This was written during my campaign but never published

I asked a friend of mine if he wanted a Thom Jennings for legislature, t-shirt and he replied that he could not wear it because "I am a registered Republican." At first, I was convinced that he was joking but I soon realized that he was convinced that he had to vote Republican because of his registration status.

Although I was worried that he had some bad information, the next question I asked was if he ever voted. Not surprisingly, he said that he did not. I figured it was easier to keep the t-shirt with the knowledge that he would be staying home on Election Day than it would be to convince him that he could vote for me. I am pretty sure he doesn’t read the paper either.

If you do read the paper then you probably know that there are more registered Republicans than there are Democrats. It is so pervasive that while I was playing in the Bocce tournament on September 2 at the Saint Rocco’s Italian Festival a person commented upon seeing my Orleans County Democrats shirt that he did not know there was more than one Democrat in Orleans County.

This leads into the question that one of my students asked me this past week, "Do you vote the person or the party?" I believe my mother answered that question best during a similar debate I held with some friends a few years ago, she said, "what you do after the curtain closed is your business," and that was the answer I shared with my students.

In my case, I am hoping that many of you will vote the man and not the party but that is not because I am ashamed of being a Democrat in Orleans County. Being a Democrat in the county means that you never take anything for granted and you have to work hard for every vote. We simply try harder than the Republicans do because we have to work hard to pay for our campaigns.

In reality, even if all of the Republicans voted for their candidates and all of the Democrats theirs, the county election would ultimately be decided by the "blanks," the people who did not register for either party. Although blanks do not get a chance to vote in the primaries, they are still an important element to any successful candidacy.

When you are in the minority party, it is not enough to know that you are the better candidate; you have to believe that it is worth the effort to stick your neck out. If I were not confident that I could win then there would be no point in running. The election returns in Orleans County strongly suggest that people vote for the person and not the party. I believe that anyone who takes the time to vote, especially in a non-presidential election year, has done their homework and is ready to close the curtain behind them.