Hurricane Keehn

While the Yucatan Peninsula begins to assess the damage left by Hurricane Dean, Saratoga Springs continues to feel the wrath of Hurricane Keehn, which seems to hover over the city proper, inundating it with the incumbent mayor’s blustering and blundering. On the heels of calling her fellow councilmen “cowards” and winning a lawsuit to fracture yet another local political party, Kamp Keehn set up at the Inn at Saratoga last week to deliver what some of the roughly three dozen attendees described as “a rousing speech” to energize the campaign.

For those who missed the event at last week, here’s a quick recap. Jim Dean, the head of Democracy for America, prattled on about his somewhat sketchy organization before turning the mike over to Keehn, who must have crunched on a party mix of Prozac and barbiturates before achieving the remarkably flat tone she did during the campaign event.

Reading almost directly from typed copy of her speech, Keehn went on to describe the many of same initiatives she stumped on two years ago, but failed to accomplish. And as usual, she took credit for retaining the state’s $3.8 million of VLT revenues, a fund that quite clearly was restored by the most powerful Republican in the state Legislature. Then after seven solid minutes of lackluster prattling, Keehn delivered her knockout punch.

“I will continue to endure the wrath of the wretched on behalf of your families and for your health,” Keehn said, raising her voice perhaps for the first time ever. “And I have looked into the eyes of these people one too many times –and they are wretched.”

The wretched? Our health? Who exactly are these so-called wretched and what –pray tell –is their wrath? Better yet, how has this mayor gone to bat for our health? Move over Franklin Roosevelt and JFK, Mayor Keehn is delivering the monotone walloping of a generation; suggested campaign donation: zero.

On a personal side note, this editor feels no healthier under the Keehn administration than under the respective administrations of Lenz, Klotz and O’Connell; maybe even a bit less healthy. But in all fairness to Keehn, this decline in health can’t be solely attributed to her spell in office, especially considering the effects of frequent bourbon consumption and Father Time.

If there’s one thing DFA knows how to do, it is raise money and generate interest among those who feel disenchanted or disenfranchised. Their leader –the brother of former presidential candidate Howard Dean –has a knack for marketing the right message at a certain demographic. After all, that’s what he did with Greenfield Online and Yankelovich Partners.

Yet, there is only so much marketing can do far these DFA-cultivated movements, which run on largely Astroturf. Since sweeping into office, Keehn’s bungling has evaporated all but the most strident of her base supporters by forging an adversarial campaign against those she labels as cowards or wretched. It’s a hyper-combative tone that is increasingly used by her diehard supporters on blogs and forums.

This sort of partisan rhetoric may resonate with the DFA membership on some blog administered miles out of the 12866 ZIP code, but falls woefully short of generating the support Keehn desperately needs among the city Democrats. Despite its burgeoning size, Saratoga Springs still socially operates as a small community. So when Keehn bandies about these unusually vitriolic statements toward those party members she doesn’t agree with, she’s often insulting more than she bargained for.