The Morelle Channel

All Joey, All the Time

Sunday marked the second conspicuous appearance, in recent weeks, of a Democrat and Chronicle's opinion piece co-authored by Assemblyman, Democratic Chairman, and next year's Democratic Candidate for County Executive, Joe Morelle.   This follows a story in the same week of a new business locating here, with Morelle's smiling face in the story.

We've noted before that if there were a year in which even an entrenched Albany hack like Joe Morelle could lose a bid for re-election, this is the year.   We've made note of the Assemblyman's notably close relationship with the Democrat and Chronicle.   The paper now seems to be pulling out all the stops to give its favorite son free public face time equivalent to tens of thousands in paid advertising.

The paper has shown no hesitation before in heavy-duty pimping for its preferred candidates in contested elections.   Its editors must share our -- and Morelle's -- sense of political risk to him this year.

David Gantt and David Koon are both incumbent Democratic Assemblymen running for re-election, but somehow we haven't been treated to a minor torrent of creative writing in the editorial page, or photos accompany various pieces of happy-news, as we have for Shelly Silver's number one errand-boy in Rochester.

Back when the fare on The History Channel consisted mostly of World War II documentaries, wags dubbed it, "The Hitler Channel -- All Adolph, All the Time."

The D&C now has openly adopted the same approach for its choice for County Exec. next year.   We're going to have fun keeping track.