RoadTrip: Ann Marie Buerkle & Ursula Rozum Town Hall NY-24

I want you to be famous for those exact words. I want peo­ple to call you Colonel Run­away. I want chil­dren laugh­ing out­side your door, ’cause they’ve found the house of Colonel Runaway.

The 11^th Doc­tor A Good Man goes to War 2011

While Dan “Colonel Run­away” Maf­fei con­tin­ues to dodge open Forums Ann Marie Buerkle and the Green Party Oppo­nent answered ques­tions from the assem­bled Crowd.

There was some press before the event that took a few shots before

But were not there at the end.

I’ve already posted on the com­ments of the audi­ence (the vot­ers com­ments always take pri­or­ity) now lets look at the event itself

The can­di­dates made their open­ing cases first Miss Rozum

And then Con­gress­woman Buerkle:

I par­tic­u­larly liked the for­mat it max­i­mized the influ­ence of the votes while min­i­miz­ing the impact of the mod­er­a­tor. The ques­tions were sub­mit­ted in writ­ing from the audi­ence, put into a bas­ket and drawn ran­domly by the mod­er­a­tor to be asked, Audi­ence mem­bers were offered the chance to read their own ques­tions if they declined the mod­er­a­tor would read them. The first ques­tion was on Benghazi.

At the time I hadn’t heard about them men going in against orders (more on that tomor­row). The ques­tions con­tin­ued Social Security:

The Econ­omy:

And High Speed Rail which has been an issue of dis­cus­sion in NY as well as California

The ques­tion on Frack­ing was one of only three where an audi­ence mem­ber choose to ask their ques­tion themselves

I wasn’t aware that Frack­ing was a big issue in NY. the Next ques­tion was on Re-​Licensing Nuclear Plants

and Pri­va­tiz­ing Social Security

The Oba­macare ques­tion was very sig­nif­i­cant as lay­offs had just been announced at a local hos­pi­tal over it

and another ques­tion on jobs

I thought the con­gress­woman make a good point on the nature of what a mem­ber of con­gress can do.

Both can­di­dates then made clos­ing state­ments, first Miss Rozum

I thought she was a rather good rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the far left Green Party. She made a pos­i­tive case for posi­tions that many democ­rats would agree with and at the end of the event there were not many of her signs still in the hall to be taken. As her oppo­nent Con­gress­woman Buerkle put it:

Ursula is a woman who has the courage of her con­vic­tions and I think whether agree or dis­agree on one issue or ten issues the only way our soci­ety and our gov­ern­ment and our civ­i­liza­tion is going to come, is going to reach any solu­tions is if peo­ple are will­ing to sit down and have a robust debate and dis­cus­sion on issues and I think her courage as a Green Party can­di­date to do what she has done is to be com­mended and should be appre­ci­ated by this com­mu­nity because what she has done has not been an easy task by any stretch.

That’s pretty high praise from an opponent.

Con­gress­woman Buerkle closed the event with her clos­ing statement

Through­out the event she made a pos­i­tive and ratio­nal case both for her re-​election and on the issues, what was really impres­sive was how she didn’t over promise and talked sen­si­bly tak­ing the vot­ers seriously.

The real win­ners of the event were the vot­ers who were present

Not only did they ask great sub­stan­tive questions

But they had direct access to the can­di­dates who spent a few min­utes after­wards talk­ing to them

And the biggest loser that would be Dan “Colonel Run­away” Maf­fei who after spend­ing 2010 run­ning away from his record has decided a win­ning strat­egy is to run away from the vot­ers. What can you say about a grown man, a for­mer con­gress­man who has less courage than a girl in her 20’s as Con­gress­woman Put it.

Dan Maffei’s absence has been, I think an insult to the vot­ers of this dis­trict I think if he wants the vot­ers to know where he stands on the issues he has a respon­si­bil­ity as a can­di­date to come forth and the (record?) and you all know where he stands.

There were four town halls, one in each county in NY-​24 and Dan “Col Run­away” Maf­fei ducked every one of them for fear they might ask him some­thing that he would have to answer.

There is a clear choice in this race a Con­gress­woman who gives access or a Con­gress­man who runs away.

Re-​Elect Ann Marie Buerkle to Con­gress in NY 24

Because NY-​24 deserves a rep­re­sen­ta­tive who lis­tens to the peo­ple in the dis­trict instead of run­ning away from them

You can kick into her cam­paign here.

Update via the Lonely Con­ser­v­a­tive I sus­pect this video was not shot at the event:

Remem­ber all of this cov­er­age is made pos­si­ble by you. My road trip came to just under $500 not count­ing the time put in dur­ing the three days. So far We’ve had tip jar hits cov­er­ing $180 of those expenses. If you’d like to help sup­port this kind of cov­er­age please con­sider hit­ting DaTip­Jar to ensure this will not be the last of these trips to sup­port GOP can­di­dates that need your help.