Councilman Mark Weprin (to Gatemouth): Nice handicapping. Well done…You deserve all the credit that I hear you are taking.
Yes, I know Mark was talking with tongue planted somewhat in cheek, but I also know that it was only about only two weeks ago that seasoned local political observers were still treating the potential candidacy of Assemblyman David “Rupert Pupkin” Weprin for Anthony Weiner’s seat in Congress as a joke.
Even less than a week ago, in a comprehensive survey of potential candidates, the usually savvy Azi Paybarah, who busted his reportorial cherry covering Queens politics, published a potential candidates list so comprehensive it included such delusional fantasies as Eric Gioia, Claire Shulman, Lynn Schulman and Liz Holtzman
(I know that there are those still arguing that last was a real candidate–I will even forgive them, since many of these same people credit me for taking the wind out of Holtzman’s sails).
Councilman Mark Weprin was featured prominently in Paybarah‘s article, but not his brother David.
Like a Don Quixote, virtually alone, (except for my young protégé Sancho Colin, I blazed a lonely trail by arguing that, in this particular race, under these peculiar circumstances, David Weprin was the strongest candidate the Democrats had.
We did not convince many people, but we did not have to.
In this case, convincing one person was enough.
And I do know with some certainty that Gatemouth columns on this race were very well circulated by Weprin’s forces (and sometimes by others) to Party insiders and others who might be influential in helping to make the choice.
It is a good choice, because this race is still losable (though admittedly becoming less so at a rapid pace).
To refresh, John McCain got 44% of the vote here (the only Congressional district in the State where Obama did worse than John Kerry) even before the administration’s pronouncements on Israel caused further attrition in support for Democrats among Orthodox and Russian Jews, both of whom are plentiful in this district.
In 2010, Robert Turner, the Republican running against Anthony Weiner got nearly 40% here, beating Weiner in many Russian and Orthodox areas, despite Weiner’s hardline positions on Israel, which were to the right of Bibi Netanyahu’s.
I suspect some Jews here would vote for an anti-Israel Republican like Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan against a far right Zionist Democrat like Dov Hikind, just to send the President a message about Israel.
But Weprin, an Orthodox Jew, with proven strength in Orthodox Brooklyn (he carried Dov Hikind’s AD in his race for Comptroller) and a strong relationship with the Jewish social services establishment (which was already nervous about the district’s possible elimination in reapportionment, and thus exploitable by the GOP) is the Democrat in the best position to blow a hole in the GOP’s efforts to grab Jewish votes in the places where the Democrats are most vulnerable, thereby avoiding the prospect of Queens Democratic Leader and (most crucially in this case) Congressman Joe Crowley handing his President and Nancy Pelosi a nationally embarrassing defeat..
But all my worries may have been for naught.
The strongest Republican prospect, Councilman Eric Ulrich, a strong vote getter in the part of the district where a completive Assembly race will juice the turnout, has opted not to run, and the GOP has decided to behave like Democrats and elevate petty factionalism above grasping for the brass ring.
Many feel that there are elements of the GOP who want to lose this race.
If the Republican win, their victor would become an immediate national star, and they’d probably have to fight to save the seat in reapportionment.
This would surely hurt GOP Congressman Michael Grimm, looking himself to grab the district’s strongest Republican areas in Brooklyn and possibly the Rockaways.
Then there is the internal Queens GOP war between the Haggerty Family (a Limited Liability Partnership) and everyone else.
Add to that the nearly irresistible temptation to say “fuck you” to Mike Long when his little stub of a Conservative Party tail tries to wag the GOP dog and dictate who the candidate is (I sympathize, given all the times I‘ve wanted to give the WFP a swift and hard kick in the nuts who run it).
Right now, Mike Long likes Bob Turner. The mantra being repeated by Turner’s supporters is that he did well and deserves another shot.
I myself think Turner is the GOP’s Steve Harrison.
In 2006, running for Congress in Staten Island and Southern Brooklyn, Harrison got an unexpectedly high 43%, in the year of a Democratic landslide, receiving 41% on the Rock when Eliot Spitzer was getting 63%. Thereafter, Harrison’s supporters took this show of pathetic weakness as a sign of strength and started claiming Harrison should be proclaimed the Party nominee by acclimation.
Next time out ,Harrison got murdered in the Democratic primary by the candidate who subsequently won the seat in the general, something Harrison could never have done. .
Bob Turner is similar.
In a horrible GOP year, John McCain got 44% in the 9th CD. In the same turf, in the GOP’s best year since 1980, if not 72, Turner got 39%.
But Turner is based in the Rockaways in a race where, because of the Assembly race, that will be worth something, and he did work hard the last time.
The Republicans could do worse.
The new supposed GOP frontrunner (as of today, the first time most of us have ever heard of him), white shoe land use lawyer Juan Reyes, is a Giuliani protégé who supposedly can raise big bucks.
But, with all due respect, to win, Reyes must excite the type of Republicans who live here enough to come out to vote, and the GOP base in the 9th lives in places like Gerritsen Beach, where only a few years ago, Al‘s Barber shop used to display an effigy of a black man being lynched, and Broad Channel, where similar antics in a local parade once got some City cops and fire fighters fired.
If the GOP succeeds in making a strong candidate out of Reyes, uniting old line Irish Republicans, Orthodox Jews and socially conservative Latinos, it would be the ultimate triumph of what I call “The New Tolerant Intolerance,.”an effort to slice the right wing baloney along the lines of values rather than race.
Frankly, I don’t believe it can be done.
Weprin is already going to blow a hole in the GOP’s recently acquired Orthodox and Russian support, and I suspect many of the old line GOPers will prefer voting for a moderately liberal Jew rather than a Latino.
Even if this was not so, a Conservative candidate as angry as Turner appears to be is going to cost Reyes dearly, in an uphill race where’ll he’ll need every vote.
It appears that for David Weprin (and Rockaway Democratic Assembly candidate Phil Goldfeder, another Orthodox Jew), Chanukah has come early this year.