The Ithaca Journal tends to post the contents of their paper to their web site once a day, and I've not seen very many "news updates". It's a little surprising to see one posted this afternoon, reported without any contrasting quotes, on a topic that doesn't exactly need to be rushed to the presses.
Tompkins County Republican Chairman Mark Finkelstein held a press conference proposing that the county end its current use of a chairman elected from among the legislative representatives and replace that with a County Executive, elected by the entire county. Whatever the merits of an executive system, it's hard not to see this as an acknowledgment that the Republicans aren't likely to win another chairmanship in a long time given the 11-4 Democratic dominance on the legislature, combined with the recognition that Republicans have done slightly better at elections for countywide office than their numbers on the county legislature suggest.
I suspect this particular article matters mostly to whatever few people read the Journal's site late in the day, but hopefully tomorrow they'll publish something that explores the issues in depth rather than just citing one Republican without other perspectives.
Update: As of 7:15am Saturday morning, the Friday news is still up but the "news update" is gone. I wonder if this was just some kind of glitch.
Posted by simonstl at December 12, 2003 10:36 PM