THE EDITORIAL BOARD PROCESS by Karen Hanford

Sometimes I'd like to be that Kramer guy in the Post Standard, the man gets paid for being silly, not that I'm complaining. I, for one, think that “silly” is highly underrated. So I'm going to pretend to be Jeff Krammer and tell you about my hour meeting with my opponent and the Post Standard Editorial Board.

This is a board of two men whose apparent ages made me, at 60, feel like a spring chicken. Actually, campaigning makes me feel that way, the more people I talk with, the more energy I have, but that's another story.

I must admit that my first thought as I sat down across from the “board” facing two men in suit pants, white shirts, and ties was “snowball's prayer” in you know what, but if I weren't brave, I wouldn't be running for office as a Democrat in a district with over 60% enrolled Republicans.

My opponent was immediately recognizable as “refreshing” because he was wearing a white shirt without a tie! With this established he set to work extolling his career in politics by highlighting what he had learned about how to use the system. He shared with us a secret strategy he had developed as mayor of Skaneateles. If there is a hot (contentious) issue, place it last on the agenda. By the time you get to it, everyone's given up and gone home. The two gentlemen nodded their approval, understanding, congratulations (?), the woman reporter, placed strategically down the huge conference table, evidently away from potential harm, looked at me intently, and I swear I saw her pupils dilate momentarily.

While Jim Rhinehart continued with buzzwords (think sprawl, term limits, budget cuts) and sound bites starting with “We” that included him in every major initiative since I was born (and he is younger than I am) the smoke filling the room transported me to another time and place.

Cazenovia College, the beloved President has just been fired, the students are either angry, in tears, or both and they have all gathered in the Student Center in preparation for a walkout. Never heard about it? That's because it was averted. As the youngest Trustee on the Student to Board Committee, I was called upon by the interim President to speak to the students.

As I drove from Marcellus to Cazenovia I thought of the words of the former college president, “Karen, the most important thing is the students. I do not want them to disrupt their educations.”

You can always tell when someone is really glad to see you, especially when they say so. The interim took me by the arm and as we walked rapidly from his office he informed me that the students would be videoing me for the campus TV network and that they wanted all their questions answered in the school's newspaper in three days. Perfect.

Two and a half hours later when students began asking questions about parking problems and exercise equipment, I realized that disaster was averted. The 400+ students standing in front of me would go on with their education. I spent the next two days on campus getting any answers I couldn't give, put it all together, and filled the entire campus paper that week.

Never saw the broadcast, heard I looked “honest”, never read the paper, heard it went over well. No offense to those who are, but I'm not into scrap booking. I think it has something to do with seeing the name Hanford on millions of bottles of antibiotics; it dramatically reduces the thrill of seeing your name in print.

Shaken out of my brief reverie by hearing the name Hanford, I found my opponent taking credit for how well our family business has conformed to what “We had in mind when we set up the Empire Zones,” rapidly followed by my being denigrated for attempting to take the people's pulse on clustered, empty nester housing. I cheerfully added that the drawing board idea included compact studios for early career singles and couples if zoning would allow green practices to reduce our footprint to 80% off the power and sewer grid. (It's a long sentence but some of it made it into the paper)

By the grim expressions across the table I knew I had been “outed” as a “developer” and Jim was now the champion of controlling sprawl, all things green, befriending farmers, and had probably milked every cow in our district and maybe even all of Onondaga County. Hey, I've only milked my own cows, what would I know about it?

Silly me, I came prepared to be open, to share ideas, not sound bites and to offer my solutions to the very questions another department of the Post Standard had asked candidates to answer. Do they read each other's columns here, I bet Jeff Kramer does, where else would he get his information?

So, I was credited with having “some intriguing new ideas” and my opponent, who I normally refer to as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but for clarity's sake in this article have referred to as, Jim Rhinehart, or just plain Jim, was credited as being “refreshing” (remember the white shirt with no tie).

Now all I can ask is that you go to karenhanford.com and read about my “intriguing new ideas” for yourself. You'll also see that my endorsements include Syracuse Tomorrow, the PAC of the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce right along side my Labor endorsements.

I am proud as an Onondaga County businessperson to have received the Chamber's endorsement and, based on that hour with Jim, I assure you, and the Chamber, that the Post Standard Editorial Board was spot on with this quote that qualified their endorsement of our current District 6 County Legislator, “He also would do well to broaden his focus to encompass the region, including the city of Syracuse.” I couldn't agree more!

Top