THE MOST VULNERABLE CANDIDATE

Mayor Staffieri has the most to loose if he chooses to attack any of his opponents particularly Mel Thompson the Democrat running as an independent for mayor. So far the Mayor has run a stealth campaign through surrogates online who use racial insults to dig at Mr. Thompson who is Black. What the Mayor fails to understand is that his past deeds including $60,000 in back taxes to the IRS, a $60,000 low interest loan to his son under the name of a LLC that did not exist at the time of the application and the very fact that he has done noting in the city in two years makes him the most vulnerable candidate.

It is widely known that many Democrats ( and we suspect Mr. Thompson is one of them) voted Republican for Mayor Staffieri just to get rid of the corruption riddled Garofalo administration. The only problem is that Mayor Staffieri kept the same cast of characters on in different jobs and add a few new faces that frankly belong in a line up rather than in city hall.Mayor Staffieri has to understand that if he continues to allow surrogates to do his dirty work he will be the beneficiary of political attacks that he has not even contemplated. All is fair once you go down a road where you use race as a way to drive a wedge between Democrats in a small town. You may end up surprised that there are more good people who do not care about race but are simply fed up with bad policy.

We all want a clean campaign and so far Mr. Thompson and Mayor Staffieri publicly have been civil but the word we get is that the Thompson campaign will do what it takes to win including questioning the Mayors involvement in race baiting comments on a Republican blog. In a city with less than 1000 registered Republicans and an overwhelming Democratic registration, race baiting by Mayor Staffieri and his supporters is a bad tactic. One that makes him the most vulnerable candidate.