This guy has got to be far removed from the district as well, we had 17 people come out in Le Roy on the Monday before the election, we had 4 or 5 people always phone banking at least twice a week, we were on the ground.

Jon lost because Jack hit him and he had to respond, in the process he was brushed as negative as well. Alice Kryzan came out with a clever ad 2 weeks before the election, before that, at least out here she had no ground operation. She won 41 percent by presenting herself as not negative, thats really all there was to it.

Personally, I'm not sure what I'm going to do next.

Daniel, Jon didn't lose because of the work and support of Democrats in Genesee County. The problems were in the larger counties.

The Fighting 29th blog made a good point: Jon kind of blew it on the War Kids. If the campaign, from the beginning, had positioned it as a noble effort that came up short, and that lack of impact convinced him that he could do more to benefit people and contribute to society by running for Congress (lesson learned), then it would have been much harder for Jack Davis to make an issue of War Kids. As a matter of pure political attack (something I don't condone, but is a reality), Jack played the issue perfectly, and Powers created the opening.

If Powers had positioned himself as the "man in the arena," rather than the man of accomplishment on this issue, it could have made a huge difference in the campaign.

That goes to the point of Powers' campaign lack of top talent. That is no reflection on you or any of the Democratic supporters in Genesee, but entirely of Jon's top lieutenants. Vim and vigor only get you so far. It also takes organization and a well designed strategy to win elections.

BTW: Is Jon going to endorse Alice, or has he?

Howard & Dan,

Alice did win in the City of Batavia, I believe. That is solely because the women identified with her and her no negative issue. An overwhelming amount of women versus men voted in this Primary. Jon lost because Jon lost. There is no other reason. As far as supporting a candidate....at least she is a lifelong Democrat. Go ALICE 2008 !!!!!

Howard, I wasn't referring to WKR at all, I was saying that Jon had the ground support, thats the part that I was contesting with the writer on the site.

Pat, I'm still not sure if I'm going to vote for Kryzan.

Well at least she didn't export hundreds of jobs out of this country and at least she believes in the tenets of the Democratic Party, like the rich are taxed more than the middle class, freedom of choice for women and is in favor of pushing the health care agenda. If she is saying the same thing as Obama why not vote for her. I guess many people are talking about her defending Chemical Companies in the 70's. Well that was her job then, she was doing what her firm wanted to do. That is like saying you wouldn't vote for our Council President Mallow because his boss supported Baby Joe. I still support Charlie even though his boss told thousands not to support Michele Ianello and to vote for Jack Davis. You can't take a person's past record that is so old and place it in on thier backs today all the time. Did you know that Alice did assist in the clean-up for the Town of Batavia dump and helped them immensely in getting that settled? Sometimes you just got to look at things differently.

Thanks for listening.

Well, it's at least worth saying that everybody in our system of justice deserves legal protection. We are all better off, better protected, because there are attorneys willing to fight for their clients, no matter how unpopular the case.

Since we know Mr. Chris Lee reads The Batavian, I'm going to get on my idealistic high horse (without taking favorites toward one candidate or another) and encourage him not to attack Ms. Kryzan for her legal practices. That, to me, would be un-American. So long as an attorney's practice is legal and ethical, nobody who values truth and justice and the American way would attack it. My plea in this regard goes beyond politics. It's more about treating our justice system with the respect it deserves. It shouldn't be subject to partisan sniping.

Whether Kryzan won because of the women's vote or not, you are right, Patrick, she won more votes than the other two candidates in the city of Batavia. Alice pulled 217 votes. Powers took 176. Davis had 137. Probaby the only reason Powers came out on top in Genesee is because of his representation in Le Roy, where he got more votes than both other candidates combined... by far. Powers pulled over 170 votes. The other two barely got over 100 combined.

Patrick: Do you have any figures or know where we might find them to show the ratio of female to male voters?

Philip: No, I don't believe that there was any exit polling to show any of those kinds of numbers, if there were, I would like to see other divisions in the results as well.

Only the national polling numbers and Buffalo area AP numbers. All are done through subjective exit polls and the mere fact that there are about 56% registered females. The older the democraphic, the more women.

The board of elections would be able to provide a list of who voted in the primary. You could check the male/female ratio there. Give them some time though, as they still have to count the mail ins. You might have to fill out a FOIA for the info.

Yeah, I wish that they did do some exit polling, I'm sure that Kryzan won women big, however, it would be interesting to see breakdowns along the lines of race, gun ownership, religion and employment status and job type.

Just my two cents:

(1) I don't think the female voter played a large role here. There was a clear divide between suburban voters and rural voters. Rural voters went for Powers. Suburban voters went for Kryzan. Unfortunately, there are more suburban voters than rural voters.

(2) Jack Davis might have lost, but he impacted this race in a big way. Let's say Alice Kryzan did win by default because Davis ran a negative campaign that assassinated the character of Jon Powers. Who benefited from that? It's clear Powers was the front-runner when the GOP came out to attack him on War Kids too. Our resident Republican Jay Grasso even flooded this blog with the same smears and arguments against Powers. So you have a candidate that was trashed beyond repair who lost because of it. That's not doing anyone - particularly the voters - any favors.

(3) I'm not going to engage in the campaign bashing of Powers for Congress that has been seen on more than one blog/website. People seem to have a lot to say about John Gerken (Powers' campaign manager) but he looked crushed on Tuesday night. This was a staff who worked hard (just like all the others, I would assume) and they don't deserve all these hindsight shots.

Kryzan won and owes it all to Davis lying about Powers. there was no "women" vote here. You do have to give her credit for running that TV spot that showed Powers and Davis fighting. I, like a lot of people, thought it was really good and i bet got her a lot of the votes.

Arguments are not smears, Mr. Harding. Just a difference of opinion. Anyway, with luck the Kryzan/Lee race will be issue driven.

Mr. Grasso,

You forwarded the smears about War Kids Relief. Please don't lie in a public forum where we can go back and read the comments.

Jerome Grasso about two weeks ago: "Powers also paid himself most of the money he raised for his supposed charity to help children in Iraq. This does not pass the smell test."

Jerome Grasso, again, about two weeks ago: "Regarding Jon Powers, the question (and big white elephant in the room remains) how much money actually went to the kids in Iraq? Very little. The money (either through WKR or VFA) still went to Mr. Powers. Certainly, $120,000 did not go to the kids there. He clearly gave the illusion that the money went to the kids and at times overstated (in media interviews)how much was raised. I am also aware the he sought funding for WKR through congress that did not materialize. Not his fault, but to shift blame on the congress for the failure of WKR is not right." (Emphasis mine.)

Mr. Grasso, you also furthered the smear about his alleged disorderly conduct charge.

So don't tell me you were making "arguments." Both of these things were either (A) False or (B) Distorting the truth. Jon's character was severely bruised after all of this.

Mr. Grasso, I deal with facts. Even with documents proving he didn't take the money the Davis campaign, Republicans and yourself say he did, the lie has been pushed further and further. On the citation that I supplied you Powers wrote that he did not say what he was accused of saying. I was once accused of cheating on a test. I was embarrassed in front of my fellow students when the teacher took my test away because she thought I was cheating on the test. Here I am, red-faced, in front of 25 or 30 of my peers. After review of the incident in the privacy of the principal's office, it came out that I didn't cheat.

My point here is that the disorderly conduct charge was probably a mistake on the police officer's part. He probably caught the wrong person, but the person he did catch had to live with the embarrassment. I'm sure it was settled afterward, but the initial embarrassment sticks out.

But hey, I know why the Republicans did this. Why would they want Jon Powers to face them? Had Powers won the primary, they knew they were up against a beast. It's too bad that members of Powers' own party and the GOP had to drag his name through the mud just to get rid of him.

In fact, it is shameful what was done to Jon.