Incumbent Protection Society

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Even the Meltdown Economy is Helping Incumbents Get Reelected Nobody Has Any Money to Run

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Even the Meltdown Economy is Helping Incumbents Get Reelected
Nobody Has Any Money to Run

More incumbents that ever will be not be challenged or face very weak opponents this year. Usually it is the state's election law and member items which protect the office holders. 98% get reelected every year. This year the lack of funds of challengers is giving incumbents a helping hand. Lack of funds is causing candidates all over the city to drop out of running or run campaigns on a shoe string budget. This past weekend Gail Goode and Afro-American lawyer who was trying to run a long shot campaign against Gillibrand drop out because she could not even find the funds to get on the ballot.

The incumbents have won again because of this bad economy, which they help cause, even in this era of Espada and Monserrate, before the felony convictions of Bruno, McLaughlin, Seminerio and a legislature who to this very day refuses to make the hard choices every family in our community makes cutting the budget in hard economic times.

How the State's Elected Elite Stays in Power (Gotham Gazette) Instead, in the real New York, fair redistricting has been put off for another decade, leaving the same old incumbents clinging to their power in the state Legislature. Campaign finance is being largely ignored, though good government groups are spending time this summer trying to rally support to change how elections are financed. This is, after all, a state with one of the highest incumbent reelection rates in the country.