Democratic Party Chair Joe Morelle Endorses Richard Dollinger
Since I don’t read the weekly Messenger Post Newspapers, I completely missed this announcement. Thank you to one of our readers who sent us an e-mail and some thoughts regarding an article in last week’s Brighton-Pittsford Post.
It seems that Monroe County Democratic Party Chair and State Assemblyman Joe Morelle has already decided who will run against Joe Robach for the 56th state Senate seat. It was reported in the BPP article that Richard Dollinger released a statement that his candidacy has been endorsed by Morelle. This is a major setback for Sandy Frankel and pretty much ends the race for Willa Powell. Morelle’s endorsement is seen as an indication of how the votes will be expected to go at the Democratic County party convention and comes at a critical moment for Dollinger.
Recently, but without much fanfare, the Brighton Democratic Committee held their caucus to choose whom they want to run for the seat. In a faily decisive outcome, Sandy Frankel beat Richard Dollinger 53%-45% with 3rd tier candidate Willa Powell finishing last with a paultry 2% (they must have rounded up to get Willa to the 2%). Both Frankel and Dollinger are Brighton residents which explains Powell’s substantial loss. No mainstream media picked up on this though. We don’t know if Frankel did a poor job of getting this out, or if Dollinger has become the darling Democrat candidate of the media, who effectively kept the results kinda low key.
At first glance, this outcome didn’t look good for Dollinger who was handpicked by disgraced Democratic former Governor Eliot Spitzer to run for the seat and was to benefit from Spitzer’s immense campaign warchest. It is also rumored that Dollinger, who everyone knows wants to be a judge more than state Senator, was promised a quid-pro-quo judicial appointment from Spitzer in exchange for running. His attempts to cozy up to newly sworn-in Gov. David Paterson, makes sense because Paterson would be the one now to fulfill Spitzer’s promise if he so chooses. We’ve heard rumblings though that Paterson isn’t really that fond of Dollinger because of something that happened when they were both in the Senate together. This makes sense because Dollinger really went over the top begging the media to cover his “I sat next to Paterson” speeches. We’ll report back when we find out exactly what occurred.
With all this going on, Joe Morelle’s endorsement of Dollinger couldn’t come at a better time. Morelle represents Brighton in the state Assembly. Democratic County Legislator Travis Heider was also endorsing his campaign. Heider is an unknown, but this too is a slap to Frankel since Heider represents Brighton. We wonder if Frankel helped Heider get elected to the County Leg? Looks like he won’t necessarily be counting on her support next time he runs.
Coming right on the heals of these two Dollinger endorsements, it was reported last week that Frankel filled the judge seat vacated by Dollinger when he surprised her by stepping down in order to run for the Senate. It was obvious in the news coverage back then that Sandy wasn’t too happy with Rick. One could say that Sandy is sending the message to Dollinger that since he made his bed, he’s got to lie in it now and can’t count on getting his old job back.
Who knows, this political battle may just be our own local version of the Clinton vs Obama fight going on right now. We expect Willa Powell to announce she’s backing out of the race sometime soon. She would need to win the City caucus with 60+% in a 3-way race to be taken seriously and even she must know that will never happen.
So, with Willa’s backing out, it would be Dollinger v Frankel. Sandy may get the rank and file Democratic committee vote, but Dollinger has Morelle’s, a Brighton County Legislator’s and, we’ll assume, more endorsements to come. There’s no way the Brighton Fire Department, the Realtors Association or the religious communty supports Sandy. She’s made gaining their support very difficult all on her own. Heck, ask any Brighton resident who recently had their assessment go up $25,000 who’d they support and we’d bet it would be Dollinger (even though he’s convicted many Brighton residents in his traffic court). Dollinger won’t have Spitzer’s millions for this race, but he comes from a very wealthy family who will most likely bankroll the primary race anyway. No one can compete with that. He’ll have trouble convincing the working middle class that he’s one of them in the general election, but in the end, he wins the primary.
So, you heard it here at Monroerising.com first. Look for Dollinger to be the guy come September.
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