Sometimes I don’t give myself enough credit. A friend wrote to remind me that I predicted Gary Ackerman’s retirement in September 2010.
Totally below the radar of the press, Ackerman had been challenged in his primary by an opponent who had barely gotten a facially sufficient number of signatures by herself by going door to door.
As I’ve documented getting a barely sufficient number of door to door signatures is a far more effective way of getting on a ballot for local office than is getting a truckload of street signatures.
Nonetheless, Ackerman had knocked the opponent, a local gadfly named Pat Maher, off the ballot. However, at the last minute, her candidacy was restored by the Appellate Division.
I gave this race what little attention it got in any citywide forum just before the primary.
MORE CONGRESS (5th CD): I didn’t realize until today that Gary Ackerman had a primary. I’ve had my differences with Ackerman, but he plays a unique role in Congress, staking out the sort of First Amendment free speech and religion issues no one else has the guts to touch. He’s also been that rare unyielding supporter of Israel who’d stuck his neck way out in support of a Two State Solution and other pro-peace measures, which given the large number of Orthodox Jews he represents, takes real guts (compare Anthony Weiner and weep). Most importantly, Ackerman has a savage wit, which he uses to puncture the Republican balloon with more bravado than anyone but Barney Frank.
Gatemouth endorses Ackerman.
A reader filled in more details
OlePol155: I think I am unusually qualified to add my two cents here…as I both live in Ackerman's CD and am also a Democratic Committeeman.
I voted for Ackerman this morning without a moment's hesitation. He has been superb in terms of constit service, and has been a very, very thoughtful Member on foreign policy stuff.
The only real question is:
HOW THE h_LL did Pat Maher get on the ballot?
Pat Maher started off as a good gov challenger without any money, networks, grassroots, etc. to the Nassau Repubs. She ran against the GOP's endorsed candidate for the County Leg(Norma Gonsaves—another great political brain of the millennium…) from her East Meadow district in the first or second County Leg cycle when the system was new. She lost—terribly.
She was basically ridden out of the GOP for that apostasy, which is what they do when you challenge them.
Somewhere along the line, she became a Dem. She also pulled some primaries in our party against other party endorsed candidates, and got thumped, badly as well.
She lives in EAST MEADOW. East Meadow is NOT in the Ackerman district. Not by a long shot.
I ran into her in May at the County Democratic Convention. She queried me at length about how people felt about Ackerman, and obviously was not a fan of his.
Believe me, you can count the votes that she'll get in simple digits…Pat Maher has become a basic joke. Or, a total yawn….
He later added a few more details: Maher dusted off the few remaining lawn signs she had from whatever race she ran in the past—she ran several—and whited out the former election day date and office, and simple left signs that read
VOTE( WHITE-OUT)
MAHER ( WHITE-OUT)
PRIMARY ( WHITE-OUT)
As I noted, during the same election cycle, Reshma Saujani, spent at least $1.4 million dollars and managed to get only 19% of the vote. Only one other candidate running against an incumbent for public office in the entire City managed to get a vote lower than 19% in this year’s primary.
I’ve always estimated The Dead Dog vote to be 24%.
If you are an unknown who puts your name on the ballot in a head to head primary against an incumbent and does nothing, and the incumbent does nothing, you are going to get 24%
For instance, Unknown Gail Goode, who shot her wad getting on the ballot, and whose campaign after that consisted mostly of hanging literature on light poles, got 24% in the Democratic primary for United States Senate.
But Reshma Saujani despite all her Wall Street money could not even achieve that non-accomplishment.
But, this was not what happened to Pat Maher.
As I said then (and forgot until someone reminded me):
Yet this woman got 31% of the vote.
I love Gary Ackerman, but a showing like this should be an occasion for some introspection, and perhaps a time to start looking at some retirement communities.