In my own congressional district the Democratic Party or rather the leaders of the party appointed Sean Eldridge, or as he is commonly known the husband of Facebook co-founder Chris Hughs, as the candidate. I met him in April 2013 and knew immediately he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. One of my progressive friends said she didn't care if he couldn't win as long as she could be part of his social circle. The seductive power of an over $700 million dollar Facebook fortune had taken hold and so began one fiasco of a campaign in the NY 19th Congressional District.
The NY 19th Congressional district is a basic mix of NYC transplants and rural folks. Conservatives have 38,000+ registered voter advantage. The district lines were redrawn in 2012 and had been the district of much loved Congressman Maurice Hinchey. Maurice was a native son growing up in the Hudson Valley and before his first run for political office was a toll collector. He loved talking to his constituents and could often be found in Kingston on a nice day. Sean Eldridge is a nice enough 28 year old guy and there are enough stories out there about him that one can google so I'll not go into the details here. Suffice it to say he and his husband bought a 5 million dollar mansion in a neighboring congressional district and when Sean couldn't run for congress in that district they moved into my district. In fact he filed the papers to run for congress before registering to vote in the district. Sean never understood that people in this district like to get know their politicians and ego is no substitute for time. He got the carpetbagger label and yes there were comparisons to Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton but those are like comparing Nobel Prize winners to a high school graduate.
Last night the Facebook fortune lost in the 19th NY Congressional district big time, 65%-35%. No it didn't have anything to do with the stunning loses by the Democratic Part nationally. Eldridge lost because most people felt he wants to be a congressman from any district. I know many Democrats who voted for Congressman Chris Gibson, the incumbent Republican, including my wife who never voted for a Republican in her life.
When I was sitting there looking at my ballot I just could not bring myself to vote for Sean. It was that third debate where Sean threw President Obama under the bus that I realized he had no courage. One might say many Democrats did the same thing but in Sean's case it was different. I thought back the day I first met him in 2013 back then Obama was his good friend. He told me that both he and his husband had moved to Chicago from California when Obama decided to run for president. In fact Sean's husband, Chris Hughs, designed the Social Network presence on the net for the Obama Campaign. President Obama has credited Mr Hughs with his becoming the president. I was told how he and Chris have had dinner at the White House on many occasions and his good friend Obama would be coming to NY 19th to campaign for him. With this in mind I decided to write in the name Maurice Hinchey on my ballot because I just couldn't vote for Republican Chris Gibson or Sean Eldridge.