When I first started writing this column, over 22 years ago, I found that I really need a dictionary and a thesaurus to use correct spelling and to substitute words so the same word was not duplicated too many times. And so I could be “modern”, I got electronic versions – one for my office and a smaller one for travel.

The smaller version for my briefcase was called Wordmaster and 1987 was the latest copyright. The office unit was called Language Master. It has a copyright date of 1989. Those dates make a difference which I will refer to later in this piece.

1. As of the moment this is being written, Legislator Ed Mangano leads County Executive Suozzi by 497 votes on voting machines. The counting of over 8,000 absentee and other paper ballots might be completed by the time you read this. Most political people believe Mr. Mangano is the favorite to win because more enrolled Republicans returned absentee ballots than enrolled Democrats. However, some of those Republicans are actually older “hidden” Democrats, vestiges from a time when it was smarter and safer to enroll with the G.O.P. just in case you had to do business with the county or town. Are there enough of them to make up that kind of ground? Twenty years ago, the answer was definitely, “maybe yes.” Today, it’s not as clear. Insiders say that the Mangano campaign worked the absentee ballots much more than the Suozzi campaign, meaning they made direct contact with applicants. If so, it’s another sign that the Democratic Party is losing institutional knowledge of even the basic mechanics of campaign making. It isn’t all about collecting large campaign checks.…

Nassau’s Democrats took control of the county Legislature in January 2000, and the November 1999 Election Day victory which made it possible was memorialized on The New York Times’ front page.

A decade later, the Democrats’ loss of their 10-9 edge in the county Legislature was chronicled far from the Times’ front page, as was the still too-close-to-call county executive race between incumbent Thomas Suozzi and county Legislator Edward Mangano (R-Bethpage).