What do we have to show for 10 years of Elise Stefanik?
Small groups like the Feeder Canal Alliance quietly make a difference
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Elise Marie Stefanik, elected with much fanfare as the youngest woman in Congress 10 years ago, is now middle-aged. She has served nearly five terms in the House of Representatives and is a leader in the national Republican Party.
Her Wikipedia page - I urge you to read it - goes on for some time about her career in politics. By any measure, she is considered a political success, but as she lobbies for a sixth term (she originally endorsed term limits and promised not to stay longer than five terms), voters need to ask what she has accomplished this decade that improved their lives.
Returning to the Wikipedia page, it chronicles her story as a Harvard-educated young businesswoman who grew up in Willsboro. But none of that is true. She grew up in Albany, attended private school, tooled around Harvard in a sports car while her parents operated a successful plywood business that was able to fund a $1.2 million townhome for her in Washington, D.C. after she landed a job in the Bush White House.
When she decided to run for Congress she said she was an executive in her parents plywood business and living in Willsboro, but she really was working remotely.
It was a story.
Figuring out who Elise Stefanik is and what she really believes is a jigsaw puzzle that has yet to be solved, especially when every social media post, every press release, every appearance is a calculated decision about what will benefit her political career.
Her Wikipedia page explains her political beginnings as a moderate in a purplish district where Democrat Bill Owens was her predecessor and how she jumped on the Trump bandwagon, defended him at every turn and sought out the limelight.
None of this is new information.
That fresh young face gave her constituents hope once.
In a shockingly rare interview with Alex Gault of the Watertown Daily Times recently, she tells him that her rise into the political leadership has helped the 21st Congressional District. But she does not say specifically how.
Being a successful politician is different than being a successful representative. Being a member of the House of Representatives is like having two jobs and Rep. Stefanik is very good at one of them. Her fundraising shows that.
The story in the Watertown Daily Times sounds like a traditional election eve story evaluating the pros and cons of the candidates. Stefanik repeats her concerns about illegal immigrants not only crossing the southern border, but the northern border as well.
She rails against the current Democratic president and the current candidate for leaving our country in a shambles, yet all economic indicators make our economy the envy of the rest of the world.
She reminds us of her advocacy for the men and women in the military, yet she neglects to mention she never fought for justice for the men and women in uniform who were sexually abused and harassed. Sadly, she ignored that issue entirely.
There is a lot missing in the story.
There is no mention of the 2018 campaign when The Post-Star editorial board asked her not to lie. She never responded.
There is no mention of her hiring of a 17-year-old high school student her campaign paid nearly $1,000 to do political espionage against her opponent in 2018.
There is no mention of an invitation to a Washington County man to be a special guest at a town hall meeting a week after threatening the local newspaper and a reporter.
There is no mention of repeatedly taking credit for federal funding for local projects that she voted against.
There is a lot more to the story about Elise Marie Stefanik than her press releases.
As our representatives in the 21st Congressional District, each voter should be asking what she has done for them over the past 10 years.
She is not a neophyte anymore.
She is 40.
She is high up in the Republican Party.
She has powerful friends.
Yet, she has passed only two pieces of legislation and one was to name a Post Office in Plattsburgh.
Along the way, she has proven a ruthless and cutthroat politician who doesn't just want your vote, she wants ALL the votes. She wants to decimate her opposition by attacking them at every turn, making up silly, juvenile nicknames and refusing ever to debate them in person.
Paula Collins is the underfunded Democrat running against Elise Stefanik.
In the Watertown story, Stefanik describes Collins as the "weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up" and that is the reason she will not debate her.
Paula Collins spoke at Crandall Library a week or so ago.
She has been traveling around the district for the better part of a year with little funding and just a couple of young assistants - one is her daughter - with no help from national Democratic Party.
She has been appalled by the poverty and the myriad of problems that consitutents face int he district, problems that were there 10 years ago and may still be there 10 years from now.
What Stefanik sees as "weakness" is her lack of money.
Her inability to raise the millions and millions of dollars that would be needed to defeat someone of Elise Stefanik's stature.
When I saw her speak, I did not think she was weak.
In fact, I doubt Elise Stefanik would have lasted very long in 2014 if she had to do the driving and the talking in her vast district.
What I found in Paula Collins was someone with a passion, not for helping herself, but for helping people.
Collins announced last week she would debate Stefanik Monday night at Crandall Library, but of course Stefanik will not attend.
She has more important things to do than to tell the voters what she has done for them. After 10 years in office and her high ranking in her party, you would think the list would be long and she would want to brag about how she has eliminated poverty, energized business, and stopped from leaving to points south because she has given them new hope.
Rep. Stefanik is another successful politician who does not talk about hope.
She does not talk about a better world.
But she does know who to blame about the world we live in today and despite her decade of service, she is not to blame for the fact that virtually nothing has changed in her district since she first arrived.
She told us in 2014 she was going to be a new generation of leader to fix Washington.
What we got was more of the same.
At the very least, in the name of democracy, she could take up Collins' challenge and show up tonight and show them how a professional politician does it.
Stefanik has nothing to lose. She could show up for this debate drunk and she would still win this election going away.
The reality is that we don't see much of her here in the North Country at all. Sure, she shows up from time to time to some local Republican committee event and gets her photo taken for social media, then disappears back to Washington and the the townhouse now valued a $1.8 million.
The public is never told about these events.
The public is never invited.
So there will be a debate tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Crandall Library with an empty chair and the most important questions will go unanswered:
Will she defend the Constitution if Donald Trump is elected president and begins prosecuting his political enemies?
And if he loses, will she accept the result and demand a peaceful transfer of power.
Bennie and the Jets
Admittedly, I have never given enough credit for the many tribute bands out there.
For those of us who saw the original artists in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, nothing could replace that first experience.
I must reconsider after seeing Bennie and the Jets in their toe-tapping tribute to Elton John Saturday night at the Wood Theater.
Greg Ransom was Elton John for the evening and a reminder of all the great music John has produced from "Tiny Dancer" to "Your Song" to "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."
The hits just kept coming.
Near the end of the show, I suddenly wondered why we had not heard the 1970s classic "Crocodile Rock"only to hear the band tee it up as the next song and find myself singing along at the top of my lungs.
Most of us had gray hair, but we all left smiling with this trip down memory lane.
It was also a reminder of how important having a facility like the Wood is for our community.
Feeder Canal Alliance
Patti Simone, the executive director of the Feeder Canal Alliance, reached out to me last week to attend its annual meeting.
The group was honoring former board member and Queensbury Town Board member Harrison Freer.
My favorite bike ride around Glens Falls is from The Post-Star parking lot to the trail along the Feeder Canal all the way out to Hudson Falls.
For a time, I did it during my lunch hour at work.
The Feeder Canal has a rich history with the industrial base in Glens Falls and I never gave much thought about who kept the trails and canal looking so good.
While Queensbury Supervisor John Strough was there to lament the passing of his friend and colleague Freer, what will stay with me was the honor of two long-time volunteers, Howard Raymond and Chris Reed.
They both spoke not only of their love of the canal and its mission, but the camaraderie they found in the shared purpose of the organization.
It's a reminder of all the small organizations with dedicated members who make all our small communities so special.
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.
Stefanik spoke at the Fascist MAGA rally at Madison Square Garden. There’s no doubt about where she stands. Vote for Collins!
I am relieved to read about our collective reaction to Stefanik's reprehensible behavior. I also think that Trump is throwing everything he can at his followers hoping to win and stay out of jail. Imagine if he were just quiet and behaving rationaly. Trump is his own worst enemy. Let's support Collins.