Three or four years ago I was in Washington, D.C. to speak at some journalism conference and I stopped into the office of Reason, the libertarian magazine. A good friend of mine, Matt Welch, had recently moved to D.C. to become editor-in-chief of Reason.
I ended up going to dinner with the entire Reason crew, which included, at the time Dave Weigel, which is how we met.
Dave is now a national political correspondent for Slate Magazine (an online magazine).
Because of a piece Dave did about Jack Davis, I figured out that Dave was apparently hanging out in WNY. I got in touch with Dave and said, "You really need to come out to Batavia, the heartland of the district."
Late yesterday afternoon, I got a call from Dave. He was on his way to Rochester for yet another dreary campaign event but decided his limited amount of time might be better spent in Batavia.
I called Bill Kauffman, Elba resident, nationally known political/history author and former Reason editor, and it was agreed we'd all meet at O'Lacy's (I would have loved to have taken Dave around to more places and shown him more of the town (though I did show him our "urban renewal" project), but he was on a tight schedule.
Dave interviewed co-owner Kent Ewell, above. Below center is Bill Dougherty with Bill Kauffman.
That's a long way of saying -- yup, the eyes of the nation are on the NY-26.
And our goal is to get the people in Genesee County out to vote on May 24. Let's show the nation we care about who is elected to represent us.
It's a close special election, every vote counts, so vote.
If Genesee County leads the district in voter turn out, The Batavian will donate $100 to Genesee Justice.
Other pledges made so far:
Jeff Allen has offered to match it with $100 to Care-A-Van Ministries; Dan Jones has offered to match it with $26 dollars to Care-A-Van ministries and another $26 dollars to the USO; and Dave Olsen is offer a $25 matching donation for GJ plus donate $50 to The Loyola Recovery Foundation.
Lorie Longhany has pledged $26 to the Child Advocacy Center wing of Genesee Justice; Ricky G. Hale, a local plumber, has pledged $100 to Genesee Justice and challenged other business owners to step forward with pledges; JoAnne Rock has pledged $25 to Genesee Justice.
District Attorney Lawrence Friedman has pledged $1,000 -- with $500 going to the Genesee Justice Foundation and $500 going to Justice For Children GLOW Foundation. Any other members of the legal community like to step forward?
Ken Mistler pledged $100 for Volunteers for Animals.
County Clerk Don Read has pledged $100 for Crossroads House.
In round numbers, we're up to $1,650 in donations. Who wants to step forward today and make it $2,000?
