Republican grassroots in a Buffalo Suburb

A professor from the University of Buffalo ran for town supervisor (mayor) of Buffalo's biggest suburb, Amherst, and won, largely by eschewing his political party and adopting a grassroots approach. Here's the story:

Politics is local

Whatever the man's politics, I'm most impressed by the fact that his cerebral appeal to the voters worked. He also professed to be one of of them, a non-politician. Although Amherst is suburban, white and wealthy, it managed to perceive an Indian immigrant as "one of them" especially in relation to his politically connected white opponents. I mention this why? Well, I hope Democrats do not underestimate the public's suspicion of politicians next time around.

But back to my main point for writing this diary: Mohan's advertisements in the newspaper were lengthy, ponderous and yes, even, boring. But since they proscribed what he would do as supervisor in detail, they had great effect. Too often in this region of NY, we let the political machines do our thinking for us. Buffalo and environs is in fact operated by one enormous political machine, through which politicians switch parties simply to oppose the incumbent. Many are bought and paid for, seemingly, by each party's interest in patronage and bloated government. Even the unions are a problem here. Normally I'm as left as you can imagine but Buffalo is an interesting case. The city used to have 1 million residents. It's now down to 270,000, and yet our social services have not declined to track its population loss. The Republican Party is also involved in patronage hires. Our unions refuse to deal with the need for layoffs even at the expense of certain new burgeoning city needs (Medicare, Medicaid costs, our declining cultural arts which have always defined Buffalo as a city of music, theater, visual arts, and literature). The unions are even protecting health coverage for elected plastic surgery for city employees and their families, a fact recently unearthed in the local newspaper.

Along comes Mohan and he simply says government will become more accountable. That was his simple message. Our politicians are no longer serving the public. In Buffalo, it doesn't matter that the man is a Democrat, Republican, or a member of the Pirate Party. The message resonates. And it works mostly because it doesn't talk down to the voters with sly specially designed sales pitches which are long on slogans and short on detail.

Good for Mohan.