Dan's Papers - June 27, 2008 - The Internet Turns An Election Upside Down

Politics in the Hamptons have never been more interesting than in the past two years, with scandals, accusations and good old political maneuvering. When it comes to politics, whether you are running for Town Board or for President of the United States, there's going to be mudslinging.

In Westhampton Beach, for example, the accusations have been flying as the village elections finish up this month. We reported a scandal that included incumbent mayor James Kametler running an illegal bed-and-breakfast out of his home. Thanks to the Internet, news of the operation spread like wildfire and hit newspapers throughout the entire area.

By the time Kametler was able to defend himself on the issue, the damage had been done as his opponents purchased advertisements in newspapers making the accusation as public as they possibly could. Kametler, however, has barely been able to get out the message that the bed-and-breakfast is no longer in business, and that his wife had actually made the attempt to start a bed-and-breakfast that had never panned out.

The key to all of the races in Westhampton are related to the power of the Internet. Because it is such a small village, developing an e-mail list of all of the voters is relatively easy. And because political signs tend to get stolen, a huge push has developed in Westhampton toward using the Internet to get a political message across.

An example of this was when reports came in that police in Westhampton were walking down Main Street and asking shop owners if Jewish people were giving them a problem. Once again, thanks to e-mail mudslinging that created a rumor, a non-issue turned into a very big issue, and then back to a non-issue in a short amount of time. But Mayor Conrad Teller certainly had to do a lot of damage control as Jewish publications reported the incident and rumor spread via word of mouth.

After a lot of ruckus, however, all that had happened was that the local synagogue asked the village for approval to put up an eruv, a religious boundary marker that's a symbolic gesture by a rabbi. No big deal really to non-Jews, who usually don't even notice the subtle additions to existing phone poles.

Well, political junkies seemed to naturally send out e-mails to the mayor and as the e-mails opposed to the idea grew, so did the rumor. A few e-mails landed in the mayor's office from people who claimed that Jews in the area were trying to shut down businesses on Saturdays, which of course was not anywhere near the truth.

The mayor got the e-mails and decided to at least make a few inquiries. A few officers looked into it, and of course it turned out to be unfounded. The action, however, prompted more e-mails. Mudslingers who wanted the mayor to lose the election began claiming the mayor was anti-Jewish and was using the police to harass shop owners. When the smoke cleared, the mayor was hailed by the Jewish community for stopping the rumor and reacting appropriately, but not before he took some bad press.

In West Hampton Dunes, the super-small village that contains only 200 residents, the mayoral race between Gary Vegliante, who practically invented the village, and Lanny Lambert, are certainly going above and beyond when it comes electronic information. Both candidates set up websites about their campaigns. Of course, all of the voters are on an e-mail list, where accusations and responses are zapped back and forth in a virtual Internet debate.

You can expect the power of e-mail to continue in politics in an effort to disseminate information and sway elections one way or another. This will never change. But hopefully what will change is the public's ability to discern between cage-rattling nonsense and valid information.