Republicans in Democrats' Clothing

[The following is just one person's observations. Feel free to comment.]

Mike Caputo recently talked about Mayor-elect Duffy's appointing of Republicans to his administration. This isn't a big surprise if you paid the least bit of attention during the campaign. He specifically said he wants to make the city government as business-friendly as possible. This was/is alarming on two fronts. First of all, if you believe Duffy has the entire city's interest at heart, that would mean he's counting on trickle-down economics to help the poor here. Well, we progressives know how well that works. (and isn't that a Republican theory?) Second, if he doesn't give a hoot about poverty, that will mean he's advocating for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. It's pretty much the same outcome no matter what Duffy's intentions are.

During the campaign, Duffy was on Bob Smith's radio show. He kept talking about creating jobs to alleviate poverty, but when you asked him to be specific, he would talk about biotech jobs at the UofR...jobs that would not be available to the people stuck in the poverty cycle. I called the show and tried to make that point, but was hung up on. (thanks, Bobbo)

This illustrates a bigger political problem we have in Rochester. Voters in the city blindly vote Democrat. As a candidate and campaign manager I've heard too many times the phrase "too bad he/you're not a Democrat". Why? You like what the candidate stands for, but you won't vote for him or her because of party? You're not betting on a football game, you're voting for what you believe in...allegedly.

I don't know if this is a plan of the Republican Party or just something being done by individuals within the party, but a number of Republicans in the city have switched to the Democratic Party, waited a bit and run for office just because they know people in the city don't pay attention to anything other than that stupid Donkey. Then when they get in office and act like Republicans, people are amazed.

Then you have people on the left who have joined the Democrats to change them "from the inside". Well, that's a post for another time, but for right now, I'll just say that I haven't seen anything like that work yet.

In the meantime, the Green Party is still the only party who consistently advocates for true progressive values. Think about it. The Democratic Party in this town (or at the state or national levels for that matter), what does it currently stand for? And when I say "stand for" I mean by it's actions, not by it's rhetoric. But I guess you can ask the same of the other corporate sponsored party as well.

What's that called when you do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome?