meeting of the Saratoga County Republican Committee."

She then said McDonald should want to join her in the process, after "previously embrac(ing) the fraudulent endorsement and the backroom politics behind it.
"This is Saratoga County, not Albany. That doesn't sell here," she said.
Here's the release from Kingsley.

(Wilton, NY, May 31, 2012). Today, Scott Kingsley, chair of the Republican Committee in the town of Wilton, responds to media reports that Jasper Nolan is refusing to call a meeting of the Saratoga County Republican Committee to endorse a candidate in the 43^rd State Senate race.

“I am deeply troubled by and disappointed in the leadership of Chairman Nolan by his recent decision not to call a meeting of the Saratoga County Republican Committee.

As a personal supporter of Senator McDonald, I am offended that I will not be able to represent my election district and formally verbalize that support in terms of a vote. As the chairman of the entire Wilton delegation, I have a duty to protect against the disenfranchisement of the majority of my colleagues that support Kathy Marchione.

While there is a disagreement between the two parties as per process of such a meeting, because the written rules are silent, standard Robert’s rules of Order suggests that the entire body vote on the rules.

It is unfortunate that democracy within the Saratoga County Republican Committee takes it on the chin before Chairman Nolan loses a vote. Because of the chairman’s actions, bringing the party together after the primary will even be harder. I am afraid that this primary may become more about party leadership than any particular issue (sic).”

It seems like the American past-time has a place in American presidential visits.

It's funny how, despite the big talk of economics and jobs and all of the other things, there were a couple of references to baseball on the tongues of the attendees of President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday. Maybe it's just because it's the beginning of the season, but I thought it was funny.

The President of SUNY Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, Alain Kaloyeros mentioned that the president was speaking on the 41st anniversary of the New York Mets being named, an event he said that set the state up for "40 years of disappointment," with a laugh (though for Mets fans it's a bitter chuckle).

Later, when I was talking to New York Sen. Roy McDonald, R-Saratoga (thanks anonymous), he said he has had two conversations with the last two US presidents, George W. Bush (He called him Bush Jr.) and Barack Obama.

“They were both fine people and it was an honor to talk to them,” he said. “Just think about the magnitude of what Bush and Obama had- 300 plus million people, how bout world peace? They had a few things on their table."

But McDonald said they were both down to earth. "I talked to them just like I'm talking to you," he said. "I was honored that in both conversations with both presidents, we ended up talking about baseball. Pres. Bush liked the Texas Rangers and Obama had the Chicago White Socks."

I did not bring up the fact that whoever these presidents like, they're in Yankee country here.

I check the Board of Elections website frequently to see what is going on and who is officially raising money for their campaign and how much.

For instance, the website tells me Kathy Marchione is about $442,000 behind Roy McDonald who she seeks to unseat from the Senate as of the most recent filings (which were in January, so not exactly up-to-date).

It also tells me that there is no committee or funding (Yet) this year for Joanne Yepsen or John Franck to run for anything but their Saratoga Springs positions.

Franck has told me explicitly a couple times that he will not be running for anything but Commissioner of Accounts in the near future.

Yepsen, though, said a couple weeks ago that she was not sure yet if she would run for a seat at the state this year.

Seems late to me to not know. It seems unlikely she could make a run at someone like Tony Jordan or against the winner of the primary between Roy McDonald and Kathy Marchione this late in the game, but stranger things have happened in politics.

I mean, look at Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential frontrunner, a man who lost the 2008 primary to John McCain (and Mike Huckabee in some states) and we all remember how that turned out. But the man still continues to peddle his million dollar bike (you know he must have one, literally) toward the White House.

But anyway, we'll see if Yepsen gives it a go. The season (at least locally) is still relatively early and I'll do what I can to write about something other than the Housing Authority (IT JUST KEEPS GOING!).

Anyway, stay classy Saratoga.

PS, speaking of which, Anchor Man 2? 2012 just got great.

“There have been people who said they would donate millions of dollars against the people who voted on some of these issues,” Sen. Roy McDonald said in a recent Saratogian story I wrote about money coming in from same-sex marriage supporters since his vote for marriage equality.
And it seems his fear is becoming a reality.
Recently the National Organization for Marriage announced it will be making good on a pledge of $2 million to defeat the four Republican senators who voted for the bill and the three Democratic senators who voted against same-sex marriage in 2009, but reversed that decision this year and passed it.
"This is the first step in what will be a sustained, determined effort to make sure the constituents of these cowardly Senators know what they have done," Brian Brown, NOM's president said in a recent press release.
The release outlined how the organization is spending $150,000 on mailers comparing Republican Senators Roy McDonald, Mark Grisanti, James Alesi and Stephen Saland, and Democratic Senators Shirley Huntley, Joseph Addabbo and Carl Kruger to Benedict Arnold, the Revolutionary War general who sold out his country and his until-then winning war-time reputation for British Pounds.
The mailers highlight previous stances some of the senators took against same-sex marriage and some of the money they have received since their vote from same-sex supporters.
"It is shameful that these state Senators flip-flopped on such a critical issue when they saw gay marriage backers raising millions from Wall Street," Brown said.
As of the story that ran on July 15, McDonald had raised $118,000 in campaign contributions since June 1, some of which came in the form of $10,300 contributions from same-sex marriage supporters, while other contributions came from Republican and union sources.
"You can't run a campaign on $10,000," McDonald said in the interview for that story, but he also added “in the last campaign, more money was raised against me than for me.” He won that race against Democrat and Saratoga Springs Supervisor Joanne Yepsen.
It will be interesting to see if that magic will happen again.