The Connecticutian

Ben pointed out in a comment that Beth Bye is running for State Rep — Congrats to hear. This led me to check it out, and I found this useful document about the state candidates. While I have not yet finished a thorough check, I was happy to see that we have a Green candidate, Cliff Thornton. As I’ve mentioned before, I feel new to local politics (and yes, I guess I’m even calling governor local…). Since I’ve moved from state to state, I haven’t set down those local politics kids of roots.

Hopefully in the near future I’ll post more on the book I’m reading, Absolute Conviction. But in the meantime, as it applies to this post, I am from Buffalo, NY orignially — well, a ‘burb. And I recall hearing a lot about Mayor Jimmy Griffin, as he was somewhat controversial. What stands out in my mind most is that I have this fairly vague memory of him funding an artist to create a sculpture along I-90 as people come into the city of Buffalo. The artist built his sculpture, which apparently did not go through any approval phases, because it was (I swear this is true) a neon green dancing penis with a cane and top hat. It was almost immediately removed. Nonetheless, in reading this book, I am finding out that I had no idea just how socially conservative he was/is. He was vehemently against New York State allowing abortion procedures, and he rallied against Roe v. Wade. So often my roots shock the heck out of me. I remember that he ran as a “man of the people” type, a democrat, though I seem to recall he often an republic leanings. My family really liked him. I’m not sure if my die-hard republican grandfather (worked for the sanitation department of Cheektowaga) liked him or not. Griffin was Catholic, which may have been enough for my grandfather. This link to Wikipedia on Griffin won’t work for me at the moment, but hopefully it is just temporarily down. This is all to say, I sadly have not following local politics well in the past, well, long time.

So read up, I must! And good luck to Beth Bye!