Going. Going. Gaughan!

I have long supported the efforts of Kevin Gaughan, the political activist hell-bent on streamlining Western New York governments.

Gaughan can legitimately claim being at least partly responsible for the reduction of members in two county governments, and six towns, as well as the elimination of a village.

And now Gaughan has set his eyes on Albany, wishing to reduce the state Senate, followed by the Assembly. His plan is to make 62 senators into 50 and 150 assemblymen into 125.

He says the reduction in the Senate, alone, will save $12 million a year. In a time when we’re all looking for two nickels to rub together, $12 million is a whole lot of rubbing.

Gaughan even has the theoretical support of state Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, who told him he has concerns, but generally is supportive of the plan.

I had my own concerns — particularly the diluting of the people’s voice in Albany with each state senator serving as many as 400,000 people under Gaughan’s plan. Right now, each senator has 322,000 constituents.

So Monday morning, I set out to put those concerns to rest with a phone call to Gaughan, himself.

“First of all, your question assumes that people have a voice in New York government,” he told me. “Virtually every New Yorker knows that the representative has no voice in government.”

“The fundamental purpose to reduce the number of politicians is to increase people’s voice,” Gaughan said, adding that when the real decisions get made, the state goes back to its tried-and-true method of “three men in a room.”

OK, he kind of got me there.

In addition, he said, bigger is not necessarily better. In lean times private companies roll back the number of employees they have to make ends meet. “Government should undergo the same change.”

Plus, Gaughan said, New York has one of the largest state governments in the union. And the cost of running that government is unmatched by even the largest of states.

“I think having two bodies with 212 members … I think there was a time when New York state could afford that,” he said. And that time is long gone.

“To ask people to have the highest cost for the New York State Legislature and have the least voice, calls for a change,” he said.

Gaughan continued, saying that real reform will require term limits, campaign finance reform and redistricting reform, which will prevent the legislators from gerrymandering their districts to ensure the 99 percent re-election rate they have enjoyed for years.

“Each of those reforms have been talked about and yearned for, for over 50 years,” he said. And while he certainly supports those three measures, his baby has been government reduction, which he says is equally important, but still just a part of the solution.

“To solve this problem, nothing's going to work ... but everything might,” he said.

Kevin and I were on the phone no more than five minutes. At the end of that five minutes, I agreed wholeheartedly. And I wish him the best.

OK with Keith Olberman being KO'd

I was shocked — but not surprised — to hear Friday night that Keith Olbermann and MSNBC were parting ways.

That is to say that I couldn’t believe that MSNBC would let the most dynamic host they had slip through their fingers. But in all honesty, I had no trouble believing it at all.

I once had great respect for Keith Olbermann. His show, Countdown, was as informative as it was entertaining.

I don’t know if it was Olbermann that changed — or me. But his show got increasingly unwatchable for me. He had turned into a left-wing version of Hannity and Glenn Beck. And it certainly couldn’t really be called a news program any more.

Sure, Olbermann continued to put forth information and ideas, but he made no effort to hide his bias. And he wasn’t very friendly about it, either.

In the grand scheme of things, he had become just another talking head. Part of the problem. He signed off his show with “Good night and good luck,” but he was no Edward R. Murrow. He wasn’t fighting for journalism. Or freedom. I had gotten the impression he was fighting for Keith Olbermann.

In truth, I won't miss him any more than I’d miss Limbaugh or O’Reilly. The only disappointing thing is that with his departure, the media has slanted just a little further right.

Yes, I said further right. Meaning, I believe that media already slants right. Now, many of you will disagree with me and argue out loud that there is no right wing media. There’s the liberal elite media and then there’s Fox, right?

I suppose if you think that Fox News is middle-of-the-road, then, yes, everything else would appear to lean left. And if you stand on your head everything will look upside down.

I, of course, have my own biases. Anyone who’s been paying even cursory attention knows that my beliefs are strong, but difficult to pinpoint. I’m radically right on certain issues and crazy left on others. I like to tell people I’m a rabid centrist.

This mish-mosh of beliefs stems from not forming my opinions based on what the Keith Olbermanns and Sean Hannitys of the world tell me to think, but instead coming to my own conclusions of what makes sense in my own happy little head.

Because of this (apparently unusual) mix of right and left-leaning ideals, there’s no talk show host out there that I concur with more than 60 percent of the time. And there’s no cable “news” network that I feel speaks for me.

As a result, I’ll stick to the real news. As spoken from the likes of Brian Williams. In truth, he’s the only national media icon I have any real respect for — at least as a news man. Sure, Limbaugh is entertaining. As is Stephanie Miller. But they don’t do news. Just like Olbermann didn’t do news.

I know some of you will miss Olbermann’s show. And some of you are glad to be rid of him, I’m sure. Just don’t think we’ve lost some great reporter. He was a rodeo clown. Just like the rest of them. Distracting us from the real solutions to the real problems.

Scott Leffler, night/city editor for the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, has been in the local print and broadcast media for the past decade. His column appears every Tuesday. Contact him at scott.leffler@lockportjournal.com.