CHARLES OTEY (in his “Pro Bono” column in The Brooklyn Eagle): Sen. Golden’s Big Role In Grimm Victory
“If [Sen.] Marty Golden hadn’t been challenged by this guy [Michael] DiSanto, [Michael] Grimm might have lost,” claims a Pro Bono reader.
“It was stupid of Democrats to run DiSanto,” he added. “In 2008 and 2006, Golden ran unopposed — without a Democratic opponent. He didn’t even run a campaign which helped [Assemblywoman] Janele Hyer-Spencer and [Congressman Michael] McMahon in 2008,” our anonymous colleague noted. “Golden’s more popular than any Democrat in Southwest Brooklyn,” he added. “So when he had to campaign this year against DiSanto, he ‘brought’ out thousands of voters who voted for him and other Republicans on the Republican ballot line.”
The final senate battle count was Golden — 25,993; DiSanto — 13,887. Our reader may have a point—at least where the congressional campaign is concerned. Not only did Golden draw out his loyal adherents, he also convinced many middle-of-the roaders including Democrats to vote “straight” Republican or Conservative.”
As Room 8 readers may be aware, upon the official certification of the election returns, it is my common practice, when time and energy permit, to peruse through the results and explode the conventional wisdom concerning them.
So far, in my examination of this year’s returns, I’ve found at least three columns just waiting to be written. This is the first, and in some ways the most difficult, because over the years, despite my best efforts at forestalling it, Bay Ridge Civic Leader/Political-Legal Columnist/Public Access Broadcaster (sic) /Attorney Chuck Otey has become something of a friend (We always have a good time laughing at the fact that we’ve been around for so long we knew Steve Harrison before he became a life long “Progressive.”)
This was not always the case. Back the 90s, when Bay Ridge was for a while linked in the Senate with Staten Island’s north shore, the incumbent Democrat (as he was then) Vinnie Gentile, struck up a political relationship with the Wu Tang Clan, natives of the Island’s Park Hill Houses, and their Wu Family Foundation. When Gentile was re-elected in 1998, someone at his inauguration event asked “Where’s Old Dirty Bastard?” and I pointed to Chuck. The animosity had then gone back well over a decade.
Back in 1982, without getting the proper permissions, the State Senate Democrats managed to win the Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights/Bensonhurst State Senate district held for decades by Republicans, including the recently defeated Christopher Mega, installing instead one Joseph Montalto. The response of the local political establishment of all parties was largely to pretend it had not occurred and to prepare for Mega‘s return in 1984.
There was no desire among the Brooklyn Democratic leadership to actually attain such a prize, for it was deemed of little use. They regarded the two-party system as a fee splitting arraignment. The Republicans controlled the State Senate, and business operated a lot more smoothly if Brooklyn had access to their Conference. Montalto was an inconvenience, to be jettisoned at the first opportunity, though naturally it was determined that Limonata must first be squeezed from this lemon, and the local District Leaders saddled Joe’s payroll with such wastes of space as Rabbi Israel Steinberg (who made most of his living selling heckshers to Jewish Delis which operated on Saturdays) and a receptionist/secretary who could barely type and was known as “The Teflon Lady” because her brain was a no stick surface.
Naturally, the Senate Democrats had a different attitude.
Holding the seat was deemed to be so important that, as young staffer of the Senate Minority Leader, I was dispatched to Montalto’s District Office to spend a year or so being tortured by Joe’s Chief of Staff.
The office and I were not a good match, largely because of my interest in actually working, my habit of reporting my concerns back to not only the Senator, but also to the Minority Leader’s Office, and my inability to function at staff meetings while drinking the scotch which the Senator insisted upon serving.
One day, I returned to the office to find my desk moved, and my carefully maintained box of cross-referenced index cards of every voter who had in some way had contact with our good offices strewn to the four winds. Upon my permanent departure from the office, a couple of weeks later, I borrowed from the Chief of Staff his copy of Lou Reed’s new album, “Legendary Hearts, ” about which he’d been raving, and which I already owned, and mounted it on the wall of my cubicle at 270 Broadway as my new dart board, and then sent him a picture of it.
But Montalto’s staff was not the greatest obstacle in the way of his re-election. There was also Montalto.
Smart, shrewd and hardworking, with his heart in the right place, Montalto was also under the unfortunate delusion that he was actually the Senator, rather than a two year political accident. Montalto proceeded to infuriate those trying to protect him by voting against the death penalty (which was passing the Senate with or without his vote, so it could be vetoed by the Governor), putting his name as a co-sponsor on the Gay Rights Bill (the lead sponsor immediately removed it, saying “Are you nuts?”), opening his District Office in Latino Sunset Park (where he lived as one of the first Yuppie pioneers) instead of the Ridge (because the people in Sunset Park needed his services more) and voting against every bill which imposed penalties for “theft of services,” a concept which Montalto did not believe in.
Only the last was in line with the sympathies of his District‘s majority, as it was then (or now, for that matter).
Joe also once showed up late for the State of the State. Mario Cuomo, already looking for ways to butter up the Senate Republican, took due notice and mostly acted accordingly.
But Montalto might have survived both himself and his staff were it not for both the Reagan landslide and the local establishment.
Upon his election, Montalto was told by the editor/publisher of the local weeklies, “The Spectator” and “The Home Reporter” (known to many as “The Home Distorter“) one Sarah Otey (then, as now, Chuck Otey’s ex-wife) that while the paper normally showed incumbent pols due deference, they regarded Mega rather than Montalto as the incumbent, but would deign to treat him with rough parity as long as he ran ads on a regular basis.
Bay Ridge was then in a snit.
Prior to the 1982 reapportionment, Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights had dominated two local Assembly Districts (largely by dicing up Latinos into politico impotence), which, until a 1981 special election, had both elected Republicans. But the 1982 reapportionment had divided the area into five districts, attaching parts to places like Brooklyn Heights and Coney Island, thereby eliminating any Republican seats.
In true Albany faction, the Democrats had total control over the Assembly reapportionment, while the Republicans had a free hand with the Senate. As a result, Mega’s new District was virtually identical with his old one, give or take a few blocks in Bensonhurst and Bath Beach he picked up to eliminate a population shortfall.
And he got to hand pick those blocks himself.
Bay Ridge then had a bi-partisan group of local burghers which basically functioned as The Bay Ridge Party; it‘s platform being “we are special and things shall always remain as they were in 1955.” Chuck Otey was actually, then as now, a moderately liberal Democrat (which made him the local equivalent of a radical), but ideology notwithstanding, he was one of the pillars of the Bay Ridge Status Quo Ante, even into this Century, still railing about such dear causes as the community’s entitlement to “reparations” for the use of eminent domain during the construction of the Verrazano, notwithstanding the fact that nearly all of the victims who hadn‘t already left the area for Staten Island, Jersey and points beyond had joined the Choir Invisible.
The burghers were outraged by the unwanted changes in their representation, and Chuck Otey was their designated hitter. So, every week for two years, I had to read Chuck Otey’s column in the Home Distorter. And every week for two year, Chuck Otey would repeat how the “Rape of Bay Ridge” was responsible for Chris Mega losing the seat which was rightly his.
Years later, long after Montalto had gone on to find his true calling managing an amusement park, I asked Chuck if he understood that he had been propounding a lie. He replied that while I was technically correct, the Assembly reapportionment had so demoralized area Republicans that it did not matter that Mega got exactly the District that he wanted, drawn to order. Chuck also pretty much acknowledged that he was carrying a contract by propounding the agreed upon Party Line of the local burghers for what he believed was the good of the community.
Which brings us to Chuck’s recent column excerpted above.
Marty Golden, a long time Bay Ridge fixture, is the Brooklyn Republican Party’s cash cow. Under the leadership Golden’s installed, the function of the County’s GOP is entirely bound up in Golden’s protection. The local Democrats leave him alone, and get to pose with him whenever Golden announces a new Member Item, and Golden leaves them alone, either by insuring either that no candidates run against them, or that those who do run are weak or receive no party support (usually both). Sometimes he even endorses the Democrat and delivers them the Party support in everything but name.
The Democrats respond in kind. The most shameless actually endorse Golden out of greed and personal ambition, while claiming to be selfless.
But most prefer the more honorable method of taking a dive.
As I noted in 2006, some local Dems [Assemblyman Peter Abate and District Leader Joe Bova] actually bragged about how their decision to prevent an opponent for Republican Senator Marty Golden allowed the Democrats to pick up one more Assembly seat, bringing Shelly Silver's veto proof majority up to a superfluous 108 out of 150. In 2008, I again noted the sad circumstances in Brooklyn’s 22nd SD, where a voter’s sole choice was whether they voted to re-elect Golden as a Republican, Conservative or Independence candidate, leaving Golden free to send his entire payroll (including a member of Brooklyn’s lowlife Garson Crime Family) off to aid in the re-election efforts of Serf Maltese and Frank Padavan.
I also noted that those who wanted to bash Brooklyn Democrats for their failure to work with “Progressives” and other party insurgents had no cause for complaint. In Golden’s “race” (or rather, lack thereof), as well as in the similar “race” two years before, the County Leadership worked in lockstep with supporters of “Progressive” Steve Harrison to ensure that Golden had no opposition–a fact verified in the columns of Harrison supporter Mole333.
The idea of such abstention was to make a sacrifice bunt. The theory being that the Congressional race might be winnable, so why wake a sleeping dog who might work harder if he’s opposed and risk hurting the entire ticket.
This might have been a credible excuse if it didn’t appear that so many Brooklyn Dems didn’t have such cozy working relationships with Golden, and that making such an excuse suited their convenience.
But such excuses can only be assured of usefulness if one refrains from testing them.
For years, Queens Democrats maintained a similar cozy relationship with Republican State Senator Serph Maltese. Then, one day without warning, a perfectly awful, seemingly unelectable (his curriculum vitae included an arrest involving guns) Democrat petitioned for the nomination without any party support (and in the face of party opposition) in the year of a Democratic landslide and nearly won. Everyone pretends to be delighted by an unexpected victory, but unexpected near-victories are a stone-drag, as well as humiliating proof that someone was asleep at the switch and didn’t know what they were doing. And, for sure, if only the Queens Democrats had any idea how much trouble Serph Maltese was in, they would not have sat on their hands. Take it to the bank (the usual Queens Democratic strategy); they would have been out there, full force, to ensure Maltese’s re-election.
After the election, the mortified Dem County Leader, Joe Crowley, excused himself lamely:
“There is no one in the world who can say to me that we should have known there was a vulnerability here…there was nothing to indicate that – absolutely nothing.”
Well, there was be a reason for that; there was nothing to indicate Maltese’s vulnerability in his then current district because the Queens Democratic organization had never bothered running anyone against him in that district or, for that matter, in his prior one. In fact, they tried to prevent it. They then used the failure to run such candidates to justify the self-fulfilling prophecy of their party’s failure to win the seat.
If the party had devoted, say, a half hour to running the numbers concerning Democratic performance in the only two State Legislative seats the Republicans then held in that Borough, they might have found even more evidence of such vulnerability, given those areas’ performance in other elections and the rapidly changing demographics. For instance, the district drawn for Maltese in 1992 had a non-Hispanic White population of 74%; the virtually unchanged district drawn in 2002 (despite efforts to draw in every stray non-liberal white who could be found) had less than 53%, and that had dropped rapidly in the four years preceding 2006, and has continue to do so. Democrats outnumbered Republicans there by a factor of 30%.
Eventually, when it no longer was comfortable to keep their heads inserted in their asses, Democrats took both seats.
But even if there were no chance of winning, it was still worth running someone. As I noted in 2006, there seemed little chance that Democrat could beat Marty Golden, even in a year like that one (but I felt the same way about the chances of beating Serph Maltese.)
The failure to have any candidate at all meant that if Marty Golden got hit by a bus in September, the Democrats wouldn’t have had a candidate at all, and a new Republican would have slipped in unopposed, and obtained two years of incumbency without a contest.
Plus, as I noted, they could have gotten lucky, but you gotta be in it to win it; you ain't gonna make any surprise pick-ups if you stay home instead of going belly to the bar. You can't pull a surprise if you don't have a candidate.
In response, Golden and the Democrats came up with the mantra/excuse that this disloyalty to democracy and the Democratic Party was actually in the Party’s interest. As noted, Golden supporters, as well as the Bay Ridge establishment and Democrats of all stripes embraced the mantra.
But this year, Democrats, with the active apathy and/or disdain of nearly their entire Party Leadership, did run a candidate against Golden. And, as many predicted, this event coincided with the defeat of both Democratic Congressman Michael McMahon and Democratic Assemblywoman Janelle Hyer-Spencer.
And naturally, all of those with a vested interest in things remaining as they are
have taken up the mantra that they have been vindicated in their fears and that Golden must be for all time left unmolested, lest he shed the effect of his toxic radiation, cash and campaign apparatus on other Democrats.
And, of course, as has been his practice, Chuck Otey is once again leading the charge.
And, honestly, this time, I think he really believe what he’s saying.
But that doesn’t make it true.
Let’s look at the numbers and see if the assertion that “If Marty Golden hadn’t been challenged …Michael Grimm might have lost,” because Golden “brought out thousands of voters who voted for him and other Republicans on the Republican ballot line.” and “convinced many middle-of-the roaders including Democrats to vote straight Republican or Conservative” has any credence.
In 2008, Michael McMahon took 60.93%. His percentage was 60.83% on the Island and 61.27% in the District’s much smaller Brooklyn portion.
In 2010, McMahon took 47.93% of the vote. He took 46.49% of the vote on Staten island and 52.63% in the District’s Brooklyn portion.
In analyzing the Golden Effect, we must first stipulate that, by the Otey Theory’s own terms, Golden had zero impact in Staten Island, which he has never represented. Thus, none of McMahon ‘s 14.34% drop there can be attributed to Golden.
But what of McMahon’s much smaller 8.54% drop in Brooklyn? Yes, McMahon’s Brooklyn drop was an eye-popping 5.80% less than his drop on the Island, and yes, that smaller drop, if replicated on the Island, would have meant a McMahon victory, but is it not possible that without the Golden Effect, McMahon would have dropped even less in Brooklyn?
Let us accept this logic for a moment, and agree that some percent of McMahon’s Brooklyn drop was attributable to Golden. Now, let’s test the numbers.
It was a year where voters everywhere swung in the Republican direction to some measure. Virtually no Democratic Congressman in the entire nation improved their 2008 performance in 2010, and there’s no reason to believe McMahon could have. So let us stipulate that, even without the Golden Effect, McMahon would still have done no better in Brooklyn than he had done in 2008.
Let us, in fact, stipulate for the moment that without the Golden Effect, McMahon would somehow have maintained his 2008 Brooklyn percentage, even while dropping over 14% on the Island.
Running the numbers, we must still account for the midterm election voter participation drop-off. On Staten Island, turnout in the congressional race was 67.29% of what it was in 2008, while in the District’s Brooklyn portion, it was 68.83%. As such, if one were testing the Golden Effect, we should probably stipulate that the District’s Brooklyn turnout would still be 29,666.
Running the 2010 Brooklyn turnout, with McMahon taking his 2008 61.27% rather than his 2010 52.63%, and adding it to his unchanged Staten Island total, he now receives 63,335 votes instead of 60,773. This bring him up to 49.95%. Leaving the Libertarian and scattered vote unchanged, this leaves Grimm with 62, 462 votes, making McMahon a very narrow victor.
In other words, the Golden effect works as the determining factor only if one attributes McMahon’s entire Brooklyn vote drop to Golden and nothing else.
This is just silly.
First of all, there are at least some Brooklyn election districts where Golden and McMahon do not overlap. By the terms of Otey’s Theory, such election districts would not be impacted by the Golden Effect.
More importantly, for the Otey Theory’s Golden Effect to be determinative, one must stipulate that 2010 did not happen.
In 2008, 48 Districts which voted for John McCain for President elected Democratic members of Congress.
One of those Districts elected Mike McMahon. In fact, McCain carried both Staten Island and the District’s Brooklyn portion.
In 2010, only 12 of those districts elected a Democrat to Congress. In other word, McMahon starts out with a 75% chance of being beaten.
In 2008, Democrats received about 53% of the national vote for the US House of Representatives. As some recounts are not finished, we don’t have the 2010 numbers, but polling indicates the Democratic figure was about 45%.
In other word, if we believe in the truth of the Otey Theory, nationally the Democratic Vote Drop was 8% (the same loss McMahon suffered in Brooklyn); Democrats suffered a net loss of over 60 seats, Democrats shed votes even in seemingly safe districts; seemingly safe incumbents like Barney Frank had real races, but none of this, nor all the direct and indirect expenditures on Michael Grimm’s behalf, would have lowered the Democratic percentage of the vote in the Brooklyn portion of Mike McMahon’s district, had it not been for Marty Golden.
If we attribute a highly unlikely three/fourths of McMahon’s Brooklyn vote loss to the Golden Effect, then the Golden Effect had no impact, as restoring 3/4ths of McMahon’s Brooklyn vote loss back to him would not have given McMahon victory
The Golden Effect is even more illusive in the race in Brooklyn’s 60th Assembly District.
In 2008, Janelle Hyer-Spencer took 54.70% of the vote in her race for re-election. Her percentage was 50.86% in the district’s Staten Island portion and 62.59% in the District’s smaller Brooklyn portion.
In 2010, Hyer-Spencer took 44.68% of the vote. She took 39.82% of the vote on Staten Island and 54.16% in the Brooklyn.
Once again in analyzing the Golden Effect, we must first stipulate that, by the Otey Theory’s own terms, Golden had zero impact in Staten Island. Thus, none of Hyer-Spencer's 11.04% drop there can be attributed to Golden.
Like the McMahon race, the drop off in voter participation between 2008 and 2010 was nearly identical in both of the 60th AD’s counties.
As such, if one were testing the Golden Effect, we should probably stipulate that the District’s Brooklyn turnout would still be 8,674.
Running the 2010 Brooklyn turnout, with Hyer-Spencer taking her 2008 62.59% rather than her 2010 54.16%, and adding it to her unchanged Staten Island total, she now receives 12,166 votes instead of 11,435. This bring her up to 47.54%. Leaving the Right to Life and scattered vote unchanged, this leaves her opponent with 13,213 votes.
In other words, even in the unlikely event that one could attribute Hyer-Spencer’s entire Brooklyn votes loss to the Golden Effect, it would not matter. Even with Golden out of the race, she would still have lost.
So, the Otey Theory that challenging Marty Golden resulted in two Democratic losses is a crock.
Memo to Brooklyn Democrats: Please note and act accordingly. There is no Golden Effect worth talking about. You’ve have been given a Golden Shower.