For the better part of two decades since reaching the age of majority, I'd never enrolled in a political party.
While some accuse the staff of the Niagara Falls Reporter of being a homogeneous band of traitors, Communists or, worst of all, Democrats, it simply wasn't true. At least not that last part.
I'd always looked at the two major parties, particularly on the national level, like this:
Democrats are corrupt, incompetent and kind of wishy-washy.
And Republicans are corrupt, incompetent and really, really mean.
Trying to maintain political independence has its advantages, like not getting nearly as many pieces of campaign literature or irritating phone calls from volunteers reminding me when to vote.
But it's also tricky, since you can easily think you're registering as an "Independent," when in reality, you're joining the "Independence Party," becoming a descendant of Ross Perot by way of Tom Golisano.
I'd always carefully avoided that mistake by registering as "No Party." The reality of living in a Northeastern city, though, is that if you can't vote in the primaries, you often don't really have a say in who represents you, particularly at the local level.
Choosing which party to join wasn't that tough, either, given my leanings when it comes to national politics and the fact that Republicans, as all-powerful as they consider themselves when it comes to the White House and Congress, are slightly more numerous than dairy farmers in neighborhoods like mine.
So early this year, I abandoned by beloved No Party in favor of the donkey. And on Primary Day, my wife and I took our 2-year-old son to our polling place for his second taste of democracy (the first came last November, when his mom and dad proudly helped John Kerry to a landslide win -- in New York, at least).
After Mrs. Citycide cast her vote, I passed custody over to her and walked to a table manned by three friendly volunteers, ready to help pick my new party's candidates. And was politely told that I couldn't.
According to New York State election law, I was told, registration in a party doesn't take effect until after the next general election. "
That's so if your friend was running for office, you couldn't change parties just to vote for him," I was told by a woman at the table.
God forbid. It's much better that faithful party members blindly vote in the manner they've been instructed by their union leaders or local committee members. What self-respecting party would want new members coming along and potentially gumming up the works of a machine that runs so smoothly?
I can understand not allowing people to register on the day of the primary, or even a few weeks in advance, for the reasons the woman gave. But I'd enrolled nearly a year earlier, even before any of the candidates in the races involved had declared their candidacies.
While I'd been waiting my turn, a nice woman handed me a flier listing the endorsed Democratic candidates and describing their positions on the ballot. I took it, deciding not to mention that she was in clear violation of the law prohibiting campaigning within 100 feet of a polling place. Apparently, elections inspectors are more adamant about some regulations than others.
I guess my snub shouldn't have galled me so. After all, this is New York, a state whose political chieftains have made an art form of restricting ballot access for candidates -- at least the ones who lack their blessings. If the kings and queens of patronage get to choose who runs for what in the Empire State, why shouldn't they control who gets to vote, too?
We journalists love to decry voter indifference and ponder why the unwashed masses accept their fate without bothering to pull that lever. But for a while, having my suffrage delayed and discouraged, if not taken away entirely, made me question the point of even bothering.
Then I thought about the far greater hardships other people had endured to exercise that right, from poll taxes to literacy tests to actual violence, even death, and realized my own inconvenience wasn't really an adequate excuse for apathy.
That doesn't mean, however, there's any good reason in New York in 2005 that exercising the most basic of rights should be so difficult.
Many shots have been taken on these pages at Tom Darro, Community Events
Something-or-Other for the City of Niagara Falls.
OK, so the only event he's coordinated in nearly two years since Mayor Vincenzo V. Anello created the job for him was the disastrous revival of the Maid of the Mist Pageant and the alleged parade that accompanied it.
I was ready, though, to give him credit for the flier promoting this weekend's Third Street Festival, a city block's worth of vendors, music and other assorted end-of-summer merriment. If you haven't seen it, it lists the times for the festival (5 p.m. to midnight on Friday, Sept. 23, and noon to midnight on Saturday, Sept. 24), the bands scheduled to perform (Powertrain and John Eddie on Friday, Mr. Champagne, Black Widow and Klear on Saturday) and the generous sponsors (Seneca Niagara Casino, Mark Cerrone Inc., Modern Disposal, the City of Niagara Falls, USA Niagara Development Corp., the Four Points Sheraton, Molson Canadian and Wind, Waves & Wines IV, the Aquarium of Niagara's annual fund-raiser scheduled for the night before at The Conference Center Niagara Falls).
What it does not mention, and we hate to pick nits here, is just where the festival takes place. Third Street runs for 10 blocks, from Buffalo Avenue all the way to where it hits Second before the two merge to become Whirlpool Street.
Most locals could probably find it eventually, particularly since the street will be closed off to vehicular traffic. But as a public service to those who don't get downtown much, if ever, the festival (curiously called the Third "Street" Festival on the flier, as if street were an unusual word or clever turn of phrase the writer had just thought up) will take place between Niagara Street and Ferry Avenue, part of the new streetscape built over the summer.
We'd also point out that the sponsor page was originally headlined by the words "Brought To You Buy," and was fixed on a subsequent edition we saw. But you know how we hate to be petty.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Sept. 20 2005 |