Who is Sergio?

Nothing will quite so starkly upset the Buffalo Republican establishment as Sergio Rodriguez’s announcement of his run for Mayor, set to take place at 1pm in Niagara Square. For WNY Republicans, Buffalo is a tool used to suppress the Democratic turnout for countywide candidates; Sergio Rodriguez, for instance, is Stefan Mychajliw’s worst nightmare. Our new county comptroller – who quite literally press releases a new crisis every. single. day. – won last November by a narrow enough margin that the outcome wasn’t formalized until weeks after Election Day. With a proper big-ticket race on the marquee, Mychajliw’s path to a full term becomes hypothetically more difficult.  The hypothesis is contingent, of course, on Democrats coming up with a competitive candidate. 

Whether Rodriguez’s run will gain much traction is an open question. He ran for a seat on the Council before, and he is very active with veterans’ causes. He is a nice guy – too nice for politics, at first glance – but he’s also a Marine, so it would be foolish to put some real toughness past him. The big problems Rodriguez faces are his city-toxic party affiliation and his utter lack of money in the face of Byron Brown’s tsunami of cash. They are possibly insurmountable, unless Rodriguez can get creative with a bespoke party line (the likelihood of the Conservative Party or Independence Party jettisoning Brown is remote), and can raise some serious money, fast. Since he won’t be running in a primary, he’s got until September to get the money situation together in earnest. 

What is good for the city and region is that Byron Brown will have a challenger in November for the first time since 2005; a challenger who is, significantly, not a mere placeholder. But Rodriguez will have to build his own army from scratch, as it’s doubtful that establishment Republicans will help him canvass, raise money, or collect petition signatures. None of those activities can happen quietly, and the risks of reprisal are real. Rodriguez might conceivably find support among the grassroots / tea party type Republicans, but they’re few, far-between, not based in the city, and too preoccupied with Adolf Cuomo and Josef Obama taking their guns by force. 

The issues and problems that the city faces are tough and they are plenty, and the city has cursed itself with a mayor who doesn’t really want the job, whose concern for politics far outweighs his concern for policy, whose City Hall is corrupt and dirty, and who has no vision or overriding agenda for any of the social, economic, or development issues facing the city. Take any serious controversy that has come up in the city in the last few years, and you’ll be extraordinarily hard-pressed to remember what the mayor had to say or think about it. 

Sergio Rodriguez’s announcement is at 1pm at Niagara Square – can he do it? Is he the future of the city? Let’s listen. 

5 comments

  • It should really make things interesting, a Republican in the race for Mayor.   There are some out there who will vote for ANY alternative to downtown Brown.

  • I agree, it is really not healthy at all for the City of Buffalo for Brown to be running unopposed like this since 2005, the Erie County Republican committee could care less about the city of buffalo anymore, it’s pretty much a lost cause to them for many reasons. The people of Buffalo are so divided and need to make a grassroots effort for change, and drive out all of the corruption in the city hall if it is as bad as stated in the bottom paragraph. No political figurehead will have any impact.

  • i tell you guys way before sergio announced his running for mayor and you wont even print my story.cant believe you ignored me deb. tom somerville

  • Sergio is a good man…. He will not build his Army from scratch because those of us who know him, His veteran brethren who see how much he loves his community, we have his six. The odds are against him we all know that, but who would you rather have in a dog fight than a Marine.
    When I first moved to Buffalo I called the Erie County VA screaming my head off about my GI bill not being paid for months (I thought it was the VA). Fresh off my 3rd tour in Iraq… Sergio calmed me down and promised to help me and 2 years later I graduated with my associates from ECC. This is what Sergio brings to the table. God bless you brother…

  • “Our new county comptroller – who quite literally press releases a new crisis every. single. day”
    Funny that sounds like a certain “Chicken Little”  who used to be in the office prior to getting the Buffalo DEM stamp to be the new CE.  I don’t recall you being so critical of  him and things like his very important parking pass audit…hmmm…DEMS at work.  Or should I say not at work, just politics and mouth pieces for the politicians.

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