The Hudson Valley has always had an uneasy relationship with the power centers to the north and south. In the troubled economic times of prior decades, it was a bit of a fraught question whether Ulster County was close enough to Albany or New York City to survive. The answer to that question was, largely, good news: Yes, enough of the almost incomprehensible wealth of New York City (about $1.4 trillion last count) has moved upwards through tourism, NYC DEP tax payments, and real estate sales to help the region get back on its feet.

We all know, and don’t really have to go back over, most of the trade-offs that come with this boon. The housing market is all but shot for upstate natives. Beloved backcountry trails are crowded out on all but the coldest, rainiest days. And under it all is often the sense of being treated like a primitive society living on the edge of civilization.

Years ago, in New York City, there were billboards from the tourism department with chipper little phrases about how great a place it is. Among them was a famous line from John Updike: “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” That’s the sentiment that can trickle up here and curdle things. There should be a nice dynamic between two dynamically interconnected regions: we spend their money; they drink our water.

Instead, there is an affordability crisis, a housing crisis, and, maybe most of all, a respect crisis. One local resident recently described the fear of becoming a “concierge service” for the city. This for a region that has an art movement named after it, changed the course of music, and houses what may be the most prestigious military academy in the world.

So, into this fraught situation waded, once more, the New York Times, who, for all their excellent reporting, are the longstanding masters of this kind of highhanded approach to their vassal lands.

A recent article in the Times entitled “Could Second-Home Owners Swing New York’s Swing Districts?” charted a Democratic Party initiative called MoveIndigo. The initiative, funded in part by journalist Tom Brokaw, bears the slogan “Maximize Your Vote When You Move,” and it encourages New York City residents who have second homes in Hudson Valley swing districts to register to vote in those districts.

Two of those three swing districts – the 19th, where Marc Molinaro is facing Josh Riley, and the 18th, where Pat Ryan is facing Alison Esposito – are in this paper’s territory.

Naturally, Republicans are not happy about this. “It’s not enough that they are destroying New York City with their sanctuary city and pro-criminal policies,” Matt Organ, Marc Molinaro’s campaign manager, told the Times. “Now Democrats are shipping these policies north, trying to hijack local priorities.”

It’s hard to disagree with the feeling that this hijacks local priorities, and that works both ways –the very idea of targeting second home owners is a galling embrace of privilege in a city where so many people struggle to afford even a small apartment. Perhaps New York’s richest should clean their own house first before abandoning their own community?

It is, however, legal. New York’s been grappling over the past few years with a wonky battle between Democrats and Republicans trying to re-structure voting to help their party. Our region has been one of the balls most consistently batted across the court in this match. Districts here have changed back and forth, back and forth, because of machinations in Albany and Manhattan, so that whomever a set of voters picks to serve them, they’ve lost that person within a few years. How can we expect any forward momentum when, just as a politician learns their district, they wake up in a new one?

On top of that, the second home question isn’t the only infusion of outside influence in our swing districts. As we’ve reported, the race between Molinaro and Riley is the most expensive congressional race in the country, and that money isn’t flowing from Ellenville. It’s national funds from party war-chests dumped into a local race. And with that money has come a change in the tenor of the race. Early on, Molinaro ran ads talking about bipartisanship. Now, both his and Riley’s ads are full of scary red fonts calling the other names. It’s politics, and it happens, but it sure looks like national politics.

Here in the Hudson Valley, our elections, like our trailheads, are suddenly crowded with tourists. Riley appeared recently with a representative from Massachusetts, and Molinaro with a representative from Texas. Both seem to be angling towards smearing the other with the brush of “outsider” – “crooked D.C. politician” versus “corrupt career politician.” There’s not much of a solution here except to hunker down and wait it out. But we sure wish the political tourist season would end.