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Okay, I know I'm going against years of political normalcy here, but let me give a free piece of advice to New York State elected officials: using the term "upstate New York" to refer to one region as a political whole is a little imprecise and very dismissive.
The latest example, from Gov. Paterson last night, while introducing Sen. Gillibrand:
Senator Gillibrand represents a region of this state that contains 40 percent of its population, but often is ignored.
Nothing against Gillibrand, but no, not quite. Sen. Gillibrand is from the Hudson Valley. What's that got to do with people in Elmira, Rochester, Niagara Falls, or Chautauqua County? Would Gov. Paterson walk up to any residents of those places and tell them "Guess what? I appointed Sen. Gillibrand to the Senate! She's one of you, since you're all from outside New York City!"? I sure hope not. So why do folks insist on referring to a region that big as one blanket term- "upstate"- and pretending people from "upstate" are all the same? I'm always happy to have elected officials from outside NYC, and she's Senator for the entire state, but Gillibrand grew up in, and represented a House district that is five hours from where I grew up. So what?
Here's another example, from a Marist Poll press release:
How does the hypothetical race shape up by region? In Gillibrand's backyard - upstate New York - she garners 50% compared with 23% for Ford.
Her "backyard"? If you take off Long Island and New York City- including water area- upstate New York is over 52,000 square miles. That's kind of a big "backyard", one that's roughly bigger than nearly half the states in the entire Union, including Alabama, Pennsylvania and Ohio. I was born and raised in suburban Buffalo, lived for four years in Rochester where I did my undergrad, my boyfriend teaches at Syracuse University, and my grandparents lived in a tiny village called Franklinville in the rural Southern Tier near the Pennsylvania border. In all of these places, some issues are the same, but lots are different. I'm pretty sure folks in those places wouldn't tell you they live in "Gillibrand County" or whatever. The culture and demographics are also different from place to place. The City of Buffalo is much more blue-collar Democratic, impoverished, and African-American than an Ithaca or a Plattsburgh or Cattaraugus County, and those places are all different from each other, so I don't know why all get lumped into ridiculous statements like "Hillary needs to score huge margins in NYC and hold upstate" as if "upstate" was all demographically the same and cared about the exact same issues.
Specifics matter. If you're talking about the Finger Lakes region, or Western New York, or the North County, or Elmira, or Westchester, or anywhere else, then say so. The sooner New York politicians- and pollsters- learn to stop speaking like 52,000 square miles' worth of people all live in one gigantic neighborhood, the better off they'll be.
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