How strange that in one of the most metropolitan areas of the U.S., it took a federal judge to restore our basic voting rights. In a rare win for democracy in NY, an upstate federal judge ordered a Republican primary in our congressional district, stopping the Nassau GOP’s attempt to stymie the election. This is good for Republicans, because the last cycle saw the proxies of party boss Mondello get blown out. One would have expected hell to freeze over before Republicans couldn’t get elected in Nassau. The fact that voters don’t have to suck it up and vote for whatever retread is foisted upon them by the Nassau GOP machine evidently annoys Jack Martins.
In Newsday’s “The Point” section (8/31/16), Martins griped about having to take conservative positions in order to win a primary. Egads! What a shock that when the Nassau GOP can’t insulate one of its robots from competition, it actually has to respect us. Martins specifically complained of having to tack to the right to please the voters of Smithtown, which is about as Republican as Manhasset. Now he has to break his extended liplock with Cuomo to explain why he’s such a fan of his, often featuring the liberal Democrat on websites and mailers. In 2014, the Martins campaign touted him as “non-ideological.” So if Martins has no basic philosophy of what government should do, or if he’s fluid and “tacks” with the prevailing wind, then exactly what are people voting for? For Republicans who actually want their candidate to be, well, Republican, the answer is—not him.
We have a God-given right to choose our own leaders which can be violated in two ways. The first is by disenfranchising a group of voters. The second is when no one can be nominated except for a lapdog (or son) of some boss. In both schemes, the election is a joke as the official is really handpicked by a party boss. The candidate need only please him, not the voters. But when those puppet strings are cut, as in this case, by a federal judge, accountability to voters, to us, is the result. This new reality may suck for Jack Martins, but in every other state, it’s simply known as “democracy.”
—Martin Dekom
