Why I’m for Funiciello

By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor

Why would I vote for Green Party nominee Matt Funiciello for Congress when his outspokenly progressive left positions are usually at odds with my deeply felt conservatism?

Because for me, it’s often about people more than politics. I’ve known Matt a long time. I respect him. I’ve found him to be tolerant (at least with me), and I think he has a depth and uniquenesss of viewpoint that are remarkable.

Of course he’s not the only person I respect around here. When Bill Owens stunned us all by announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election, I wrote a column urging Kate Hogan to run as a Republican, Larry Bulman to run as a Democrat and Matt to run as a Green. I didn’t just write it. I lobbied them personally.

It would have made my life more difficult as to voting. They’re all my friends, people I like and respect, different though their politics, policies and priorities are.

I feel the same way about Betty Little, our State Senator, and Dan Stec, our Assemblyman — both of whom are running unopposed for re-election — and about our former Congressman Chris Gibson (he was redistricted away from us), who thankfully seems about to defeat millionaire interloper Sean Eldridge.

For me, what links Matt and Kate and Larry, Betty, Dan and Chris is that they committed their adult lives to a place, a community. They’re also all approachable. They see themselves as one of us, they’re connected.

There’s something wrong, it seems to me, when these aren’t the sorts of people who typically rise to Congress anymore. More likely we see a multi-millionaire or a professional in pursuit of Washington, D.C., for life.

I’m voting for Matt for Congress because he’s truly a grass roots candidate, a cafe and bakery operator in Glens Falls and South Glens Falls who’s paid his dues. I’m big on paying dues, I’m big on deep-down roots.

I see Democrat Aaron Woolf as a privileged dilettante from New York City who only registered to vote in this district five days before declaring his candidacy. What chutzpah! He utters the Democratic talking points, his candidacy is generic. What qualifies him to represent us?

Matt isn’t on the political career track that Republican Elise Stefanik, the Harvard grad, is on at the age of 30.

Now, here I need to say that I’ve gotten to know Elise a little, I like her. She’s smart and able — and I like how hard she’s working to get to know the district and its people. She is paying some dues. But I haven’t forgotten her own wispy roots here like Aaron’s, her family’s summer home in Willsboro as the nexus of her candidacy.

Obviously Matt isn’t going to win this election. Elise will. And I’m comfortable with that and with her.

But Matt brings something fresh and exciting to the table. Not just that he’s risen from the bottom-up, but that he has a coherent viewpoint that differs from nearly all the other candidates, here and nationally.

He condemns the Republicans and Democrats equally, says they’re both captive to big money and special interests. There are very few people in politics who actually detach from both big parties. Most are either openly or secretly committed to one party or the other — their ideology, their spoken and unspoken agenda.

Matt is a free thinker. If by some one-in-a-billion chance, he wins, he’ll go to a Congress where virtually nobody agrees with him. He’ll have a heck of a time trying to implement any part of his vision (and a heck of a time tuning into constituents who disagree with him).

But can you imagine the media sensation? National news crews would descend on Glens Falls. We’d be in the spotlight along with Matt. He’d have a bully pulpit, a chance to speak his mind and make his case.

Of course, all that attention is a two-edged sword. During this campaign, we’ve seen the troubling side of some of Matt’s thoughts. About the 9/11 attacks, he sees possible conspiracy perhaps involving the U.S. government and corporate America. He insists: “I am a ‘Questioner’, not a ‘Truther’,” but his line of questioning gave me pause — and I know votes he lost because of it.

I heard Matt even question at his campaign kick-off whether World War II might have been occasioned by American and British munitions manufacturers arming Germany because they always need a war going on.

If Matt were running for President, I probably wouldn’t vote for him. If people of his mind were actually about to control the House of Representatives, that would reorder my priorities. But for now I look at his candidacy this way: It’s a chance to vote for a person I know, like, view as formidable and who breaks with the broken system of doing things. I’m for Matt Funiciello on Nov. 4.

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