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Publication Date: July 25th, 2025
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In his seminal 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan put forward a radical analysis of social change. “The medium is the message,” he wrote, meaning that society is shaped as well as reflected by communications media and that media’s effects are the result of form more than of content.
Hudson’s mayoral contest illustrates this neatly. Four candidates, four media strategies. Each says as much about character and governing style as any manifesto. In larger cities, mayoral fights now play out on TikTok or Twitter. New York’s candidates perform on TikTok. National campaigns spar on Twitter, now X. Hudson’s silence on both platforms hints at its median age of 41 and undermines talk of “techie transplants.” Here politics still happens in Meta’s empire of images and comments, not in viral dance clips or microblogs.
Governs in public and private FB threads and groups, announcing snow bans, personal family updates, and sparring with residents and his own council, all in the same feed. Facebook has become the digital town square for older users and Hudson born, raised, and departed, half memory lane, half bare‑knuckle brawl. Kamal thrives in this chaos, speaking directly and impulsively. Few realize that he presents different messages to his nativist FB supporters, his progressive Instagram followers, and his increasingly rare public appearances. Don't count him out, maybe we will see a strong finish with a coherent campaign message and updated website. His many supporters sure hope so. #AHOD
Tag: Combative populist, thrives in conflict.
#AHOD
Kamal Johnson FB Comment on June 21st, 2025
And let us not forget Kamal’s recent “fever dream” series of Instagram Stories… ⬇️
https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2025/07/different-strategy-same-goal.html
https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2025/06/come-november.html
Founder of "a brand‑listening company", turned alley broadcaster and Citizen Assembly fanatic, Spear delivers polished and personal musings via Instagram reels. The platform rewards aesthetic framing and occasional performative authenticity. It is commerce‑ready and influencer‑friendly, a medium for curated optimism without revealing the messy baggage and sausage-making, a Warren Street staple.
Tag: Polished marketer, aspirational urbanist.
#FutureHudson
Peter Spear’s Alley Chat, commenting on the Galvan / Kamal Rent Issue last month
Peter Spear’s Alley Chat, commenting on the Galvan / Kamal Rent Issue last month
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLA3H_oRLih/
Ferris issues bulletins and “releases statements” by email and PDF Press Release, a format familiar in Albany or Washington and preferred by professionals, but rarer in a small post‑industrial city with artists, retirees, and the unconventionally employed. Press releases and clearly written email communiques are staid but interoperable, working on any device outside social walled gardens. They suit the detail‑oriented, busy, and institutional, unafraid of records, FOILs and e-discovery. Whether you use Yahoo! Mail, AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, or Superhuman, or rock an Android or iPhone, you can participate in the give and take.
Tag: Proceduralist, rooted in studied professionalism.
#PragmaticProgressive
Ferris release statement on June 21st, 2025.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKr6j2QsjDA/?igsh=MTg0dzV6ZHB0MDZwMw%3D%3D
Koedding sends handwritten notes via facsimile from the public library, some reprinted in Gossips of Rivertown. The fax, or in this case more accurately the handwritten letter, once carried urgency and weight, too costly for trivia. Koedding’s choice (if it is that?) signals permanence and nostalgia, a civic romanticism fitting of Hudson's glorious past and at odds with digital speed. Lloyd, who often speaks as the "Voice of Reason" at City Hall confabs, could very likely have been deplatformed by one or all of the FAANGs during Covid, or simply virtuously chosen to avoid the attention economy, but the primary medium through which most residents experience him remain buoyant interactions on the streets, and ubiquity in all festivals, parades, and lakes.
Tag: Nostalgic traditionalist, slow but deliberate.
#MARA (Make America Rake Again)
See one of Lloyd’s infamous letters mentioned in this Gossips of Rivertown post ⬇️
https://gossipsofrivertown.blogspot.com/2025/04/news-of-planning-board.html
June 25th, 2025. Lloyd letter to Johnson, release to Gossips of Rivertown
A mayor leads the city, is one of three powerful voices and votes on the budget (BEA: Board of Estimates and Apportionment), and nominates candidates for seats on every city board. How should such power speak? Through a Facebook post or comment? An Instagram story or reel? An emailed press release? A handwritten letter, transcribed by aides?
The medium will shape the message and the mayoralty alike.
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P.S. Of course each candidate may promise to go multi‑platform, or do so before the election. Joe and Peter generated words for a living or studied them. Kamal is likely the least experienced writer but he can be rhetorically persuasive and passionate, until challenged with facts. And Lloyd, the man could have been a thespian in a previous life, is skilled with the quill, and channels Joseph Campbell insights before lunch.
Joe might say he is already quite active on Instagram and Peter may have a newsletter and launched a helpful website with his platform written out clearly for all to see (https://www.spearformayor.com/platform).
Kamal's campaign website is out of date, but he could cite the official City of Hudson app (yes, there is an app, though usage data is not public) and the occasional City of Hudson press release when staff are in Hudson rather than Albany, but not from his official re-election campaign.
The point here, part tongue‑in‑cheek but also serious, is that the medium each candidate gravitates towards to connect with voters and leverage in moments of urgency, reveals instinct and temperament. In a crisis, no one has time to reinvent their communications style. Communication habits may evolve, but do not change all that frequently.
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Last edited/updated:
July 26th, 2025
**Correction: “**Lloyd Koedding, the Republican candidate, isn't actually using fax. He gets his handwritten messages scanned at the library and then sends them as email attachments.” ~ Gossips.
We have replaced “fax” with scanned handwritten letter.
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