The LuLac Edition #2915, May 23rd, 2015

LUZERNE COUNTY COUNCIL RACE 
LOOK WHO'S
BACK IN THE PACK

Democrat Robert Schnee and Republican Eugene Kelleher are back in the race for Luzerne County Council. As reported here last week Kelleher mounted a write in campaign after being persuaded and urged to get back in the game. Schnee was part of the endorsed Democratic ticket. Any way you cut it, as I opined here when the endorsements were made, a few of the endorsed would not be winning because of the presence of Edd Brominski and Steve Urban Senior.
With Schnee getting the GOP nod, he has a better than even chance of winning the general election. Here’s why. Schnee will be regarded as the Hazleton area candidate. During the last election for County Council Kathy Dobash got 17,000 vote and Sue Rossi who ran a very limited campaign came within striking distance. I can see Schnee pullng a big vote out of the area. He is friendly and engaging and knows the issues.
Kelleher on the other hand adds another person to the 4 seats filled by members of the GOP. (They did not get a full slate to file). Kelleher adds his previous experience from County Council to the race and has managed campaign for Republicans in this very Democratic County. I can also see him being a strategist for the rest of that GOP ticket.
There were 1900 write in votes, Kelleher was the top vote getter with 448 and Schnee received 384. That was well above the 250 votes needed for a write in nomination.
Two incumbents came very close to winning a dual nomination. Former Chair Tim McGinley missed it by 51 votes with 199 votes. Steve Urban had 181 votes. I believe Urban might have received more but his son Steve Junior was on the ballot and perhaps that might have led some voters to think their ballot might be disqualified. Or maybe they might have thought they had already voted for the father. The other GOP candidates are Marc Dixon, Wright Township; Ray Gustave, West Wyoming; Mark A. Rabo, Hazleton; and incumbent Steve Urban Junior of Wilkes-Barre.
What this does is make the race competitive. There are six seats open. My prediction still stands that in the General Urban Senior, Edd Brominski and Tim McGinley will prevail. So there are 3 seats up for grabs and no party is guaranteed a sweep anymore with these new developments.

HOW TO DECIDE?

I know this is way too early to even think about but this might be something to ponder over the summer. The knock on County Council has been that they seem to focus in on minutia and personal attacks. A voter has to answer this question: what candidates for County Council, (Democrats, Rostock, McGinley, Urban, Brominski, Gadomski, Jane Waitkus-Watkins,) or (Republicans Marc Dixon,Stephen Urban, Ray Gustave, Mark Rabo, and Gene Kelleher) can work with Kathy Dobash, Harry Haas, Linda McClosky Houck, Eileen Sorokas and Rick Williams?
For any thinking voter that is the defining question of the next election. Something to ponder over the summer.

THE SKY DIDN’T FALL

Congrats to Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik and the staff of the Voters Bureau for running a relatively smooth election. There were doubts raised by the Board of Elections who later changed their minds a few weeks after holding a grand standing press conference stating that the primary was going to be a fiasco.

GROVER GETS HIS DUE

I was very happy to see the Pennsylvania Lottery commercials celebrating the likeness of our 22nd and 24th President Grover Cleveland. The actor playing Cleveland appears in scenarios where lucky winners buy some big ticket item with Cleveland’s approval. The contest is Cash for Life and Cleveland appears on the $1,000 bill. In the earlier part of the 20th century Cleveland appeared on the twenty but was replaced by Andrew Jackson in 1928 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jackson’s election to the Presidency.
A few facts about Cleveland. He was not named after the city nor was the city named after him. He was distantly related to General Moses Cleveland after whom the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was named.
He won election in 1884 and defeated James Blaine. .(Blaine wrested the GOP nomination from Chester A. Arthur who was the first and so far only sitting President to lose a nomination by his own party. He was defeated by Benjamin Harrison in 1888 but four years later defeated Harrison.
Cleveland’s Vice President was Adlai Stevenson I, the grandfather of 1952, 1956 Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson II.
Cleveland was a bachelor but asked permission to correspond with a college student he knew by family association. A short time later he married Frances Folsom who was just twenty one. He was 47. (A very impressive age difference I’d say for the portly gent!)
Cleveland had surgery in secret on a boat. From Wikipedia:
In 1893, Cleveland sought the advice of the White House doctor, Dr. O'Reilly, about soreness on the roof of his mouth and a crater-like edge ulcer with a granulated surface on the left side of Cleveland's hard palate. Samples of the tumor were sent anonymously to the army medical museum. The diagnosis was not a malignant cancer, but instead an epithelioma
Cleveland decided to have surgery secretly, to avoid further panic that might worsen the financial depression.[ The surgery occurred on July 1, to give Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for the upcoming Congressional session.Under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland and his surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bryant, left for New York. The surgeons operated aboard the Oneida, a yacht owned by Cleveland's friend E. C. Benedict, as it sailed off Long Island.[214] The surgery was conducted through the President's mouth, to avoid any scars or other signs of surgery. The team, sedating Cleveland with nitrous oxide and ether, successfully removed parts of his upper left jaw and hard palate. The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland's mouth disfigured. During another surgery, Cleveland was fitted with a hard rubber dental prosthesis that corrected his speech and restored his appearance. A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious press placated.
Cleveland was born in New Jersey and retired there.
In 1908, he suffered a heart attack and died.His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right."[ He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.
In 2006, Free New York, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research group, began raising funds to purchase the former Fairfield Library in Buffalo, New York and transform it into the Grover Cleveland Presidential Library & Museum.
And now his legend lives on through the Pennsylvania Lottery. Aaron Kleiber plays Cleveland in the Lottery commercials. Here is his website.http://www.aaronkleiber.com/commercials.html

SAMMY DAVIS JUNIOR GONE @ 25

Sammy Davis Junior died twenty five years ago this month. As an African-American, Davis was the victim of racism throughout his life and was a large financial supporter of the Civil Rights movement. Davis had a complex relationship with the African-American community, and drew criticism after physically embracing President Richard M. Nixon in 1972. One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap — I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew." This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography, and in countless articles. (Wikipedia).
After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before he died of throat cancer in 1990.
His two chart topping hits were “I’ve Got To Be Me’ and “The Candy Man” in 1972. Davis was one of the famed members of the Rat Pack which included Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Marttin and Joey Bishop. Bishop was the longest of the group to survive dying in 2007. Lawford died in 1984, Martin in 1995 and Sinatra in 1998.
Davis was a Veteran of World War II serving in an integrated Special Services Entertainment unit.