The AFL-CIO wants my vote . . .

I just received a call from the AFL-CIO (more accurately, from their computer), telling me how important it is to them that I vote for incumbent Democrat Michael Arcuri for Congressman in New York's 24th District. I find that interesting for several reasons, one of which is that I am not and never have been a union member.

Another is that the AFL-CIO is opposing one of its own members: Richard Hanna, Arcuri's opponent, who not only is a card-carrying member of the AFL-CIO but has been one since 1978.

What Richard Hanna is not, obviously, is a Democrat running with the backing of New York's Working Family's Party, which infamously shares funding and manpower with ACORN.  Instead, Hanna is a libertarian (a supporter of the CATO Institute) running for office on the Republican ticket.

If the AFL-CIO is calling me to get Arcuri a vote, Arcuri's campaign is in trouble. Especially in light of Arcuri's pro-Obama record, that's to be expected; Hanna lost his last competition with Arcuri by a mere 2%, long before Arcuri proved himself to be one of Obama's numerous Congressional rubber stamps.

Richard Hanna is another of the upstate New York self-made businessmen running for office who definitely have got the goods when it comes to knowing how to create jobs and handle money. 

Hanna's immersion in fiscal responsibility began at the age of 20, when his father died and he stepped in to become the chief breadwinner for his mom and four sisters for eight long years, during which time he even, very honorably, paid off the substantial debt that his dad had left behind.

It's not difficult to believe that a man whose initiation into adulthood came packaged with that level of financial obligation is speaking from the heart--and not from the political playbook--when he argues that we must cut spending, reduce the budget deficit, and pay down the national debt.

Eventually, Hanna put himself through college, earned a degree (with honors) in economics, and started his own small residential construction firm. Twenty-seven years later, his company employs more than 450 people, and he has other business interests as well.

The district that Hanna and Arcuri are competing over covers a large chunk of New York real estate stretching from the Adirondack Mountains almost to the state's southern border, with much of the Finger Lakes region in between. It's an area where taxpayers don't get much return on their tax dollars for more than the usual reasons: Most state tax revenue raised there flows downstate to be gobbled up by New York City.

It's time for the people of upstate New York to be represented by a leader who knows how to earn money and not just spend it--and who doesn't take his "spending orders" from New York State's Democrat machine.

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