The 20th Congressional District Gets Interesting

With Kirsten Gillibrand now a Senator, a special election is expected in the 20th congressional district. Governor Paterson should make an announcement soon. The Republicans have a candidate - my friend Jim Tedisco. The Democrats announced Scott Murphy - I was rooting for Tracey Brooks. And making it interesting is my friend Eric Sundwall. Eric ran in 2006 on the Libertarian line and was knocked off the ballot. I represented him pro bono.

Well, Eric is running again. He seems to have a lot of support and should get over the petitioning hurdle this time, even though it's a short window. In these circumstances you only get 12 days to get your signatures, rather than the usual 30 or so.

If you support the Stop Wasting Money philosophy (for example, if you liked Ron Paul), Eric is the best candidate. Tough for me because I really like Tedisco - a great guy. Murphy is off to a great start - "I worked for two Democratic governors - in Missouri."

Buhrmaster for Congress

Well, the primary's over. I'm really pleased with Steven Vasquez and his effort. He took Ron Paul's 7% in this area and turned it into 31%.

But that's over. It's time to congratulate the winner, Jim Buhrmaster. He won the primary fair and square. He and his team fought hard, but were always cordial.

On the policy side, Buhrmaster is saying all the right things. The biggest thing I like about him is he talks about how government should spend less, and how Congress wastes money. This the biggest flaw of the GOP - it's not the taxes. It's the spending stupid. Jim Buhrmaster gets it. Now we've got to put him in Washington where he can do something about it.

Then we've got to hold him to it. This is the stop wasting money blog. If you talk about how we've got to stop wasting money, I'll give you credit for that. But you better honor that when you get in.

Go Jim! It's a whole new ballgame and the odds are so much better than in the past. Buhrmaster has one of the third party lines and his Democrat opponent only has the Working Families line which is few votes. On the issues as a whole, his opponent is pretty far left. Once the mainstream voters figure that out, I think we may well have our first Republican congressman in a long time - Jim Buhrmaster.

Paul Tonko: The Truth Starts to Come Out

Paul Tonko is running for Congress here in the Albany area. He's gotten a lot of favorable local press for little reason. Now some negative news appears, but so far not in the local papers. Wonder if they'll pick this up.

Check out this story about Paul Tonko on Syracuse.com. I think the site works with the Syracuse Post-Standard, and that may be the source of the article.

Do we really want another guy in Congress who's just going to milk the system? Someone who's going to take money out of our pockets and hand it to wealthy landowners?

Warren Redlich for Congress

In case no one's figured it out yet, I'm running for Congress. With all the talk locally, no one seems to be mentioning me. Funny, since I'm the only one who has actually followed the law and filed with the Federal Election Commission.

I'm running as a supporter of the Ron Paul message. I actually endorsed Ron Paul before he announced, back in 2006 on Alan Chartock's radio show: Clip from Chartock's Congressional Corner.

Stay tuned to find out more.

And for a flash from the past, check out this draft of a 2004 campaign commercial:

Ron Paul and the future of the Revolution

I've been thinking about Ron Paul a lot lately. Went to a Meetup tonight.

I'm wondering what happens to the Ron Paul Revolution after February. If he wins the nomination it goes forward, but it's so narrow. Just one candidate. Far more disturbing, if he loses the nomination, will the Revolution disappear?

The answer is that the Revolution has to spread beyond Ron Paul. We need to find other candidates who support the Ron Paul message. Ideally this would mean hundreds of congressional candidates and 30+ Senate candidates. More realistically, I'd like to see at least 10 candidates for the House who have a track record of supporting Ron Paul.

Someone at the Meetup tonight mentioned John Wallace in the nearby 20th district. I checked out his website: John Wallace for Congress. His positions are in the ballpark, but he does not clearly oppose the War in Iraq, and specifically says we should not get out right away. This is contrary to Ron Paul's position on perhaps the biggest issue of the campaign. His comments about radical Islam are a concern, and there is no clear statement I can find from him that he opposes the Patriot Act and other infringements on our civil liberties.

Wallace also says he's not taking any contributions over $75. That means he has no chance of winning. Ron Paul is accepting contributions up the federal limit of $4600. Wallace's committee has less than $4000 cash on hand as of September 30th, and owes more than $5000.

In spreading the Revolution, a critical consideration is choosing candidates who, to paraphrase Ron Paul, present a risk they might actually win.

Anyway, let's start here. If you know of any congressional candidates who fit the Ron Paul agenda and have a chance of winning, please post a comment here with more information about them.

To toot my own horn on this, I have supported Ron Paul for a long time. When I ran for Congress in 2006, I was asked on a local radio show to name one Republican that I identify with. That snippet of the interview is here: Warren Redlich for Ron Paul.

The entire interview is still (for now at least) available at the WAMC Congressional Corner.

And of course, I endorsed him for President in 2008 back in March on this blog: Warren Redlich Endorses Ron Paul.