C N S News Scroll

Friday, March 22, 2013

Dahlkemper Talking Political Vision Is Laughable at Best


I am always amused by how some politicians view themselves. I laughed out loud when I read accounts of former Congresswomen Kathy Dahlkemper’s announcement that she was tossing her hat into the race for the Democrat nomination for County Executive against incumbent Barry Grossman.

Dahlkemper laughably proclaimed that Erie County’s top job called for more visionary thinking on economic development, poverty and stemming the areas perpetual brain drain. My first reaction was what was her first clue? And the second was REALLY?! Political vision from a women whose only experience in public office came in her one term in Washington, where she served as a reliable rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosi and Barrack Obama.

Pardon me, but W T F?! How can anyone possibly take this women seriously? Her vote in the affirmative for Obamacare has saddled not only Erie County, but the entire United States with one of the most detrimental to business pieces of legislation in the history of the country! The economic devastation that this bill will cause to the country will only continue to grow as its multiple parts begin to take effect.

Talk about poverty…Ms. Dahlkemper’s vote will spur businesses that are teetering on the brink of insolvency to go under and others who have ability to choose to depart Erie County and take their business elsewhere. Imagine Erie without GE Transportation. Not a pretty picture as that proverbial snowball rolls down hill and comes to rest at Ms. Dahlkemper’s feet.

The biggest problem with economic development in Erie County has nothing to do with a lack of political vision on the part of its County Executive, but an unwieldy web of competing entities struggling for funding and trying to cling to their own piece of the turf. It’s pretty hard to be effective when you have more than 20 groups posturing for a place in the spotlight. No one wants to give an inch in their little fiefdom, so nothing gets accomplished.

Now imagine someone as clueless as Kathy Dahlkemper bumbling and stumbling into the mess. While Grossman hasn’t done much to fire innovation in his first term the thought of Dahlkemper in that role is a truly frightening thought!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've seen the response "laughable" on a couple of websites - and I couldn't agree more. Mrs. Dahlkemper touted her "depth and breadth" of experience when running for Congress - in reality she had never tackled the kinds of complex and diverse issues that she ultimately faced in public office. While vision is important in the county executive role - the last thing we need is a "visionary". We need someone who can actually do the job. Someone who has experience managing a $300 million dollar budget, who has handled complex human resource/labor relations issues, has managed a multidisciplinary workforce, with demonstrated success in strategic planning and large project/contract management. Mrs. Dahlkemper barely meets the minimum qualifications for this position. Voters need to take job requirements into account - this isn't a popularity contest.