After a short hiatus (couple of months), due to general discouragement on witnessing the Democrats' flabby performance, I rejoin today the ranks of bloggers with the intention of writing somethings myself, not relying only on my favorite Krugman (and others) to provide material.

It so happens that in my beautiful little town of Saratoga Springs we are also fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party. Only that the content of the fight has very little to do with Democratic politics and a lot about personalities. Take the water question, for instance. Saratoga Springs needs a new water source to be developed over the next few years. Opposition to the County Board of Supervisors' (dominated by Republicans) regional (or at least territorial) water supply project has spawned a smaller, individualistic water supply project from a shared lake a few miles away. Ownership of this project has been claimed by the Department of Public Works and its evergreen Commissioner and Democratic thinking on the subject has been taken hostage by his preference for a biiiig project regardless of the fact that the City may not be able to afford it. Other infrastructure projects, like a new Public Safety Building (the present one dates from 1883, yes, more than one hundred years ago), find no place on the City's investment agenda, because Public Works will not let anything go forward that it cannot put on its own dance-card.
So Democrats have now split into two fortified redoubts, one side refusing to talk to anybody who does not contribute to the aggrandizement of the Commissioner of Public Works, the other, assembled around the incumbent Democratic Mayor, refusing to contemplate even pronouncing the Commissioner's name, except as an expletive.
One would think that when the election is done in two weeks time, the incumbent Madam Mayor, unendorsed by the Democratic machine, having won two primaries and possibly two elections, should be able to command some respect from everybody.
We shall see on the morning after, but the signs are not good. Meanwhile, who is minding the store?