Mr. Neal was kind enough to respond to our open letter of March 18th.
Thank you for acknowledging my journal entry on the Daily Kos. Yes, I am not pleased about the fact that Kirsten Gillibrand, the expected Democratic nominee, is still supporting the war efforts even after numerous people have URGED her to change her position.
As of right now, though, if the general election (as well as the Democratic primary) were held today I would vote for Kirsten Gillibrand. It's not that I agree with her on all the issues (I do agree with her on most issues, though), it's that I know she has the best chance of defeating Sweeney. And I desperately want to see Sweeney gone. I feel like this man has totally misrepresented us and it is totally embarrassing that our district keeps foolishly sending him back to Congress by large margins. Sweeney is arguably one of the most conservative and partisan Republicans in the northeastern delegation - he's also willing to sell out to the major corporations on vote after vote after vote at the expense of his constituents. Look at drug importation - who did he side with? The people of this district of Pfizer? Trade and Outsourcing? The Environment? I could go on and on but I think you get the point. In fact, I'm so dissatisfied with Sweeney that I recently built a website - go to http://www.geocities.com/dumpsweeney. I know I am only one vote but I want to do whatever I can to influence the opinions of other people so we can hopefully get a new repesentative this November.
Generally I am supportive of anyone who is against the policies of Sweeney, including Morris Guller, Edwin Pell, Doug Walters, and you of course. The fact that we have five people running for Congress this year alone just shows the great degree of dissatisfaction that there is with Sweeey amongst many people in our district. After all, how often is it that you have this many people willing to step up to the plate to get rid of someone? (This certainly never happened back in Gerry Solomon's day)
All five candidates who are running against Sweeney, I feel, together can put forth a compelling case to the public as to why this man has just got to go.
Colin Neal
Seems like typical lesser of two evils thinking. Just wondering why he wouldn't post my piece on the TrueBlue20 blog, which btw is not the Gillibrand campaign, just members of the district. The fact that they engage in hagiographic tripe about the 'expected' nominee means little. He never did come around to our issues. Guess that's what you get when you're obsessed with one guy. Fortunately some of us are keen on changing the whole lot. ECS