Whether you agree with his politics or not, Carl Paladino was the clear choice for WBEN's person of the year. People don't understand how much it takes to run for office, especially when you are not the choice of a major party. The two parties are set up to prevent independent thinking people from running, much less getting elected. They're a lot like the mafia. If an independent person wins by some fluke, they offer the person "protection" in exchange for their future support. Winning a primary in NY state is a big deal, especially going up against an endorsed candidate.
Look for big things this year from Paladino and company. The Democrats and Republicans did a great job of trying to discredit him. If Paladino misspoke during the campaign, it was because he is a regular Western New Yorker who happens to be a successful businessman. The career politicians rarely misspeak because they are carefully schooled never to give an opinion about anything. It was Paladino and Rus Thompson who got the tolls removed, yet several career politicians (who had previously opposed the move) showed up to take credit for it when the cameras were rolling.
It surprises me how naive the average voter is. They get outraged over Paladino's emails, yet don't seem to mind when Andrew Cuomo offers guys like Dale Volker no show jobs. Seriously, the guy (Volker) is completely useless and he's on Cuomo's list for an appointed job. I think what Western New York needs is for more regular people to get involved. We need to take back the community from these career politicians. I'm sick of hearing Brian Higgins talk about the waterfront like it's his and not ours. He's had 25 years as a Councilman, State Assemblyman, and Congressman to come up with ideas. Higgins is well intentioned, but the people need to start making things happen themselves. An idea we've been pushing is for Buffalo to invest in amateur sports competitions (swimming, hockey, etc). I think the community's passion for hockey could be used to bring many out of towners here. We have a lot of work ahead of us, though. The World Junior Hockey Tournament is showing us we need to offer families more things to do downtown other than drink alcohol. What the 18 year old team USA player said was unfortunately, the truth. Downtown Buffalo really is a ghost town after 5PM. I always try to view the glass as half full and I'm optimistic about 2011. Here is WBEN's article on their person of the year for 2010.
2010 Person Of The Year: Carl Paladino - WBEN NewsRadio 930 : Buffalo & Niagara Falls, NY
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