Here in NY-26 it's been one corrupt Republican corporate lackey after another, as far back as anyone can remember. The district was re-gerrymander'd after 2000 explicitly to make it even more of a Republican lock than it already was, so the annointed Congresscritter would be free to raise corporate cash for the RNCC full time. No point in wasting any effort actually representing the rubes in Washington.
So it would be hard to exaggerate my excitement today. We actually have a fighting chance to elect a Democrat in this district, for the third time since the 1850s.
I've actually met most of the Republican "Representatives" blighting this district over the last 25 years. Bill Paxon was a genuinely stupid puppet who had the limited virtues of looking pretty in a suit and knowing how to grovel for his corporate masters. He came out of Buffalo's Republican machine, which at the time was a hotbed of incestuous corruption between tax-cutting, regulation-gutting Republican suburban officials and greedy developers who obliterated what was left of urban Buffalo's tax base. Paxon quickly 'retired' and moved to Alexandria, VA to become a full time lobbyist for corporate interests including Boeing. Shocking, I know.
Paxon was replaced by Tom Reynolds, an oleaginous snake so dishonest that my Conservative Republican father, knowing him professionally, simply loathed him. Reynolds was nearly taken down by the Mark Foley 'preying on pages' scandal, winning re-election by the skin of his teeth. The most telling image of Reynolds' entire 'career' was the sight of him literally cowering behind a wall of children at a bogus press conference about the Foley scandal, refusing to take questions.
Reynolds was succeeded by Chris Lee, another pretty-boy empty suit who came with millions of dollars of his family's money. They got rich by selling the family's Buffalo-area automotive factory to the Chinese. I actually met with Lee to talk about health care issues about two years ago, and was astounded by his shallowness and vapidity. So the shirtless Craigslist photos instantly made perfect sense to me.
Now, for the first time, we may actually be represented in Washington by someone who isn't just another corporate toady.
Here's hoping!