Collins draws a crowd looking for a little hope in 21st District

Book Festival event reconsiders Springsteen's most panned album

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It was telling that more than 50 people turned out on a Monday evening to hear Paula Collins answer questions.

If you aren't aware - and many aren't - Collins is the Democratic alternative to

Republican Elise Stefanik in the 21st Congressional District this year.

I sensed most weren't looking for answers to the difficult issues facing the country, what they were looking for was a little hope from the travesty that Stefanik has become as a representative.

At one point, Collins made an observation about visiting Glens Falls and Queensbury being so different from other parts of the district where she finds abject poverty rampant.

It startled me.

It should startle all of us.

When we think of the North Country, we think of the beautiful Adirondacks, we think of Lake Placid and the Saint Lawrence Seaway, not abject poverty.

Collins told me she was aware of the poverty in the district for her work as a cannabis attorney upstate, but seeing it up close day after day while running for Congress was eye-opening as she worked her way through the 15 counties in the district.

The other thing that should startle you is that Elise Stefanik, who has already served five terms as our representative and is now a seasoned 40-year-old politician who has never lived here, never talks about that poverty or how to address it.

You don't see social media posts about the need for more resources for the poor.

You never see tweets about how she proposes to deliver those resources.

But we do hear a lot about evil Democrats and murderous immigrants.

Frankly, Stefanik doesn't talk about any problems in her district, so it is shocking so many Republican supervisors and councilmen endorse her when she is doing so little to help their communities.

At one point at Monday's event, a woman who is a social worker for the Adirondack Health Institute told Collins what she is seeing on the front lines in dealing with special needs children around the district.

She was searching, wondering, hoping and praying that Collins might have a solution for the multitude of problems she sees in the rural communities, but I suspect she knew she probably would not because the problems is so widespread.

Later, Collins said, that it was people like this social worker on the front lines who were the real heroes.

"She was probably bone-tired after a long day, and she could have headed for the couch, but instead she was here looking for answers," Collins said.

The problem is that Collins' campaign doesn't have any money, well, real money compared to the millions Stefanik has raised.

The DCCC - the national organization for the Democrats - has decided to spend their national money in other more competitive districts.

So Collins has almost no staff - her daughter and one other young woman who helped her Monday night; no polling; no opposition research; and no advertising budget to speak of, although she did mail out a couple thousand post cards last week.

That's not how you win elections these days, especially in a sprawling North Country region.

One enterprising Collins supporter has found a way to advertise her support of Collins with a little updating of a Stefanik sign.

When Collins was asked about getting more lawn signs, she said "Lawn signs are expensive."

So they had some home made signs there Monday night.

When I told someone Monday she did not have a chance to win, they told me I needed to have a little hope.

I'm a cynical old journalist who tends to be realistic about the world around me. Collins is a legitimate candidate who should be taken seriously, but she is still virtually unknown, even after all her travels.

Collins has already begun to say the race for the midterms begins on Nov. 6 - the day after Election Day.

She says she is up to another run, but she also has to make a living.

"You know, while tonight was a nice turnout and everything, what I was really hoping to see were more independents, more people who are undecided,"Collins said. "I want to reach out to the people that have been forgotten."

Thanks to our current congresswoman, that would be most of the 21st Congressional District.

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Newspapers got it wrong

During the Paula Collins event Monday night, one man weighed in on, not only the lack of coverage on local politics in the local media, but the fact that most newspapers do not do endorsements anymore.

It was something I felt strongly about when I was editor of The Post-Star - they have not done endorsements since I retired - because I felt that we could help answer readers questions about local candidates in their towns and villages before they voted.

We didn't want to tell them what to think so much as provide a way for them to get information about the candidates running for office.

It was nice to hear that effort was missed.

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Springsteen's Nebraska

The Saratoga Book Festival held a unique musical event Saturday night.

Book festivals are usually about the words, but the program that attracted my attention was Warren Zanes' show that combined the words from his book Deliver Me From Nowhere with the songs from Springsteen's "Nebraska" album.

I confess, that "Nebraska" is probably the one album I do not hold in high regard by Springsteen, but during a 1 hour and 15 minute show, Zanes convinced me to at least reconsider it.

Zanes holds a PhD in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester, is a Grammy-nominated producer of the PBS series Soundbreaking, a consulting producer on the Oscar-winning "20 Feet from Stardom" who has also written for Rolling Stone magazine, but his real claim to fame was that while playing in a rock band in his teens, Springsteen walked through the door one night and played with his band.

That's street credibility.

It's been 40 years since I listened to "Nebraska," but after listening to Zanes and the accompanying band, I dusted off the turntable and pulled out an old vinyl album that had only been played a few times.

Some times, things improve with age.

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Stern Substack

Being on Substack is starting to become a thing as newspapers and their dwindling resources are dismissed by readers looking for more.

At Paula Collins' event on Monday night in Glens Falls there was another Substack writer, Alan Stern.

Stern is the former chairman of the Democratic Committee in Washington County. He provided his own take on Collins' presentation on Tuesday morning. You might want to check it out.

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Correction?

I'm still confused by the boundaries of the  21st Congressional District map.

I called up the map on www.congress.gov and it clearly shows that both the town of Corinth and Schuylerville (Stefanik's place of residence) are in the 20th Congressional District, not the 21st Congressional District.

But my old colleague Maury Thompson corrected me and said Corinth was in the 20th, but is now back in the 21st, despite what this map shows. I probably trust Maury more.

Jill  Lochner, who has been running against Stefanik as a Republican, also informed me that changes were made in February that parts of Saratoga County are now included in the 21st Congressional District, including Corinth, Schuylerville and Greenfield where Lochner lives.

I stand corrected.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.