LONSBERRY: The campaign event at the Mt Read Wegmans

It’s good to be prepared.

Especially right before an election.

And so it was that last night, in a westside grocery store, Monroe County’s two Republican police departments held a campaign event.

Er, I’m sorry, training event.

The campaign event was out front with the TV cameras.

That’s where Patrick O’Flynn, hoping to lock up a solid 20 years as sheriff, threw around crime stats for the admiring reporters. 

This is not to disrespect the officers inside, or to question the wisdom of training to prepare for active shooters, but when their diligent efforts are turned into the backdrop for a political campaign, something ain’t right.

And something ain’t right when a sheriff either uses his deputies for props, or fails to see that his grandstanding diminishes the dignity of what they are doing. By standing out front he hoped to make himself look good, but he may have instead made the activity look bad.

Here’s the background. Last night, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the Greece Police Department conducted a combined active-shooter training scenario in the Wegmans on Mt. Read. Press releases went out, television cameras were called, flashing lights were put up out front.

Here’s the real background. Patrick O’Flynn is in the race of his career against Todd Baxter. O’Flynn has been a low-key and often-unseen sheriff, and Baxter has been a high-profile and highly respected police and military leader. Baxter looks like an action figure; O’Flynn looks like your girlfriend’s dad. 

And over the months of this contest, enhancing and burnishing the public image of Patrick O’Flynn has been his campaign’s aim – especially in terms of depicting him as an active law-enforcement professional. So he’s been a lot more places, and he’s worn his uniform a lot more often, and he even started wearing the blue shirt of the road-patrol deputies.

And last night he was front and center protecting the community.

Except everything’s suspect in October, especially when Election Day is within spitting distance.

And no good police leader puts his department and his officers in the shadow of suspicion – especially political suspicion. And last night’s event, with the sheriff out front, is unavoidably suspicious. It smells like a campaign ad. The partnering agency – the Greece Police Department – is led by a chief who backs O’Flynn and bristles at Baxter, and the chief works for a town supervisor who also happens to be the county Republican chairman and Patrick O’Flynn’s political patron. 

That’s the appearance of evil.

And like Paul told the Thessalonians, you’re supposed to avoid the appearance of evil.

How? Well, by rescheduling the event for after the election, or having the undersheriff talk to the reporters. Or the Greece police chief. Or the public information officer from either agency. Or the Wegmans spokesperson. 

Or anybody but the guy who’s running ads asking for votes.

It was a chicken-crap move, and everybody knows it.

This isn’t to say that Patrick O’Flynn is not a good man, or a good law-enforcement administrator. The Greece chief and supervisor are both men of genuine achievement and integrity, who do much good. This isn’t meant to disrespect or insult them.

But it is meant to highlight a difference between the candidates.

Todd Baxter would have known better than to use this as a publicity stunt. Of course, Patrick O’Flynn knew better than to use it as a publicity stunt, too.

But he did anyway.

And that’s a useful insight as Election Day nears.

Because this race comes down to a matter of degrees. It becomes about how good do you want your sheriff to be. How capable, how respected, how principled. 

It’s like Sears – life offers you good, better and best. 

Patrick O’Flynn is good. But Todd Baxter is best.

And the grandstanding in front of the Wegmans was one more proof of that.