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Let's pick up where we left off last week.
As Ken Blackwell wrote at https://www.facebook.com/blackwellohio on Nov. 5, it's time to tell "a bruised and bloodied team to get back out on the field and fight again."
He urges those dissatisfied with 2026 election results to "stop sulking and start fighting. Democrats (will) hold both chambers of Congress, and they will use every ounce of that power to grow government and shrink your freedom.
"They will overreach, because they always do. When they do, (we) must be ready to explain to every neighbor, coworker and family member why our ideas work and theirs fail. …
"It will be morning in America again. Pray for our nation, get off the mat and get back to work."
This is all the more true here in the People's Republic of New York.
It's not just that New York continually subscribes to the failures of statism. It's also that New York deliberately, almost painstakingly, does so.
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You, faithful reader of this column, know what has happened:
● Despite the work of many people in the private and public sectors, and
● because of what for decades has emanated from Albany, primarily at the hands of Democrats but also, especially in years gone by, at the hands of some Republicans,
many regions of New York, including this one, have never fully emerged from the recession.
Of the 1970s.
Since then, one of New York's greater exports has been its people.
Years and years before this regular weekly column's premiere, you read in occasional op-eds by this columnist that here in Chautauqua County and in many places across Western, Central, Northern, and Upstate New York, no one born since 1960 has any recollection of sustained local economic prosperity.
You were urged to do the math: By 2025, such places would have senior citizens with no recollection of sustained local economic prosperity.
And so it has come to pass.
Continual population losses are a result.
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In 2026, New York had a chance to change course. Instead, New York doubled down by re-electing its governor and significantly increasing her party's already-big majorities in the state Senate and Assembly.
This is hardly the first time. No big-c Conservative has won statewide since 1970. No small-c conservative has won statewide since 1994. No Republican has won statewide since 2002. Republicans last had an Assembly majority in 1974 and a Senate majority in 2018.
Indeed, the current governor has told those disagreeing with the prevailing political orthodoxy on particular issues to "get out of town." Her immediate predecessor said they "have no place in" New York.
Those were unnecessary. Many had already left. Many were about to leave even without summarily or angrily being shown the door.
Oh, yeah. The current governor has since changed her mind and ironically wants people back so they can pay New York taxes that have helped drive those people away.
Whether a significant number of such expatriates will change their residence back to New York isn't a serious question.
They won't.
Rather, the serious questions include what it will take for New Yorkers to vote statists out. Or, in the words of a local resident who thoughtfully pulled this columnist aside in a grocery store on Election Day: How and "when New York will hit bottom?"
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To his credit, 2026 GOP state-comptroller candidate Joseph Hernandez, who had the toughest row to hoe of all 2026 statewide GOP candidates, understood the importance of showing up significantly in the 50 plus of New York's 62 counties where such candidates--to win statewide--need to win overwhelmingly with a big turnout.
Many past candidates have understood this too.
Next time more would do well to consider this and act on it.
Yes, the majority of voters--and the vast majority of campaign contributions, which are the gasoline in any campaign's tank--are elsewhere.
Nevertheless, without significantly showing up in those 50 plus counties, it's hard to win them overwhelmingly with a big turnout.
And no, going to the Buffalo area, which is fine to do, is no substitute for coming to Chautauqua County. After all, most Chautauqua County residents go to the Buffalo area only to go to
● a shopping mall,
● a Bills' game,
● a Sabres' game,
● the Buffalo airport, or
● what is now called Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center,
yet rarely, if ever, to see candidates.
Candidates are analogous to those working in sales. In sales, one gladly, repeatedly meets customers on their own turf.
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Randy Elf explored seeking the Republican and Conservative nominations for New York attorney general in 2018.
COPYRIGHT © 2026 BY RANDY ELF