Albany Teeters on Fish as Local Issue May Have Big Impact
February 21, 2008
In a quirk of politics that is startling even by Empire State standards, a band of irate fishermen who live almost 300 miles from New York City may play a pivotal role in determining the fate of the state Senate.
Normally, a local dispute over fishing rights on a 16-mile river running through Oswego County would not have significant political repercussions much beyond the blizzard-prone region on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario.
But such a scenario is unfolding in New York’s North Country, the site of a special Senate election taking place next week that has the chance to reduce the Republicans’ hold on the chamber to one slim vote.
At the onset of the race, which was triggered by the retirement of a Republican senator, few in Albany expected it to be close. The district is one of the few in the state in which Republicans outnumber Democrats by a wide margin.
The Democratic challenger, Assemblyman Darrel Aubertine, has defied expectations and moved within striking distance of his Republican opponent, Assemblyman William Barclay, according to a local poll released this week.
Democratic campaign aides say Mr. Aubertine, a former dairy farmer and insurance salesman from Jefferson County, has boosted his support in large part by tapping into a long-simmering resentment over a $30 fee that the Barclay family requires fishermen to pay to drop their lines in a section of the Salmon River that it controls.
Source: NY Sun
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