Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: You're listening to the Weighing in podcast, the show that brings you inside the Daily Gazette's featured news column.
And now here's your host, writer of the Weigh in In column, Andrew Wait.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: U.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Look, it's been a long campaign. We've been more than eleven months at this, and I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: That was Matt Nelligan, Republican challenger to three term Democratic Mayor Gary McCarthy, and he was addressing supporters at Katie Oburne's Irish Pub Tuesday night, just 47 minutes after polls closed in Schenectady. I'm Andrew Waite, by the way, and thanks for listening to the weighing in podcast. So Tuesday, as you know, was Election day, and one of the races that we at the Gazette have been watching especially closely was the Schenectady mayoral race. And for obvious reasons, it's important to the Gazette's readership area. But also Nelligan, he was just running a really compelling campaign. It was a long shot campaign. No doubt the city has a four to one advantage in favor of Democrats in enrollment. But Nelligan was putting up a pretty good fight. He raised some interesting issues like sidewalk repair and ethics among city leaders. And just generally, he was running a campaign that had a message it seemed like a lot of people could relate to, that was prioritizing the city's neighborhoods and taking a kind of populist approach. So on Tuesday night, after eleven months of a fairly active campaign, we got to see where voters in Schenectady stand.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: The Democrats have an almost four to one enrollment advantage here.
Only 15% of registered voters in the city are Republicans. Nonetheless, we will far eclipse those numbers tonight.
However, it does not look like it's going to be our night.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: And now that Nelligan has been defeated and the Democrats retained every seat on the city council, it seems pretty clear that Schenectady has proved itself to be a blue stronghold. And again, I mean, obviously with such heavy enrollment advantage, that's not a huge shock. But it's worth noting that other Capital region cities on Tuesday saw Republicans come in with some surprise results. So in Saratoga Springs, John Safford, a Republican, defeated incumbent Democratic Mayor Ron Kim. And in Troy, we're going to have a Republican mayor and also a Republican majority on the city council, despite the fact that that city has a three to one Democratic enrollment advantage. And just clearly, that's not the direction that Schenectady voters wanted to take the Electric city. And so today's column addresses that and explores it. Here's that piece.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: You'Re listening to the weighing in podcast with columnist Andrew Wait.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: The opening riffs of Eye of the Tiger pulsed to life a few beats too late. It was just 47 minutes after the polls closed in Schenectady, and Republican Mayoral candidate Matt Nelligan arrived at his watch party at Katie O'Byrne's Irish Pub Tuesday. As the DJ scrambled to play the famed anthem by the band's survivor, Nelligan waved to supporters and thanked volunteers. And once the song quieted after a few bars, the Republican told the crowd of about three dozen that he's a realist. Matt doesn't lie, Nelligan bellowed before ultimately declaring, it does not look like it's going to be our night.
After eleven months of campaigning, eleven months going door to door, wearing the kind of footwear like the black sneakers he had on Tuesday, Nelligan and his populist message promising a commitment to revitalizing the city's neighborhoods came up short. And it wasn't really close in Nelligan's bid to be the first Republican mayor in Schenectady since Al Jacinski was reelected in 2000. The challenger lost to entrenched Democratic Mayor Gary McCarthy by a roughly two to one margin.
Sure, that deficit meant Nelligan outperformed the city's nearly four to one Democrat to Republican enrollment. But McCarthy's cruising to an unprecedented fourth consecutive term emphasized that the electric city remains solidly blue. In reality, Nelligan finished closer to working Families Party candidate Ed Varno than to McCarthy. PrIOR to Tuesday, there was reason to believe Nelligan had a fighting chance. His campaign proposed some sensible ideas, such as fixing Schenectady's approach to repairing sidewalks and ensuring city leaders are acting ethically. The former teacher and state level Republican political staffer could also point to real signs of woe in Schenectady, such as its underperforming school district and blatant blight in lower income neighborhoods. In addition, the affable Nelligan had the advantage of running against the often aloof McCarthy. More consequentially, Nelligan's campaign should have been buoyed by dysfunction on the city council. It should have been able to exploit the infighting that's infringed upon city business, which came to a head last week when city leaders failed to pass an annual city budget by the deadline for the first time in three decades. But none of it mattered in the face of the well oiled Schenectady Democratic machine. Aside from McCarthy trouncing Nelligan, all four Democratic Council candidates won their races Tuesday. So even after active general election campaigns that included lively and substantive debates. Schenectady will only seat one new elected official, with moderate Democrat Joe Mancini replacing the outgoing moderate Democrat John Palomini. Heck, those two even have rhyming surnames. The GOP's failure Tuesday underscored just how steep a climb it is to build an operational Republican Party in Schenectady. As viable a mayoral challenger as Nelligan seemed to be, the party struggled to fill out a full slate of suitable candidates. So shallow was the pool of talent that two of the six Republican council nominees had to step aside because of troubling social media posts connected to conspiracy theories.
In a demonstration of the GOP's dismay, City of Schenectady Republican Committee Chair Tom Kennedy immediately left the bar Tuesday after Nelligan's concession speech. Emotions are pretty raw on election night, Nelligan said later. He took it pretty hard. By contrast, other capital region cities showed this year it was possible to upset established Democrats for the first time in a decade. Saratoga Springs elected a Republican mayor in John Safford, a 78 year old former army intelligence officer who champions safety and civility.
Voters in the spa city also opted for Republican backed Public Safety Commissioner candidate Tim Cole, although the former FBI special agent is a registered Democrat. Across the Hudson river in Troy, voters favored a Republican mayor and Republican majority on the city council. Despite a three to one enrollment disadvantaged for the GOP, Schenectady voters, in spite of turmoil within city leadership, were having none of it and chose to keep Democrats entirely at the helm. As a result, the political battle lines here are clearly drawn not between Republicans versus Democrat, but between the moderate and more progressive wings of the Democratic Party. And as we've seen, the ideological gulfs between those factions can be as wide, if not wider, than the distance between politicians of opposing parties. So in the upcoming term, it'll be up to Schenectady's Democratic leaders to determine how to proceed. Will there be compromise between the moderate McCarthy and the council's four member progressive voting bloc majority, or will tensions continue to simmer? Will identity politics rule the day? Ultimately, we'll find out what brand of blue schenectady wants to be. But one thing's for sure, after Tuesday's bruising, any thoughts of Schenectady being purple took a fairly hard hit. That's not to say Nelligan plans to disappear while the Republican is still mulling his next move. He told supporters, we didn't spend the last eleven months in this campaign to give up. We didn't spend the last eleven months in this campaign to back down. We didn't spend the last eleven months in this campaign to go away.
Nelligan absolutely should stay involved. Some of his proposals are worth considering, and reasonable dissent is healthy for democracy. Perhaps Nelligan even has a future two years from now as a moderating voice on the city council. But Nelligan's attempts to frame Tuesday's defeat as, quote, a beginning and not an end to Republican leadership undercuts the unrealistic mindset he proclaims to favor. Far from being in a position to head city government anytime soon, Schenectady Republicans now find themselves struggling to survive.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: You're listening to the weighin in podcast with columnist Andrew Waite.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: And now we'll turn to reader response. I got a lot of good feedback this week, so thank you guys for sending in your reactions, and please feel free to email me or call me. My phone number and email are listed at the bottom of all my columns and be able to get to some reactions here in the podcast.
So the first one I'm going to share is about a piece I wrote about Shoprite leaving Niskiuna, which garnered a lot of attention, and the angle I took was that in Niskiuna there was a lot of uproar over the shop, right? Leaving, and it's going to leave in December, and for good reason. People are losing a convenient option in Niskiuna. But it also was a reminder that in the city of Schenectady, the neighboring city of Schenectady, there have been few options for fresh groceries for far too long. So I was getting a fair amount of feedback about that with people glad that I had pointed out the lack of grocery stores in Schenectady.
So one reader in Colony wrote that it was a fantastic article and said, might you consider further reporting on this issue and address other possible options? To me, the Aldi's chain could be at least noted or called out for closing its Schenectady store that was located on Route Five, a very short distance from many neighborhoods that are obviously struggling financially. They relocated to Rotterdam, no doubt a more profitable location. Interesting thought there, and possibly worth some future reporting. Then I wanted to turn to a piece I'd written a few Sundays ago about the governor's Governor Kathy Hochel's trip to Israel, and Sue in Kobaskill writes, been enjoying your pieces, especially moved by this piece as I am Jewish and resonated with much of what you said about having a complicated and intense reaction to the ongoing events in Israel Palestine. I was grateful for your interviews with both Rabbi Matthew Cutler and said Khan of the Islamic center and your meditation on the need to find perspective and stay balanced when learning of events that provoke strong emotions and for the courage of your questions, as in the passage from your column, as a sovereign state attacked by terrorists, Israel certainly has a right to defend itself. But at what cost? And has Israel really been justified in its blockade of Gaza dating to 2007, when Hamas took control? She writes. I know you need to stick to local matters as you select topics from your column. However, I look forward to reading other columns on what is happening in Israel and Gaza and how its impact is being felt here in Schenectady and surrounding communities, since I trust you to lift up the humanity of all involved in the terrible struggle and promote kindness and understanding as we connect with one another around these tragic events. Thanks Sue. I appreciate you sharing that. And as you mentioned, I do have to keep a fairly local focus for most of my columns, although sort of as this column proves, so many issues that are happening in Schenectady and the greater capital region connect more broadly to the world at large. And so, as it makes sense, I'll continue to connect local issues to national international issues.
And then finally, just wanted to turn to a brief one about the piece I wrote last week that was on the podcast about Niski unipolitics being fit for TV with a kind of cartoonish scandal about whether or not supervisor Jamie Puccioni was administering menacing glances toward Jason Moskowitz, a fellow town board member. And Cynthia from Niskyuna wrote to me. I have lived in Niskyuna for 60 years, and the antics of nuts like Jason Moskowitz and Linda Rizzo are beyond the pale. I read your columns whenever it's printed and truly admire your excellent prose. Keep it up. But someone who clearly has watched Niskuna politics and thought that some of the cartoonishness pointed out resonated with what she's seen.
So that is it for this week's episode of the Weighing in podcast. Thanks to Aaron Pilaya for providing marketing for this podcast, and to Jim Gilbert who handles production. I'm Andrew Waite. Take care.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: You're listening to the Weighing in podcast with Al Alamist, Andrew Wait.
