Marinate, please, in the disturbing feebleness of our wrathful NYS voter anger.  What exactly did it accomplish? 

Madman Paladino got crushed.  Yeah, looks like the Senate swung over to the GOP (errr…the GLOP?) but no matter–Shelly Silver and his Dem buddies et al still run the show 2-1 over at Assembly.  The cork remains in the reform bottle!  Rub it and Shelly pops out!  He’s been a genie for unions since he became Assembly Speaker in 1994–16 years ago!  Cars wear out in 16 years!   Silver has represented tiny District #64 (c. 125,000 souls in lower East Side Manhattan) since 1977.  That’s 34 years and counting — longer than the average human lifespan in ancient Rome!  What’s more, Silver’s 2010 race was uncontested.  The pissed-off Republicans couldn’t even mount a challenge to the state’s mightiest legislator. 

Roaring voter anger and resentment meowed like a pussy cat when it reached the ballot box.  Even the tea got cold!  Voters returned a staggering 122 out of 129 incumbents to the Assembly (95%).  All those who have been doing such a bang-up job at keeping our finances and bureaucracy in order.  Twenty-one incumbents did “retire” however; those spots went about evenly to Republicans (11 seats) and Democrats (10 seats).

If we voters can’t knock out the union genie at our Apex of Wrath…if we re-elect 95% of Assembly incumbents after screaming “throw ‘em all out” at the tops of our lungs…then, seriously, how can we expect to reform anything in Albany?

The ONLY way to reform is to change the rules these people play by.  Cuomo’s “Plan” includes hurrying-up a NYS Constitutional Convention.  Let’s hold his feet to the fire on this.  We need an on-time  balanced budget each year.  A cap on statewide spending.  A cap on property tax growth.  Term limits (come on, people, 34 years in office for an assemblyman?).  An end to the gerrymander (partisan re-districting).  Reining in of “off-budget” statewide authorities.

If this election’s result is the best we angry voters can do — well — as Einstein told us, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

Stop the insanity in the only way possible.  Fight fire with fire!  Send us $$ to mount a $2 million PR campaign to help force a 2013 People’s Convention!  There is simply no other way.