Don Scott’s 'un-campaign' tests Bedford politics: Supervisor candidate uses AI and humor to rethink local government

Don Scott thinks he has a chance to become Bedford’s next town supervisor.

"Just like the Jets had a chance to win the Super Bowl,” said Scott, a Republican running in a town he describes as roughly two-thirds Democratic.

But winning, he said, is not the only point of the campaign. If the Seinfeld TV character George Costanza once discovered the power of doing the opposite, Scott appears to have discovered the power of the un-campaign.

No glossy mailers, no lawn signs, and unfortunately for this newspaper, no paid ads.

Instead, Scott has built a campaign website that is part political platform, part civic utility and part artificial intelligence experiment. On his website, donforbedford.com, Scott has already pre-published his prospective victory and concession speeches.

For Scott, the process of running a campaign, and, should he win, of running the town, are not side issues. They are the point of his candidacy.

The website lets residents vote on which ideas matter to them, and they can even recommend new ideas. Residents can select an array of issues to learn Scott's view, and the website has seven hypothetical local personas that show how different constituencies in town may feel about various topics.

It includes an AI-powered town-code tool, designed to let residents ask questions about Bedford rules and get "plain-English" answers. It includes a “Best of Bedford” survey, an idea-matchup game, a cutest pet contest (as of this writing, Scott's dog, Bo, is in the lead), and a "Code Red" trivia game to "guess which strange local rules are actually real."

And, perhaps most memorably, it includes an AI version of Don Scott called the "Don Bot."

"Because Bedford deserves a choice," Don Bot said in reply to a question about why he is running for supervisor. "Local government works better when people have to explain their decisions, defend their priorities, and ask for support. Uncontested elections make everyone a little too comfortable."

His avatar is, in the assessment of Halston Media publisher Brett Freeman, a slightly better-looking version of the candidate.

“It polished me a little bit,” Scott said. “I think the AI is a little chubbier than I am in real life, but he looks OK."

The hair, however, was not a concession.

“I’ve got great hair, OK,” Scott said.

But beneath the jokes is Scott’s broader argument: that artificial intelligence can make campaigns cheaper, more transparent and more accessible.

Scott believes campaigns cost too much money and produce too little useful information. His website compares his “un-campaign” with the last contested Bedford supervisor race in 2021, when, he said, Supervisor Ellen Calves' campaign spent $118,000. In the 2026 election cycle, Scott said his campaign had spent $13 so far.

The site also includes a carbon-footprint comparison between Scott’s current campaign and Calves’ 2021 campaign — a feature Scott said was added after someone expressed concern about the resource drain of using AI in a campaign. Scott said Calves’ 2021 campaign carbon footprint was 9,662 kg, compared with 53 kg for his current campaign. Readers can check the math on his website, where visitors can also view the AI instruction set on several of his pages.

“I feel like AI has the ability to democratize elections,” Scott said.

The use of AI, he said, is part of what he wants Bedford to consider. AI, in Scott’s view, could help municipalities communicate better with residents, generate meeting recaps, answer routine questions and reduce costs over time.

Asked whether that would mean cutting town jobs, Scott said he would not support layoffs. But he said the town should examine whether every position needs to be replaced when employees retire.

Scott is not new to Bedford politics. He served two three-year terms on the Katonah-Lewisboro Board of Education from 2000 to 2005, with three of those years as president. He was also elected to a one-year term on the Town Board in 2014, and then he won a four-year term in 2015. He lost his re-election bid in 2019.

Professionally, Scott is the president of Wright Holmes Group, a national legal network that connects collection agencies, commercial creditors and equipment lessors with vetted attorneys specializing in commercial collections and creditors’ rights.

He also has his bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University and he and his wife raised their two children in Bedford.

Scott knows the political odds. He is not pretending Bedford is easy terrain for a Republican candidate. As a regular columnist for this newspaper, he criticized the state government's recent change to local election law, when it moved local elections into national election years. Scott said this has made ticket-splitting harder.

“Maybe this catches on and maybe people engage,” Scott said. “Maybe people think that there should be diversity of thought and approach on the town board, and maybe they can look past party labels.”