Once upon a time, there was a system for selecting candidates for higher public office that required that a certain amount of dues be paid before candidates could advance through the chairs, like in the Elk's club.
Alas, that system no more. It is an anachronism in a new political world where fame and fortune count more than experience, guts and gusto. It's really all about the money. That is sad.
Today, it's about celebrity and cash, not experience and judgement. No wonder our legislative process has become gridlocked. It becomes a clash of colossal egos rather than a contest of principle, balanced by compromise and cooperation.
I'm reminded of the comment by former House Speaker Sam Rayburn on President John F. Kennedy's penchant for selecting the "best and brightest": "I'd feel a lot better if some of them had run for sheriff just once."
As a case in point, take the recent selection process used by the Democrats to pick a candidate to succeed three-term Rep. Bill Owens of Plattsburgh. North Country Democratic chairs, suffering from a thin bench of candidates ready to move up the line, settled on a filmmaker and Phish songwriter who runs a health food store in Brooklyn and was not even registered to vote from his upstate " home" until the weekend before his selection as the candidate. He was chosen in a closed door process that took place in a remote Adirondack Mountain location on a snowy February day. Oh, transparency! Where are you when we need you the most?
(Full disclosure: I considered a run for this myself, but after weighing the pros and cons, especially the cost and the all-consuming effort, not to mention the closed door selection process, I decided to withdraw my name from consideration.)
These days, the minimum entrance fee for anyone to be considered as a candidate by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is $200,000 cash on hand. The ability to rise upward of $3 million dollars is also a plus. That is the ticket to "higher office." Not experience. Not seasoned judgment hewn by years of involvement in the local and state governmental process, It's all about money and/or celebrity, and money comes first.
And so we have a broken system, and a process that can be more easily controlled by those who have a vested interest in perpetuating a system that works to their advantage.
When Hillary Clinton was thinking of running for U.S. Senate in New York, and she asked me, as a former party chair, what I thought. I told her that she was a Chicago native, transplanted to Arkansas, and later Washington, who knew little about upstate New York, and said, "When you can tell me the difference between Oswego, Owego, Otsego and Otego, then you should run."
Six months later, she approached me at an event in Watertown, and said, "Oswego is in Oswego County. Owego is in Tioga County. Otsego is in Otsego County, and Otego is in Otsego County as well." I replied, "Go for it," and her whirlwind getting-to-know you upstate tour was a resounding success.
Perhaps Aaron Woolf, the newly minted Congressional candidate for Northern New York, will borrow from Clinton's political playbook and learn all about where Croghan bologna comes from, what squeaky cheese curds come from which hamlet, and the difference between Carthage, Copenhagen and Constableville. If and when he does, he might make a fine candidate after all. But there is much homework to be done, and many miles for him to go.
The author is a former mayor of Oswego and former co-chair of the state Democratic Party.