By Mark David Blum, Esq.

In a televised debate between the incumbent and challenger for the Office of Onondaga County (NY) District Attorney, we the voters got a rare opportunity to see the real truth about the candidates. Though the mealy-mouthed host was wasting time on issues that affect such a small number of actual cases, the personalities of the two opponents came shining through.

If we dare to extrapolate from their respective presentations, we see an incumbent so confident in himself and his position that he made a mockery of the entire debate. His style was very similar to how he runs his office and how they do business. Opposite him, we see a candidate very intimidated by the situation who let herself get so sucked into the incumbent’s irrelevancies, that much of her actual presentation was lost. She did manage to get to some meat and potato issues and with some confidence and time, she might indeed make a fine District Attorney.

There is no question the incumbent has done a very good job. Some of his work and programs have been phenomenal successes. Others have not been so productive. But with 16 years in office comes a level of arrogance that results in any new idea not coming from the incumbent as being “stolen” or a “nightmare”. To summarily dismiss an idea, whether it originated in Indiana or Utica or on Mars; is a sign of a closed mind. For the rest of the population who are not the Pipines’, we are better protected by a District Attorney who is willing to listen. After all, the D.A.’s job is not just to prosecute and win. The District Attorney has a dual job of seeing that justice is done and that someone isn’t prosecuted just because they can be. Refusing to consider alternatives to current solutions is ignorance at its ultimate. Asking me to continue to wear the same clothes I wore 15 years ago is unreasonable. Everything changes; even D.A.s.

I must confess that some of the incumbent’s argument and discussion was beyond humorous. After sixteen years “as the County’s Chief Law Enforcement Officer” (with apologies to Sheriff Walsh), the incumbent’s best claim to fame on the issue of crime is that, “crime hasn’t risen” on his watch. Of course there was the exception year when it really jumped. But the incumbent opines that it is a good thing that crime hasn’t risen in 16 years. One would hope that a quality District Attorney could at least claim some credit for a drop in crime. A decade and a half is plenty of time to make some significant change. Failure to do so belongs nowhere else but in the incumbent’s lap.

The other moment about which I was truly stymied was how much the incumbent leaned upon a man named Bob Hart. I first wonder how many criminals contributed to, worked for, and voted for the incumbent. For him to take a shot at a citizen or challenge an incumbent because of who might support them leaves a lot of interesting questions unanswered by the incumbent. Someone might ask him whether a citizen who has been prosecuted and convicted and sentenced and did their sentence and been returned to society, can ask a question of a candidate for public office without being ridiculed.

Even better was the incumbent’s bravado in his claiming how he prosecuted Bob Hart. For the record, the only prosecution I know of concerning Bob Hart was one where I was Mr. Hart’s attorney. While the incumbent was not lying when he said his office “prosecuted” Mr. Hart, I can tell you for an absolute fact that Mr. Hart was also acquitted of the crime which he was charged.

Using Mr. Hart was as valid as was the incumbent’s claim that his office put “70 gang members in federal prison”. With due respect, the incumbent’s office put nobody in federal prison. Federal judges and federal prosecutors did. I am sure that local DA’s staff helped out, but every year around election time, prosecutors go out and make big sweeps of Black folks and swear the gang and drug problem is solved.

The challenger actually used some multi syllabic words and managed to get off the ridiculous and irrelevant topic of community service. She took the discussion into the area of women’s issues, education, and the social effect of reintigrative shaming. I have long been a fan and recognized the power of shaming as a means of punishment. Incarceration should be for those who pose a threat to people or property. Every other ‘criminal’ should be dealt with in another fashion. Similarly, the challenger’s idea of educating the victim, called a “nightmare” by the incumbent, sounds like a great idea. Her arguments were a bit off base but the idea is a good one. At a minimum, the incumbent could have been a gentleman and said he would consider it if he were to be re-elected. Instead, he summarily throws it down like a quick shot of Jack Daniels.

Being a gentleman is obviously not the incumbent’s strong suit. Whether he was cross examining his opponent or mocking her using the internet for research, the incumbent was too focused on protecting his very lucrative job to give the debate any serious consideration. Not a single new idea. Just promises of more of the same.

I think it is time we shed the viewpoints of the last century and move ahead with fresh ideas. Tina Bennett deserves your vote. She has earned mine.