The LuLac Edition #1788, October 8th, 2011

PHOTO INDEX: OUR INTERVIEW LOGO.

INTERVIEW

This past week in between falls and doing the blog duties as well as WYLN’s Topic A I had a chance to talk to a political volunteer/consultant who has been conspicuously absent on the campaign trail.
Q: You were quite busy in 2009. I see you in both Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, not so much this year.
A: There’s a different dynamic going on this year. First off in Lackawanna County things are pretty quiet, there’s no Judge race happening and the County Commissioners have their own people in place. In Luzerne County it’s much different.
Q: Right, here in Luzerne County you have many more candidates running, especially with County Council. And the 6 Judges for Common Pleas. You’d think there’d be some opportunity there.
A: You’d think that on the surface, but in reality it’s just the opposite. The Judicial candidates with the exception of Hughes vs. Hanlon Mirabito are set. They have dual nominations. That really surprised me because for all the hue and cry about reform, you have 5 Democrats winning on both tickets. And 3 of those 6 Democrats essentially ran their own campaigns with limited help from guys like me.
Q: What do you think about this new crop of would be Judges?
A: They’ll have, the entire court system will have a big learning curve. 6 new Judges with 2 Judges with less than two years experience, they are going to have their hands full up on that third floor.
Q: Do you think some candidates that ran in ’09 were a tad more qualified than this crew?
A: I might say that, yes.
Q: How come they didn’t run?
A: No money. It is very expensive to run a campaign and people forget that Judicial candidates have mortgages, families, kids headed toward college and have their law firms that have to be sustained. People forget that, makes me almost want to go for Merit Selection.
Q: Any thoughts on County Council?
A: It is crazy democracy in action. Again for guys like me it isn’t profitable because most of these candidates are running home made campaigns.
Q: Want to take a guess on the final make up of the council?
A: No. I won’t even try.
Q: Ever think of consulting for a Republican?
A: I tried.
Q: What happened?
A: Typical Wilkes Barre/Scranton backward logic, in hundreds of thousands of communities across the United States the GOP has tons of money. Not here.
Q: None?
A: Nada!