Already the race for the State Senate’s 60th District is shaping up a lot like last winter’s special election for the same post. The four Democrats who’ve thrown their hats into the ring for September’s primary all ran for the seat seven months ago, though only one of them, Marc Coppola, stuck it out. He eventually went on to win, but not before the heavy-handed political machines could completely reshape the race.

Hopefully this time around we won’t see a repeat of that race, where political discussion was entirely muted by party bosses. On December 18, the Buffalo News ran an article accompanied by the headline, “7 Pursue Brown’s State Senate Seat.” That count didn’t even include Antoine Thompson and Republican Chris Jacobs, who would join the race later in the game. So there were nine candidates for the 60th Senate district seat. How, then, was such a field whittled down to two same-guy candidates in two short months?

The candidates who began that race represented a broad and diverse cross-section of Western New York, and included Ellicott Councilmember Brian Davis, business owner Emin “Eddie” Egriu, Buffalo State Professor Ellen Kennedy, activist Kevin Gaughan, Board of Education Member Ralph Hernandez, former state Senator Alfred Coppola, Byron Brown’s Grassroots ally Antoine Thompson and former Councilmember Marc Coppola. The Republican Party later recruited Chris Jacobs into the race.

With five parties planning to field candidates, in a perfect world one might expect five unique candidates. But this world is far from perfect. The Democrats, under the leadership of county chairman Len Lenihan, backed Marc Coppola early on, and two candidates—Davis and Egriu—ended their bids there. The Working Families Party chose activist Kevin Gaughan as their man over Kennedy and Thompson, but according to the NYS Board of Elections, he never even filed petitions to run for the post. In the end, he didn’t announce his withdrawal until it was essentially too late for the WFP to replace him, and they didn’t field a candidate. Al Coppola and Ralph Hernandez both courted the Republicans, who eventually recruited their own candidate, wealthy real estate developer and Board of Education Member Chris Jacobs. The Conservatives told candidates they needed a second line if they expected the party to fall out of step with the Republicans. None of the candidates seeking the Conservative line had a second party’s endorsement, so the Conservatives went with Republican Jacobs. And the Independence Party, which has long endorsed Democratic candidates, was rumored to have auctioned off its endorsement to the highest bidder. One candidate was said to have offered $10,000 for the endorsement, but still lost it to Coppola.

In the end, voters in the 60th district were faced with a choice between Marc Coppola and Chris Jacobs. While the two are very clearly different candidates with different backgrounds, they look very similar when compared with some of the other contenders who were kept off the ballot by party leaders. Only seven percent (13,312) of the registered voters turned out to vote, and Coppola won 56 percent of that vote. That’s a surprisingly close race when you consider that Democrats account for more than 85 percent of registered voters in the 60th District. Many people believe that if Gaughan or Thompson had stayed in the race, they would’ve divided the Democratic vote enough for Jacobs to win. While nobody can be sure of the outcome, it would’ve been nice if the voters were given more options and party bosses hadn’t stacked the odds.

Speaking of stacking the odds, Marc Coppola seems to be getting some PR help from the Buffalo News, which has devoted editorial space to publicizing Coppola’s groundless attacks on his opponents. One example is the June 20 article entitled “Election splits cousins Coppola: Al accused of aiding Marc’s State Senate opponent.” The article gives Marc a platform to make the accusation that his cousin Al joined the Senate race simply to create voter confusion over their common last name, thus aiding Antoine Thompson, who Marc considers to be his serious competition. In reality, Al is the better-known Coppola locally, having spent 17 years as the Delaware councilmember and a brief stint as state senator, before losing the seat to Byron Brown. Since then, he’s run in every State Senate election, and this one is no exception.

Another example comes from the June 24 article entitled “State Senate candidates trade barbs over picnic.” Here Robert McCarthy details Coppola’s charges that opponent Antoine Thompson is using city resources to run his State Senate campaign. Coppola’s accusations are based on the fact that Thompson held his sixth annual Senior Cookout in Niagara Falls and used “city fax machines, city letterhead and staff time to throw a picnic in the City of Niagara Falls.” Thompson scoffed at the charges, saying that the cost—all $250—was donated. Even if it were true, Coppola’s accusation hardly seems newsworthy.

The News also spent some time digging up personal dirt on Thompson—considered Coppola’s most formidable opponent at that time, too—during the runup to February’s special election. On January 29, James Heaney authored a piece detailing five separate incidents where creditors had to take legal action to collect debts from Thompson. These included phone bills, a campaign commercial and credit card balances. But what’s the point of the article? The debts were already settled, so the only point seems to be stirring up old, irrelevant dirt on Thompson.

Beside being his occasional soapbox and dishing on his opponents, the News also occasionally blows smoke up Coppola’s ass. In a June 25 article, political reporter Bob McCarthy says. “It’s usually far from newsworthy when Democrats endorse Democrats, but the nod of lieutenant governor candidate David Paterson toward Sen. Marc Coppola’s tough re-election effort is significant.” In reality, the only reason that endorsement is significant is because Spitzer also endorsed Coppola as a favor to County Chairman Len Lenihan, not because Coppola is turning heads in Albany. McCarthy knows that better than anyone else, but he portrays the endorsement out of context, even quoting some fluffy, nonspecific praise that Paterson heaped on Coppola. No other candidate has been so favorably covered with so little evidence of doing anything.

Right now there are four candidates heading into September’s Democratic primary: the two Coppolas, Thompson and Egriu. Let’s hope we see all four names on the ballot come September 12.

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