Sabrina Lamar, Jennifer Boutte, Tish James, Lovely Warren and La’Ron Singletary all have two things in common.
One of them is that Joe Morelle and his machine tried to destroy their careers.
And the dream killer was back at it Saturday, protesting that La’Ron Singletary’s recent launch of his congressional campaign was an example of tiresome year-round politics. Morelle complained that he had only taken his oath of office 10 months ago, and this was no time to think about politics and campaigns.
This from a guy who has collected over those same 10 months more than $350,000 in campaign contributions.
That’s an example of the kind of candor and truth telling you can expect from somebody who wears both a congressional lapel pin and cuff links.
But this isn’t about Big Little Joe, this is about La’Ron Singletary.
He stood up last week, on Thursday morning, and announced that he was running for Congress, as a Republican, to represent what is now called the 25thDistrict of New York.
It was a train wreck.
They stood him up in front of a line of Republican fossils and various candidates who had demonstrated just two days before that they had absolutely no relevance with the electorate whatsoever. The ratio of election winners to election losers was ugly, and the preponderance of age spots was frightening. It was a bunch of wannabes trying to make the 6 o’clock news by standing in the glow of La’Ron’s announcement.
None of them brought anything to the party, and they played it all out under a campaign banner that would have gotten a failing grade in a junior-high graphics class.
To top it off, the local “investigative reporter,” in the press scrum after, pushed La’Ron on who he thinks won the 2020 presidential election, and then on what he would say if Donald Trump wanted to campaign for him.
For the record, that is not journalism. It’s activism. It’s being a crap disturber. It’s mining for controversy, a progressive’s desperate effort to help the revolution and draw attention to himself, to achieve the fame that comes from being cited in an opponent’s campaign commercial.
And it worked.
When Big Little Joe stood up to piss on La’Ron, he used the journo’s questions as a point of attack.
And speaking of the cuff linked one, he was there to announce his great victory in getting Joe Biden’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill passed.
Except that when Joe Biden’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill is actually just $555 billion, can you really say that it’s Joe Biden’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill, or that the Biden-Morelle Democrats didn’t get their asses kicked by both moderates and progressives within their own party?
Also, other than reading about it in the paper, what possible role did Big Little Joe play in that legislation? Or in anything else of note? Seriously, google “Morelle” in the “news” category and try to find anywhere outside his district that his name pops up – other than Politico’s reference to his son Little Little Joe’s apparent spanking in the recent Irondequoit supervisor’s race.
But this isn’t about Big Little Joe.
This is about the guy who’s going to take his place in the House of Representatives.
That’s La’Ron Singletary.
And the only thing standing between La’Ron Singletary and the 118thCongress is the gaggle of politicians who want to hold his hand and guide his feet as he makes the run. And they could prove quite an obstacle.
It’s amazing to hear elderly white men from the suburbs debate whether or not La’Ron is “black” or “blue” in the eyes of African-American city voters, and whether or not he will be “black enough” to win Democrat votes in Rochester.
Amazing, or offensive, depending on your perspective or skin color.
And it’s amazing to hear one of those politicians, the Republican who ran last time, saying that he had carried the ball 99 yards and now all La’Ron had to do was cross over into the end zone. For the record, he lost to Big Little Joe 40-60, and performed more poorly than the previous rich white guy who bought the nomination, and went on to lose to Morelle 42-58.
La’Ron will have to overcome local Republicans who will try to make him one way and national Republicans who will try to make him another way. He will have to put up with great pressure from the national party to raise money and great pressure from local party to be nothing more than a chocolate one of them.
La’Ron will also have to overcome local Democrats who will hate him because he isn’t kissing Morelle’s ring or because he challenged Lovely’s rule, and he’ll have to face national Democrats who will try to destroy his character and public reputation in order to protect one of their own.
The only things standing between La’Ron Singletary and Congress are Republicans and Democrats, of which he is truly neither. He is not a politician. He is an honest man, he is a cop, he is a son of Rochester, and he has dedicated his adult life to serving everyone, without regard to something as meaningless as political party.
The key to success will be La’Ron being La’Ron.
This is a man who grew up on the streets of Rochester. This is a man who served his city night and day for two decades, who was in command of the police department the night Daryl Pierson died, who served a troublesome mayor and has the scars to prove it, and who stood for integrity when the politicians around him surrendered to expediency.
La’Ron Singletary is the perfect representative of a district which includes a challenged city, successful suburbs and – after redistricting – likely stretches of rural countryside. He is the perfect representative of a district which is home to a great many wonderful people, some of whom happen to be Republicans or Democrats, and all of whom deserve a congressman who puts them first.
La’Ron Singletary would make history, for who he is, and for what he will do in service to his district and country.
Unless he becomes just one more victim of Big Little Joe’s political savagery.