So Frank accepted the League of Women Voters’ debate terms, but his “team” did not, blowing up the deal. Why am I not surprised? Because the Peekskill Republicans have done this before. I still remember the last time the LWV agreed to organize a Peekskill debate. Vinnie Vesce negotiated for his party, and everything went well, if slowly. Just when it was looking like there was a deal everyone could accept, John Testa accompanies Vinnie to what turned out to be the last meeting, makes a bunch of demands the LWV could never accept, and blows up that deal. I was quite surprised the LWV was ready, even so many years later, to give our community another chance.
Already Frank has begun phase 2 (first the bait, then the switch), just like before. The next election the LWV wouldn’t hear of doing a Peekskill debate. The Dems agreed to meet the Republicans in a debate that was not sponsored by the LWV. Well, it turned out that there were different rules for each party. The Dems all showed up, but two Republican council candidates didn’t. They sent very carefully executed videos, good art direction and lighting, perfectly presented speeches, the whole nine yards. The moderator, a conservative editor of a conservative local newspaper, allowed the videos to be shown on the Paramount’s big silver screen. It’s pretty hard to compete on the stage with a giant and highly polished video image. Don’t take my word for it, just ask GOP candidate Joe Torres. He ran for council in that election, too, and he had the decency to show up.
The irony is that, with all this gamesmanship, no GOP candidate for local office won. The voters are not stupid. They know when they’re being conned. After three disastrous elections, you would think the local GOP would have figured that out and gotten serious. But no, these guys (and it’s the same guys who’ve been leading the local Republicans for many years) again chose to game the system. They must not have much confidence in Frank’s big 3 Point Plan.
