Did You See The Golisano Puff Piece In Sunday’s D&C?
We’ve commented before about how out of touch the Democrat and Chronicle is. Sunday’s article on Tom Golisano — our favorite wacky billionairre is a prime example. The title is Golisano wields political clout.
Wields clout? Shows the world he is bored, egotistical and incompetent when it comes to politics, would have been more appropriate!
The article does show his failures in the political arena if you read it — but how many people will read the headline and figure Golisano is trying to help the community?
The article points out:
He also was instrumental in creation of the Independence Party, which remains New York’s third-largest party in terms of enrollment but has fractured leadership and very limited influence statewide.
He spent $93 million of his own money running for governor under the Independence banner in 1994, 1998 and 2002. Golisano’s best showing was 1994, when he earned 14 percent of the vote.
Golisano also was a prime advocate of holding a state constitutional convention as a way of reforming the government. The idea went before voters in 1997, where it failed by an overwhelming margin.
More recently, he crusaded against wind energy companies that install turbines over neighbors’ objections and started his own company that would do turbine projects in communities where they were welcomed by residents and local leaders.
This summer, he spent tens of thousands of dollars on newspaper ads urging homeowners to file challenges to their property tax assessment — an outgrowth of his own battle with the Mendon town assessor over the taxable value placed on his new 9,600-square-foot house on 38 acres in that town.
Creates political party, becomes bored, moves on to pushing for a constitutional convention — voters ignore his opinion, fights green energy initiatives because it would effect the view from his property and fights the Mendon Assessor because he feels his house’s assessment it too high.
I rarely find myself in agreement with Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York, but she is right on about Golisano:
Golisano, though, is an example of someone who is “not really answerable to a constituency, not answerable to members. He can change his mind — take one approach and drop it, take another approach and drop it. The problem is, he’s not building a constituency,” she said. “It’s just throwing money after the solution that he’s most excited about right now. As a consequence, it seems to me that he is not as effective as he’d like to be.”
Not effective has he would like to be? Try not at all. He backed Marty Connor, a state senator involved in a primary and he lost big. He has endorsed Paloma Cappana who hasn’t even been a regular voter over the past ten years, he’s back David Nachbar, the greedy corporate executive who is being sued by former employees of B&L and trailing Jim Alesi by about 30 points, and don’t forget about that great reformer Richard Dollinger who is trailing Joe Robach by 13 points in a senate seat with 30,000 more democrats than republicans.
Oh yea, and the latest Siena Poll has Baby Joe Mesi trailing his opponent by 5 points — Golisano’s gutter campaign tactics are a major issue in that race.
This lack of success doesn’t seem to phase our favorite billionaire. According to the article:
He also is considering going forward with a parallel group called Responsible America that would seek to bring about reform in Congress. An ally has already registered the appropriate Web site names, although Golisano called the concept “preliminary.” If pursued, a reform-Congress movement could be too costly even for his personal fortune, which Forbes magazine estimated in September at $1.7 billion.
“We would seek other people to get involved. That’s a much larger deal,” Golisano said.
Yes, given his record, I’m sure people will be lining up to help with that effort. Keep up the good work Tom!