St. Lawrence County legislator feels the pain

I'll bet that St. Lawrence County Legislator J. Patrick Turbett can feel JaMarcus Russell's pain.

Here's a quick primer for all of you who don't get the sports reference. Russell was picked in the first round of the National Football League draft and paid a boatload of money a couple of years ago to play quarterback for the Oakland Raiders. He is now just another unemployed fat guy charged with illegally having more codeine than is needed to stop a little tickle in his throat.

No, no, no ... I am not trying to say Turbett is a fat millionaire who is into chugging cough syrup. And he is not in any danger of losing his day job, even if he does get booted in November from his seat as the Potsdam representative on the Board of Legislators.

But I am saying that Turbett surely can feel Russell's pain. They both have fallen hard after reaching the top of the mountain.

Four years ago, a crew of Democrats swept in and took control of the county Legislature. They elected Turbett two years in a row to lead them as chairman – the quarterback destined to turn the team around after some fairly dismal seasons. He was the star, earning a boatload of prestige - if not money – as the leader of a fabled franchise suffering tough times.

Today, if the veteran Democratic lawmaker hasn't actually hit rock bottom politically, he surely is close enough to see what it looks like.

Turbett has won two elections and is in his eighth year on the board. To get his party's nomination for a third term, he needed only 38 registered Democrats in his district to sign a petition. That's 38 from a pool of 754.

That's third-down-and-goal at the two-inch-line with Eli Manning at quarterback and the Potsdam High School Sandstoners on defense. A touchdown waiting to happen. A sure thing.

It should have been, at least. Turbett collected 46 signatures and should have been sailing into November to run against Republican challenger Karl Ortmeyer.

Problem is Turbett got blindsided by his own team. The Potsdam Democratic Committee encouraged a Republican to run against him as a member of their party.

And by “encouraged,” I mean they told Republican James A. Bunstone he COULD run against Turbett. They didn't have to. Bunstone says he has seen the light and is ready to become part of the usually correct-thinking party that is the Democrats. But he technically is still a Republican.

All the Potsdam Democrats had to do to keep Bunstone off their ballot was say, “Um, sorry, we believe you are ready to leave the dark side, but we already have a candidate – a tried and true member of our club – so maybe you should try again when you actually have shed your GOP cloak.”

But in Potsdam, it appears all politics is loco. They chose instead to let Bunstone into the race. “The more the merrier” was their inane justification for kicking one of their loyalist friends to the curb.

With friends like these, who needs Republicans?

It is true that Turbett can be faulted for not working hard enough to get well more than the number of signatures he needed to ensure placement on the Democrat ballot. But it is equally true that he would have had enough if Bunstone wasn't around to get the same signatures.

The duplicate signatures that appeared on each of their petitions were given to the candidate who collected those names first. Bunstone won the race 18 times. He won a race he shouldn't even have been in. And Turbett was the loser. http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20100721/NEWS05/307219961

From chairman to loser in only three years. That's quite a fall. Turbett still could get on the ballot as an independent candidate. But if he couldn't get support from his own team, keeping his legislative position seems like a long shot at best.

I am sure JaMarcus Russell feels his pain.