Primary elections will be held three weeks from today, on June 25^th. Those events are mostly quiet, under-the-radar activities. Unless, of course, you, or a friend, or a political associate is involved, in which case, things are really heating up. Here is some information, factual or suggested, plus a comment or two on the political scene:

• The local Democratic primaries, such as they are, include the Erie County Legislature in District 1 (appointed incumbent Howard Johnson); District 2 (incumbent April Baskin); and District 3 (Peter Savage’s previous seat).
• Republican-endorsed County Legislators Lynne Dixon and Ed Rath were the only legislators who voted against April Baskin in her recent election as Chair of the Legislature.
• Factoid: Republican County Legislator Ed Rath’s campaign committee made a $100 donation in 2017 to Legislature candidate Duncan Kirkwood, April Baskin’s primary opponent both in 2017 and 2019. Kirkwood is one of the candidates that Grassroots has put up against Democratic Party endorsed candidates in Buffalo.
• Along the same lines, Kirkwood attended a recent Legislature Finance Committee meeting, conferring while there with the staff of the Republican caucus.  The Republican-Kirkwood connections are interesting, since Kirkwood, in a negative sort of way, recently referred to Cheektowaga as “Trump Territory,” while I assume that the Republican staffers actually are Trumpsters.
• The Buffalo Common Council has primaries in the Lovejoy District (no incumbent – Rich Fontana retiring); Fillmore District (no incumbent – David Franczyk retiring); Masten District (incumbent Ulysees Wingo); and University District (incumbent Rasheed Wyatt).
• I attended the debates sponsored by The Buffalo Association of Black Journalists last week for Council candidates in three of the contested districts. The event attracted hundreds of city residents. I wouldn’t be shocked to see a surprise or two among the Council races.
• The Independence Party has a primary involving Republican county executive candidate Lynne Dixon. Dixon will win decisively in this mostly irrelevant contest.
• The Independence Party in Erie County has 28,729 affiliated voters and is run by a political operator from Long Island. The vast majority of registrants in the party undoubtedly thought they were classifying themselves as “independents,” when actually they became part of a political scheme called the Independence Party.
• There is some political history to such things. In 1970 Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Richard Ottinger and local Democratic Member of the House of Representatives Max McCarthy tried to create a new party called the Conservation Party. The already established (in 1962) Conservative Party sued to remove the Conservation Party from the ballot because the party name was too similar to theirs. They won the case and the Conservation Party was stricken from the ballot; James Buckley was elected United States Senator on the Conservative line the same year. Some enterprising lawyers might want to consider forcing a court review of the name issue of the Independence Party.
• There is no primary or general election contest this year for Buffalo City Comptroller due to the political maneuvering of Barbara Miller-Williams and her supporters, who include Mayor Brown’s team.
• Miller-Williams has returned the favor by whitewashing an analysis of the proposed 2019-20 Buffalo budget. She issued a Brown administration-favorable analysis of the budget about a week after she issued a much different, hard-hitting analysis prepared by her office. So far only the two incumbent Council members who are retiring have spoken out about this sham. The others, perhaps, are planning out how they will spend their 44 percent pay increases that were included in the budget. The Buffalo Control Board has also pretty much gone along meekly with the administration’s fiscal plan. All that being said, when the money runs out the issues will come to a head.
• There will be three State Supreme Court seats up for election this year in the 8^th Judicial District. Incumbents Gerald Whalen, Diane Devlin and Deborah Haendiges are candidates for re-election. There have been discussions about cross Democratic-Republican endorsements for Democrat Whalen and Republican Haendiges, with Delvin, a Democrat, left to run against a Republican who would likely be Gerald Greenan.
• That scenario could still play out, but the talk on the street is that Democratic Chairman Jeremy Zellner and Republican Chairman Nick Langworthy haven’t come to a meeting of the minds, so it is possible that there will be real elections for all three seats. The Democrats would in that scenario nominate their incumbents plus perhaps Amherst Town Justice Kara Buscaglia as the third candidate, while the Republicans would nominate Haendiges and Greenan, and perhaps Kelly Vacco. The judicial conventions to select the candidates will occur during the second week in August instead of late September dates, as in previous years.
• Langworthy, of course, is busy preparing for his new job as Republican State Chairman, which will play out in July. That leaves the question of who will be the next Erie County Chairman. The only names surfacing thus far are County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw and one of his deputies, Bryan Fiume. Expect more names.
• The great thing about being the Republican state chairman now is that you have no control of any state offices or legislative bodies, so one victory, any victory, is a step up.
• Lynne Dixon is off to a successful start in her fundraising for the county executive race, with more than $200,000 in the bank as of May 20^th. The footnote to that story was that contributions included some traditional Republican big check sources including the Erie County Republican Committee ($25,000); Chairman Langworthy’s political committee ($10,000); Brian Lipke ($10,000); and realtor Patrick Hotung ($25,000). In addition, there was a transfer of $17,797 from Dixon’s county legislative campaign account. Democrat-on-the-outs with the Erie County Democratic Committee, Jim Eagan, donated $20,000.
• So what will be the issues in the Erie County Executive race? Brown paper shopping bags; the Paris Climate Accord; locking kids in cages; the taxing effect of tariffs on American consumers?
• How about the future of Erie Community College; or dealing with poverty in Buffalo; or tax exemptions for rich developers?
• There is a lot of smoke but not any fire yet in the potential Republican primary for Chris Collins’ 27^th District congressional seat in 2020. Regardless of all the names that are circulating, the only Republican officially in the race who is not named Collins is State Senator Chris Jacobs. Jacobs is drawing fire from Collins and others for not being identified as a Trumpster.
• Jacobs will leave his State Senate seat open for the shot at Congress. Assemblyman Sean Ryan is the early favorite for the Democratic endorsement, although there could be other contenders, including last year’s County Clerk candidate, Angela Marinucci.
• In the game of musical chairs, if Ryan moves to a campaign for the Senate, a likely choice to replace him in the Assembly will be Deputy County Executive Maria Whyte – which might, it should be noted, create another prominent opening in the musical chairs game. That pre-supposes Mark Poloncarz’s re-election.
• Look for another switch coming up in 2020 when State Senator Michael Ranzenhofer, who is caught up in the limiting of legislators’ outside income issue, likely will leave the Senate – perhaps looking for a Supreme Court nomination should an opening occur.
• A likely replacement candidate for the Ranzenhofer seat could be County Legislator Ed Rath, which would set up another musical chairs situation if he wins re-election this year.
• Perhaps at this point a diagram might be helpful to track all the potential switching of offices and candidates.
• The State Legislature is lurching toward the end of their 2019 session. The progressive agenda has made some headway, but when does the steam run out on a variety of issues that remain on the table?
• Keep in mind that not donating to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand can keep the Democratic debate stages a little less crowded. Politico has now joined the chorus of pundits wondering why her candidacy hasn’t launched very well. Now if there was only some way to disinvite a few of the candidates who don’t have a chance in a million of being nominated but have already qualified for the debate stage.
• Raise your hand if you ever heard of Ralph Krueger before the Buffalo Sabres recently hired him as head coach. Let’s see, that’s one, two, three… I thought that would be the response!