Family Values

That was Tom Reynolds wife Donna behind him and to his right at his acceptance speech last night. It was a brief speech and I think he thanked her.

But when he finished he turned around and walked right by her to shake hands with people on his right, turned and walked by her again to greet people on his left. It was as if she was invisible. She looked uncomfortable, slowly fading away off camera.

It was a remarkable moment to this observer. In the pursuit of power we can get caught up in the busyness of our lives and we can ignore the people who should be foremost. Remember, he had a plane to catch because he is the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Things were not going well for him across the country.

Probably it struck me because when I was younger the mother of my children, Grammy in Chief, used to say that she sometimes felt invisible in my milieu.

The Republicans bill themselves as the party of family values. Recent events have made it clear that includes a strong element of hypocrisy. But there is a real lesson too. Tom Reynolds' political legacy will be that he was a part of the power structure of the meanest most divisive administration in my lifetime. He is part of the clique that is the most incompetent in memory and gave us Iraq.

Hopefully Tom Reynolds can leave a more positive legacy with his four children.

Hindsight is 20/20

Tom Reynolds just left Buffalo. He had a plane to catch. During his victory speech he said that tonight he would celebrate his personal victory with his supporters, but that tomorrow he would deal with results for Congress as a whole.

Jack Davis thanked just about everybody in his concession speech. He thanked the Working Families Party and their workers. He thanked Len Lenihan, the Erie County Democratic Chair. He said that Len enrolled him as a Democrat and encouraged him to run.

Not to speak for Len Lenihan, but when he and his party endorsed Jack Davis, it was for a losing cause. No one last spring would have ever expected a real race for the 26th District of New York. So, it made sense to endorse a candidate who could spend more than $2,000,000 of his own money. Hey, spending that kind of money would at least make Tom Reynolds take notice.

Then came the Foley affair. Tom Reynolds knew about those emails last spring, but Len Lenihan did not. What if there had been a real Democrat running, one who actually got out and met the voters? Sure such a candidate would still have had to face The October Surprise, our devastating snow storm, and Tom Reynolds' power in Washington. Reynolds immediately brought $5,000,000 to Western New York, and eventually persuaded Karl Rove that the President had to declare a disaster which will bring many more millions.

Back to hindsight. Right now Tom Reynolds has about an 8,000 vote plurality. "My district has seven counties," Reynolds said tonight. What he did not say is that there are 44,000 more Republicans than Democrats in his district, the one he constructed. If there had been a real Democrat (yes, no one seems to know what that is these days) this is a district that could have been won. Tom Reynolds is a key member of the clique that gave us Iraq and tax cuts for the very rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class. The good people of those seven counties are sending him back to Washington because of an October Surprise and because no one could predict that he would be part of a scandal.