{"id":132542,"date":"2017-11-08T09:34:37","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T15:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=132542"},"modified":"2017-11-08T11:38:52","modified_gmt":"2017-11-08T17:38:52","slug":"voters-to-political-parties-we-dont-need-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=132542","title":{"rendered":"Voters to political parties: “We don’t need you”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SYRACUSE, N.Y.\"\"— Throughout a heated campaign, Ben Walsh’s opponents dubbed him a “Republican in sheep’s clothing.” When he took the stage to declare victory Tuesday, he was flanked on either side by some of Syracuse’s best-known Democrats.<\/p>\n

If you’d just wandered in from the street, you’d have thought you were at the Democratic victory party.<\/p>\n

Newly elected Councilor Joe Driscoll (D) stood over Walsh’s right shoulder, nodding his head. To Walsh’s left was Council President-Elect Helen Hudson (D), grinning ear-to-ear. County Legislator Monica Williams (D) stood behind him, along with a beaming Katie Sojewicz (D) a handful of others.<\/p>\n

In fact, the only Republicans onstage were Walsh’s parents, Jim and DeDe.<\/p>\n

The city decisively elected Walsh Tuesday, making him the first mayor in 100 years who doesn’t belong to a major political party. He was swept into office with a Republican name and a cadre of powerful Democrats behind him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his corner were former chairmen of the city Democrats and the city Republicans. He had business owners, community activists and even that handful of elected officials.<\/p>\n

Aside from making history, Walsh’s\u00a0victory was a clear message from city voters to leaders of the two major parties: We don’t need you to pick our candidates.<\/p>\n

By Chris Baker<\/a><\/p>\n

cbaker@syracuse.com<\/a>,<\/p>\n

syracuse.com<\/p>\n

Photo: syracuse.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SYRACUSE, N.Y.— Throughout a heated campaign, Ben Walsh’s opponents dubbed him a “Republican in sheep’s clothing.” When he took the stage to declare victory Tuesday, he was flanked on either side by some of Syracuse’s best-known Democrats. If you’d just wandered in from the street, you’d have thought you were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132542"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132555,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132542\/revisions\/132555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/132543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}