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Three’s
A Crowd
Shawn
Morris drops out of the race for Albany mayor, leaving many
of her supporters unhappy—and unsure whether they will support
any Democratic candidate in the September primary By Cecelia
Martinez
Thursday
evening at the La Salle School on Western Avenue in Albany,
some stragglers linger after the monthly Pine Hills Neighborhood
Association meeting. They aren’t discussing the upcoming Upper
Madison festival or the newly formed grouper-law task force,
but rather the latest news to blog-bait those involved with
local politics. Association president Dan Curtis breaks the
news to two members who hadn’t yet heard: He and others are
still reeling from the day’s announcement that mayoral candidate
Shawn Morris had dropped out of the race because, she said,
there was no “path to victory in a three-way race.”
Aside from sideline candidates with smaller campaigns, the
race is now narrowed down to 16-year incumbent Jerry Jennings
and one-term Common Councilmember Corey Ellis (Ward 3).
Morris’ campaign reported raising $29,000, roughly $10,000
less than Ellis had reported, and less than a tenth of what
Jennings reported. And her campaign lost critical endorsements
from the Working Families Party Line and Citizen Action. Some
observers believe that Morris and Ellis may have had a handshake
agreement that one candidate would voluntarily quit the race
by a certain date based on factors including, but not necessarily
limited to, the amount of money each candidate had raised.
However, Morris’ supporters up until last week believed that
the 16-year veteran of the council was the best candidate
to beat Jennings in September. They routinely attacked Ellis
as being too young and inexperienced.
On the eve of her withdrawal, many of these Morris supporters
are shocked, others just disappointed, and more than one is
left wondering what to do next. At least Curtis has a short-term
plan.
“I’m
going to go drink myself silly,” he says.
Although Morris lives in the Delaware area of the 7th Ward,
she attends occasional neighborhood association meetings and
has many supporters in Pine Hills, including Curtis, who went
door-to-door collecting petitions for Morris as part of his
work as a main organizer for her campaign.
Whether or not these Morris supporters will begin to back
Ellis, who is more aligned ideologically with their progressive
agenda than Jennings, is yet to be seen. But many will tell
you that their support was for Morris herself, and not something
that is transferable to the candidate who helped drive her
out.
“Obviously
there are a lot of people that are disappointed in the way
that this has turned out,” says Curtis, “but I don’t think
this is going to break the progressive spirit. I think this
is just going to shift a lot of the resources into the council
races instead of the mayoral race.”
With
Morris out of the race, many of her supporters are now deciding
how best to carry on the spirit of her campaign. While some
group Morris and Ellis together as “anything-but-Jerry” alternatives,
Morris doesn’t feel that she was an anti-Jennings candidate.
“I
don’t really see it like that,” Morris says, “and certainly
the voters are not polarized in that matter.”
While many Morris supporters admit they aren’t lining up to
vote for Jennings, Ellis may have his work cut out for him
attracting former Morris supporters to his campaign.
“I’m
not of the “anything-but-Jerry” camp,” says Curtis. “I was
in the race to help out Shawn because I thought she was a
great candidate. Now without her there, it’s not like we are
just going to go and support the other guy. We’re going to
support other people we believe in.”
In fact, Curtis and other Morris supporters are now shifting
their focus away from the mayor’s office to other Albany races
happening in the fall—to the council races and the race for
the treasurer’s office.
“If
we have progressive voices on the Common Council and in the
city treasurer office,” Curtis contends, “then we can really
rankle a lot of the wrongs that are taking place in this city.”
Morris acknowledges that while she doesn’t necessarily encourage
her supporters to rally behind any particular candidate, they
tend to gravitate towards those whose platforms fall in line
with Morris’.
“I
think that many of the people that worked on my campaign were
also supporting the other candidates who are independent thinkers,
who are focused on neighborhood issues,” she says. “My strongest
support certainly came from the organized communities in this
city—people who have been working hard for safe streets, code
enforcement and vacant buildings, preservation issues, and
certainly open and transparent government. Other candidates
across the city who are also working on those issues, our
campaigns work very closely and we’re mutually supportive,
so I think that you’ll see a lot of my supporters working
on Kathy Sheehan’s race and various races for the Common Council.”
For Curtis, it’s a simple matter of how best to utilize time,
money and volunteers to make a significant change in the political
culture of Albany. “You have to put your resources where you
think you can win some real battles.”
He questions the viability of Ellis’s mayoral campaign.
“With
$11,000 in the bank, that isn’t even enough money to run one
citywide mailer,” Curtis says. “He has the support of the
Working Families Party and the support of Citizen Action as
well, and hopefully they bring out a lot of the big guns for
him, but nobody in the city wins unless they’re on the Democratic
line. I think that a lot supporters feel like their time can
be best spent by helping progressive voices get elected to
the council.”
“We
all want to see a change of leadership in Albany, I’m just
not sure if this is going to be the year that happens,” says
Leah Golby, who is running for council in the 10th Ward. “It’s
hard because I like Corey on a personal level, but I didn’t,
and still don’t, think that he is a strong candidate for mayor.”
Golby is a supporter of Morris despite running on the same
Working Families Party line that also endorses Ellis. Now,
she says that she does support Ellis, but that she will focus
the majority of her efforts on her own campaign.
Morris is holding off on making an endorsement in the mayoral
race, and declines to say whether or not she feels that Ellis
can take on the mayor.
“It
depends on whether or not the challenger fronts a campaign
that can get a message out,” she says. “There are a couple
of months to go before the election, and we’ll see if Mr.
Ellis can mount the campaign that can do that.”
Curtis stresses, however, that he is not working against Ellis.
“We’re
not wishing ill will on his race,” he says. “We think that
Shawn would have been the better candidate, but there are
plenty of other opportunities for progressive activists to
get involved.”
‘Jennings
has a broad base of support and a lot of money, so I can understand
people’s opinions about it being an uphill battle and potentially
unwinnable,” says Luke Gucker, a candidate for council in
the 11th Ward. “But I don’t agree. I think the entire progressive
community was fractured, and I think it’s an opportunity to
really come together.”
Gucker said that he feels that Ellis can mount that sort of
campaign that can topple the mayor, and would like to see
the progressive community rally around Ellis. However, he
said that he understands that many of Morris’ supporters still
feel passionate about her campaign and that those feelings
may get in the way of the progressive party uniting behind
Ellis.
“A
lot of people were very emotionally invested,” he says. “People
that made that choice early, I think they had to make Corey
the enemy because that was the competition. Overcoming that
competitive spirit is something that they sort of have to
reconcile now, and I think a lot of people are having trouble
with that.”
Many are getting involved with council races in the hope that
an independent, progressive voice can still be heard in Albany
regardless of who wins the mayoral race in the fall.
“The
one thing you have to remember about the city of Albany, unfortunately,
is that the Common Council holds little power compared to
our mayor,” Curtis says, “but that’s not to say that they
hold no power.”
“There’s
no way to get around the fact that mayor’s race is a big deal—it’s
like the checkmate,” Gucker says. “But the council is where
the democratic process happens. I think what Barbara Smith
and Dominick Calsolaro and Cathy Fahey have been able to do
in the last couple of years, with the ghost tickets and the
landfill issue, just having people on the council that are
going to stand up for what they believe in, it really throws
a wrench in everything that’s going on. There’s all these
things that are happening, and that, I think, is the result
of people getting active on the council.”
“There’s
a lot of different ways to achieve change in Albany,” says
Morris. “Way too much authority exists in the mayor’s office
itself. For all the time I’ve been on the council, we’ve kind
of floated around seven to nine members, depending on the
issue, who are willing to take independent stands, who vote
their consciences regardless of the pressure that they might
get from the mayor’s office. Electing a few more people like
that will perhaps put more issues up for referendum and abide
for better checks and balances in city government.”
Ellis most likely will be able to pick up some of the displaced
Morris supporters to aid in his bid for mayor.
Ellis’ campaign did not return calls for comment.
“I’m
sure there will be some folks that go out and help Corey and
I think that’s fine,” Curtis says. “I just think that a lot
of our time is going to be better spent working on races like
Kathy Sheehan, like Cathy Fahey, like Luke Gucker, and people
who are really going to hold the next mayor accountable.”
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