Why do all the NY 21 congressional district candidates seem “not quite right” for our NY region or our country?

We need a moderate on the ballot who can function in DC: An honorable statesman who can balance the needs of this great nation with the needs of our North Country. One who knows this area, one that loves our lands and people, one who really understands the families of our district. One who also knows firsthand the problems of the world outside of DC or NY, who understands diplomacy, and sees how America can remain a bastion of hope in an ever-tenuous world where we need strategic allies more than ever before.

We need a constitutional libertarian at heart who believes in individuals’ rights, who sees man’s inner light, and feels in their bones citizen’s inherent ability to seek self determination, and will seek to limit government intervention to allow this. But also one who knows first hand that men can turn dark and lose sight of that light, that we have often defined deviancy downward in America. Thus we need one who sees the benefits of wisely spending our precious, limited, collective, public treasury to implement some controls to protect those things we cherish and value as a society, to preserve them for our great grandkids and beyond. One who believes in charity as the ultimate virtue to help people, and is willing to risk tasking a broken governmental bureaucracy to help work on solving it in partnership with other groups, but only if those ideas are funded–by a wise combination of savings and taxes AND Not passed down as unfunded mandates to the states, and subsequently the counties to fund!

The person you vote for must find ways to bring businesses to the area to give our kids a way to stay here, yet they must defend our built and natural environment to preserve that which ancestors many generations ago toiled to build. It is a HARD balance.

There is a guy named Herbert Wheaton Congdon who wrote about the NY land grants (also know as Vermont):

‘Freedom and unity’ is the motto of the state seal. It expresses Vermont admirably. Those fine qualities could not be conjoined without the deep-laid foundation of friendliness, lacking which, freedom would be anarchy, and unity, oppression. It is the friendliness of Vermont hills, her people, and their homes that is more significant than mere greatness.

I commute to work fulltime in Vermont as an army officer with the national guard since there are few jobs in Essex, NY that allow me to afford to live in my ancestral home in Essex. I found that quote to fit the spirit we need in the NY 21 congressional district.

It saddens me to see the ballot. There are times like this open race where I wish with all my heart, as an army officer, I was able to be partisan in politics and stand up. We need someone who can see beyond the Washington system, and can empathize with the regular guy, the common man of the Adirondacks, and can also see the bigger picture of our national security strategy and national fiscal policy. Whether you vote for a moderate Republican or Democrat, just vote! Vote for one who has an inner light and in your heart you know they actually love this hard-scrabbled place in “upstate” NY, and love America. Regardless of your party, pick VERY wisely at primary time! Your votes will make a difference in the best of the worst.

Related articles

• A new face in the NY-21 race: Stephen Burke (northcountrypublicradio.org)
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• Vintage Photo: Kestrel at Rosslyn Boathouse (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)