Party madness

Local politics–there’s nothing like it. Political megalomania runs rampant.

Never, in all my years, have I seen so many candidates cross political lines in an attempt to grab every party nomination in an effort to freeze out the competition.

What ever happened to the differing political philosophies of each political party? Only in local politics can you find one candidate supported by the Republican, Democratic, Conservative and Independence parties.  Could you imagine John McCain and Sarah Palin making up the Republican, Democratic, Independence and Conservative lines for president? Not in a million years.

Local politics has made it clear that political philosophies have nothing to do with party affiliation. Local politicians are known to switch political parties at the drop of a hat, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Where can a voter who is a true Republican or true Democrat find a viable candidate in the North County? The choices seem to be extremely limited and the voters end up being the big losers.

‘Burns Fiddles While Conservatives Burn’

So I’ve been asked to blog about the political scene in Westchester and Putnam counties for this cool new Let’s Talk Politics/Let’s Blog Politics Forum for NCNLocal.com and North County News.

Supposedly this is the editors’ way of offering what Fox News Channel laughably calls  “fair and balanced” commentary (isn’t that what they call  an oxymoron?) to supplement that angry man Anthony J. Bazzo.

BTW, is he for real? Apparently, because they keep publishing his column every week and now he’s blogging right here for this audience too. From what I hear, he has quite a following and has the ear of many political types and voters and even public access show hosts, where he appears regularly. Good for him and enough about him. On with the show!

From what I read in this week’s July 29 North County News on page 1, Westchester Conservatives are none too happy with the party’s endorsement of Democratic County Executive incumbent Andy Spano, and actually are claiming that some signatures on petitions used to nominate him are forged. Eighty signatures, to be exact. OK, so even if you throw those out it wouldn’t tilt the election back to Republican County Executive candidate Rob Astorino. Do we really have to go through all this? What about the issues? How much do we have to listen to internal party bickering and the mud-slinging between parties that mostly doesn’t address what you and I care about — runaway taxes, schools, senior centers, the general quality of life. Seems to me Mr. Spano has done a very decent job during his many years in office and he does keep getting re-elected. Hello!

I don’t know how many people really care all that much that the Conservative Party in this region is imploding before our eyes. If Conservative Party municipal captains are so incensed by the alleged actions of their Commander-in-Chief Gail Burns, who heads the countywide party, then stop whining and remove her already.

If I wrote headlines for a paper like North County News, I’d be having a field day right now. How’s this? “Burns Fiddles While Conservatives Burn.”

What do you think?