Saturday, November 17, 2007

Arcuri and Chili

I went to Dryden Town Hall this afternoon for Congressman Arcuri's "Congress in Your Corner" Q & A. It was not an unfriendly crowd, although his handlers seemed to think that it was. Lots of praise for his voting record, lots of questions about Iran and impeachment, a smattering on health care and his support for Hillary, and I asked about grants for alternative energy for middle class citizens, and another guy asked about CAFE standards. He talked a bit about immigration, in light of his refusal to support Spitzer's plan to license illegals. I would say that his answers did not entirely appease the audience. The majority of the folks there clearly wanted him to lead on impeachment, which he is just as clearly not going to do. The most interesting parts of the discussion as far as I'm concerned revolved around whether his job is to represent his constituents or to lead and whether the president's job is to keep us safe or to safeguard the Constitution.

Afterward, Dave Makar and I skipped over to the Community Cafe, which was holding a grand chili cookoff with apple pie on the side. I voted for my favorite chili out of eight, which was not easy to do (I picked the very first one I tried, which may say something about the importance of ballot order), and we schmoozed pleasantly with Drydenites of all political flavors.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How can one find out when these policiticians are speaking? The Ithaca journal? I rarely read it.

KAZ said...

That's a great question. I knew because his office contacted the Dem Committee. They must have talked to media, too, because there was a bit of coverage there. But I didn't read about it in advance in the paper.

Next time I'll blog it.