Hillary or Trump? How about Bernie and DePasquale!

By John Duke

While watching my favorite political shows on Sunday, Deface the Nation and Meet the Depressed, I decided there was no way I could vote for either major party candidate. I couldn’t vote for Trump because for some unknown reason all the fair and balanced television stations are telling me not to. Why else would NBC (Nothing But Clinton) CBS (the Clinton Broadcasting Station) ABC (All aBout Clinton) and CNN (the Clinton News Network) tell me not to vote for him. Plus, I can’t vote for Clinton because she doesn’t like Roman Catholics and I am one. And since I want my vote to somehow count, I’m voting for Bernie Sanders!

It’s never been easier to write in a name. I’m writing in Bernie’s.  The Buffalo News published the results from April’s presidential primary and in our district, the 60th State Senate District, Bernie won overwhelmingly. Hillary carried Buffalo’s east side and Cheektowaga, the 63rd State Senate District, but lost everywhere else. Hillary owes her victory in Erie County entirely to Mayor Byron Brown, she could not have done it without him. To put that in perspective, when Andrew Cuomo first ran for governor in 2010, he chose Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy to be his lieutenant and promptly lost Monroe County. When Duffy left before the 2014 election, Cuomo replaced him with Kathy Hochul and promptly lost Hamburg, N.Y.  The difference is Byron Brown delivers and the others don’t.

The question now becomes, “Will Byron Brown be able to help his candidate, Amber Small, in the 60th State Senate District (North Buffalo, Kenmore, Tonawanda, Grand Island and the Southtowns)? Small has 2 opponents, County Clerk Chris Jacobs, whom she is currently running a smear campaign against, and Green Party candidate James DePasquale, whom she’s trying to keep off the ballot to limit voters’ choices.

If DePasquale’s name seems familiar to you, it’s because it goes back to the Roc Mar, Milsher Days when he bowled with friends John Masiello (Tony’s brother), and Ben Galletti, sometimes known as King Ben because he holds court at Casey’s on Amherst Street on week nights.

DePasquale’s a newcomer to WNY’s world of rough and tumble politics. He is an environmentalist, not known for politics. He decided to campaign from the Green Party line when no one else did. Basically he’s a one issue candidate who hopes to clean up Hoyt Lake. According to DePasquale, “(I am) the only candidate who can win this year without being elected if (I am) able to focus the other candidates attention on the environmental disaster Hoyt Lake has become. State senator after state senator as well as mayor after mayor have promised to clean up Hoyt Lake and then forget their promises once they’re elected.”

This year every politician state-wide is promising to clean up the corruption in Albany. It’s the new “in-thing” to do. Without term limits that can’t be done. DePasquale says, “First things first. I’ll let them clean up Albany, I want to clean up Hoyt Lake.” I believe DePasquale has the right idea and his friends are right to shout “Run Jimmy Run” reminding every one of when Jimmy Griffin ran on a minor party line and won.  I’ll be voting for DePasquale and Bernie this year and can only shout, “Run Jimmy Run!”