Clark leading the pack in race for county executive
BRIAN ACKLEY Political Columnist
There's at least one thing that whoever becomes our next county executive will have going for him, or her.

Since Joel Giambra's limbo level continues to languish at historic lows, our next county executive won't have to pole vault over the bar so much as simply avoid tripping on it. A rattlesnake sprayed with cooking oil and dipped in Vaseline would have trouble slithering through, so tight is the space between dirt and any public regard or relevancy to the office's current occupier.

Almost makes one wonder why the field lining up to sit on the Rath Building's 16th floor come Jan. 1 is filling in more quickly than a Thursday in the Square concert crowd, which makes this a good time to separate the pretenders and contenders in the group of wannabes.

West Seneca Supervisor Paul Clark is perhaps the front running Democratic contender, big time, and not just because the seams of his war chest are already starting to pop. It's unfair to say he has spent his time in that town toiling in relative anonymity, but it is a plus that he hasn't been painted with the county brush of political self-preservation and poor decision making which puts lackeys like Lynn Marinelli - one of the reigning princesses of partisanship, confirmed by her recent taxpayer-be-damned push to create a weekly paycheck, er, job, for a dedicated Democratic do-gooder - solidly in the pretender category.

Jim Keane is a contender, and falls under the heading of "recycling project." But, the list of those who remain loyal to him, and who have power and money, is still impressive, too much so to ignore. A Keane-Clark slugfest would at least be entertaining, not to mention expensive.

Jimmy Griffin is a pretender doing what many retired politicians do. His big toe in the water is nothing more than a way to temporarily fill the void of power and public pertinence, which many longtime office holders never stop craving. His last uninteresting and undistinguished fling in the Buffalo Common Council, from which he unceremoniously walked away, is proof enough of that.

Dan Ward shouldn't be dismissed. He didn't exactly get crushed by Giambra in 2003, and many of the economic warning shots he fired in that campaign went largely ignored or unnoticed by both voters and the media alike. Turns out he was more right than we knew, but it just feels like it's going to be difficult to climb past Clark or Keane on the contender side of the ledger.

Potential Republican candidates are united by at least one common thread: the size of the personal check they would be willing and able to write to their own campaign. Already announced is Amherst Town Councilman Bill O'Loughlin, an intriguing possibility with some built-in name recognition. But he's had several moments in clashing with Supervisor Satish Mohan over the past 12 months that provided troubling glimpses into a personality which isn't always as teddy-bear soft as his radio work might reflect.

Chris Jacobs is often pushed to the head of the GOP line. In case you've lost track, he's now New York's current secretary of state, hardly a portal to piles of publicity or power. Quick, what exactly is his job description? And most suburban voters would have trouble picking him out of a concert crowd, even if he was wearing a big "Hello, I'm Chris Jacobs" sticker on his lapel.

There's no real evidence that two other potential GOP winners are even interested in running, or just how much arm twisting it might take to get them to say yes, but both would make it a barnburner of a race should either take the challenge. Former County Controller Nancy Naples isn't doing much these days after Eliot Spitzer's win. And Dennis Vacco, one of the men on the local Republican committee charged with coming up with a viable county executive candidate, would also be an attractive and popular choice should the finger point inward. Former state attorney generals have fared pretty well in elections recently, it seems. And he's been out of office long enough now to create a needed buffer between his candidacy and much of what voters now feel often ails political lifers.

There's nowhere to go but up.

(Brian Ackley is a columnist for the Weekly Independent Newspapers of Western New York. Opinions expressed here are those of the author.)