Published: November 05, 2008 12:58 am      

ELECTION 2008: Lee hands Kryzan lopsided loss

Businessman Chris Lee is now Congressman Chris Lee.

With nearly all election districts reporting, Lee, the Republican candidate, won with a strong 55.2 percent of the vote. His opponent, Democrat Alice Kryzan, took 40.3 percent and Working Families Party candidate Jonathan Powers, who had sought to drop out of the race after endorsing Kryzan, remained on the ballot and fetched 4.5 percent.

Though hotly contested, voters handed Lee a resounding victory in a GOP-leaning district that has been held by Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-Clarence, for a decade.

“It’s been a long hard victory, and I’m proud to be standing here today,” Lee told dozens of jubilant supporters gathered at the Buffalo Niagara Marriott Hotel in Amherst just after 11 p.m., with the Journey song “Don’t Stop Believing” blaring through the sound system.

He said he will take what he’s learned from his business background and bring that same skill set to Washington, D.C., to represent a district that spans parts of seven counties in the Western New York region.

“My goal is to take what I’ve learned over the years in the private sector and try to use some common sense in Washington where we can try to put people back to work with the types of jobs that they deserve in this community,” he said.

While acknowledging that it wasn’t a good night for the GOP nationally, Erie County Republican party Chairman James Domagalski said it was a great night locally for the Republican party and its ideals.

“We have in Western New York a young businessman going to Congress tonight who will be the voice of those ideals,” Domagalski said before introducing Lee to the stage.

Raised in the Town of Tonawanda, Lee earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and finance from the University of Rochester and an MBA from Chapman University in California.

In 1995, Lee became general manager of the family business, Orchard Park-based Enidine Inc., and was later promoted to president of the Enidine’s Automation Group.

“The reason I’m here is because I want to create jobs and I understand and know what it’s like when you have to go out and meet a payroll (and) you have to deal with the regulation that Albany and Washington impose upon you,” Lee said. “We need representatives in Washington who understand that. And most importantly, we need people who’ve actually had to go out and earn a dollar, who will be much better stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars when we get to Washington.”

Kryzan, the Democrat who shaped a grassroots campaign around a promise to help reinvent Western New York’s economy “green” style — and whose platform in many ways mirrored that of President Elect Barack Obama — conceded the race to Lee about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday. By that time, the districtwide vote tally had surpassed 70 percent and Kryzan clearly didn’t have a shot at recovery.

Addressing supporters at her Sheridan Drive, Amherst, headquarters after the call to Lee, she said she took joy in the presidential election outcome and the call for change it represents.

“I’m hopeful my opponent has heard those voices as well and I wish him well in the task ahead,” Kryzan said.

She also urged her supporters, many of whom wore both “Alice ‘08” and Obama/Biden stickers, and some of whom wept as she conceded, not to disengage from politics.

“Keep alive the spirit that brought you to this effort and you will change western New York,” she said.

Kryzan campaign volunteer Kelly Winslow of Cambria grimaced each time updated vote counts on TV put Kryzan further behind. She said she had been drawn to Kryzan’s “high road” campaigning style, switched her primary vote to Kryzan from Jon Powers and signed up to be a phone bank volunteer after Kryzan won.

Kryzan’s distant showing in the general race surprised Winslow. In the course of phone banking, she said, “I talked to a lot of Republicans who said they liked what they heard from Alice and were giving her some thought. A lot of them said they were fed up with what’s been going on.”

The contest took a decidedly bitter turn after the Democratic and Republican congressional campaign committees began advertising in the last month. As the Democrats hammered Lee for Enidine’s job creation in China, the Republicans labeled Kryzan a big-spending “liberal trial lawyer” and attacked her involvement nearly 30 years ago as counsel for Occidental Chemical in the Love Canal lawsuit.

The charges lobbed by both parties were false, and both candidates claimed they personally had no role in the negative ads; but in the past few weeks Lee and Kryzan both were so obviously angered by the attacks, they started taking potshots at each other.

Kryzan said she’s at a loss to explain how she ended up losing by such a wide margin. The national election-watching outfit Cook Report just last week identified the district as “leaning Democratic” in the race; while the Kryzan camp didn’t have absolute confidence it could win an overwhelmingly Republican-registered district, organizers figured the result would be a lot closer.

“We haven’t had a chance to go through the numbers and try to figure out what happened. Maybe all that negative advertising did work,” Kryzan said. “All I can say is shame on (Lee).”