The late afternoon email from Nydia’s campaign looked like a panic attack.
DAN WILEY: Now is the time we need to push to get people to vote during the evening rush returning home. To get more people going to the polls to vote.
Brownstone Brooklyn has turned out in very very low numbers, and we need to bring these up.
We need you to go to your closest subway stop in our district (listed below) and encourage everyone coming to go to their polling place to vote right away before home. (Note to give literature to people coming out of the subway, not going in)
We'll have literature at these subway stops that Nydia will make an appearance at, but lit or not lit we can always get people to the polls!
I walked past a number of subway stops on my walk home and no one was there.
Once home, a gaze at the internet showed crowds at Hasidic pollin places that looked like the turnout when the Rebbe gives a febregen.
Then I went to vote.
Once home I posted (since removed, because it is all incorporated here) as follows:
CONGRESSMAN DILAN?
6 PM —ED 58 of the 52nd, I was voter #11.
The poll site coordinator said Board of Election personnel confiscated every last affidavit ballot to bring them to Williamsburg, where apparently the commandments about not bearing false witness and not stealing do not apply to elections.
Congressman Dilan?
Earlier this year, some Brooklyn "Reformers" objected to efforts to have one consolidated primary in August because it might require postponing elections for the Democratic County Committee.
Saving millions better put to use for human needs was not good enough for people like Morgan Pehme, now Editor of City Hall News, because having an election for County Committee has a value higher than rubies.
Morgan Pehme called the effort to have one primary day a “brazen, dictatorial power grab by Vito Lopez” and a “tactic we are used to seeing employed by third-world tyrants.”
Ironically, having one consolidated primary in August would have driven up a higher turnout. But "reformers" like Morgan got what they wanted (though not for that reason).
Ironic that we ended up with a primary by invitation only, which is exactly the type of primary where Vito Lopez excels.
This turned out to be what I later called “premature panic."
In retrospect, I don’t know if Wiley was just being wily. I suspect that he was panicked too.
Reports were coming in that the vote in Hasidic Williamsburg was huge, and they were still voting after the doors were locked.
But then the returns came in.
Nydia was ahead by over 40 points, and Dilan seemed to be in a fight for second.
I posted an update.
UPDATE: With 15% in Nydia apparently is winning by a landslide. While people who showed up on time were still voting in Hasidic Williamsburg long after the polls closed, such a lead seem insurmountable.
So, in the words of Ms. Emily Litella, "Oh, never mind."
In the end, the Hasidic vote whittled the Velazquez lead down to a mere 28%, and left Dilan in a solid second place.
Word is the pro-Dilan Zalis beat the pro-Velazquez Aronis by 60/40.
In other words, they gave him a margin of nearly ten points less than Velazquez managed district-wide despite their efforts.
As I noted yesterday, the Aronis were using tactics of dubious legality, not to mention playing the race card, and their political leadership largely consists of sleazeballs.
But one cannot help noticing that, though a minority element in their community, they are now a real forced to be reckoned with.
Further, while the Velazquez people have extremely plausible deniability as regards the Aroni operation, it would be unfair not to note that they have far less deniability concerning the sort of anti-Hasidic race baiting which seems to have been engaged in by their own camp.
Ironically, the piece linked recalls nothing so much as the type of stuff Vito Lopez’s minions used to put out back in the days before Vito had made his peace with UJO Williamsburg.
Which brings us to Mr. Lopez.
It seems inevitable he will try to spin the Hakeem Jeffries landslide as his baby alone, and say the night was a draw.
It is instructive to look at what his people did last year, in the aftermath of the loss of a Congressional seat.
GATE: Those who will claim last night was a loss for Vito Lopez are not without an argument.
Bob Turner’s extraordinary two to one victory in the 9th District’s Brooklyn portion (Weprin eked out a small victory in Queens) was the story of the election, but from the beginning, thoughtful observers (defined here as me and Colin Campbell) knew Turner was going to win Brooklyn.
As the coach noted in Chariots of Fire, one can’t put in what God left out.
Maybe a flawless and relentless Brooklyn operation could have yielded Weprin 40% there, but it was not going to do much better in the current climate, and would probably not have won there even in a better one.
Anyway, Vito won the races he cared about, and won them convincingly (Assembly candidate Rafael Espinal) or big (Civil Court candidate Sharen Hudson).
Billy Phelan: I disagree. Last night was a victory for Lopez… If anyone should take heat for how the 54th AD race impacted the NY 9 congressional race it is the WFP and the democratic electeds that failed to realize they were pursuing a failed strategy in both districts and tying up much needed democratic foot soldiers. Leading this piece like you did is unfair to Lopez, and let's ALOT of people (WFP, Lincoln Restler, New Kings Democrats) completely off the hook.
City Hall News bought the spin and actually named Lopez one of the week’s winners (and he subsequently won their straw poll). Their analysis was pure Billy Phelan.
Vito Lopez — Weprin may have gotten trounced in Brooklyn, but Brooklyn county leader Vito Lopez cleaned up in the election he really wanted to win. Lopez’s hand-picked Assembly candidate, Rafael Espinal, convincingly beat back a strong challenge from the New Kings Democrat-backed Jesus Gonzalez, and Deidra Towns, the scion of the rival Towns political family, reasserting Lopez’s standing in central Brooklyn as several Council seats come open in 2013. And because Lopez didn’t pick Weprin – that honor went to his Queens counterpart, Joe Crowley – Lopez shared little of the criticism faced by his rival borough boss.
If you want to understand why this was such a bad night for Lopez, imagine what the spin would have been if Dilan had won and Jeffries lost
Billy Phelan: I disagree. Last night was a victory for Lopez.. If anyone should take heat for how the 8th congressional race it is the people like Diana Reyna and the Sierra Club…
City Hall News: Vito Lopez — Jeffries may have gotten trounce, but Brooklyn county leader Vito Lopez cleaned up in the election he really wanted to win. Lopez’s hand-picked Congressional candidate, Erik Dilan convincingly beat incumbent Nydia Velazquez who was backed by the New Kings Democrats, reasserting Lopez’s standing in Brooklyn as several Council seats come open in 2013. And because Lopez got rid of longtime thorn in his side Ed Towns, even the Barron victory was also a victory for Lopez, who really won this race the day Ed Towns failed to file his nominating petitions.
Brooklyn “Reformers” and insurgents are newly emboldened. Expect a revenge challenge to Martin Dilan and possibly Rafael Espinal, if not to Lopez himself.
As to Mr. Barron, the hysteria of the last couple of weeks, which even I had started to assimilate, I had forgotten a point I’d made last year (and probably earlier) about Barron’s purported strength based upon his 2006 performance:
GATE: The author’s assertion here that Charles Barron "very easily could have won the [2006] race [for Congress] if not for the presence of Roger Green, who previously held Mr. Jeffries’ seat in the State Assembly" verges upon the insane.
Mr. Green, a bookish pol who catered to his peculiarly Yuppie and Buppie constituency and was an outspoken voice against racism and anti-Semitism among his fellow Muslims, and supported the Atlantic Yards development which Barron loudly opposed, clearly did not draw all his votes from Barron, and nothing about delivering virtually all Green’s votes to Barron would have been "Easy."
The idea that some of Green's votes were anti-Towns protest votes is true, but what Barron doesn't seem to get here is that many of Barron's 15,000 votes were as well. Presented with a reasonable, never convicted (unlike Green) alternative, many of these anti-Towns votes (especially those from the white 52 AD, which Barron nearly carried) will not being going to Barron again. Barron Prepares for Congressional Run, Blasts Towns and Jeffries | PolitickerNY www.politickerny.com
I should further note that if wanted to see what Hasidic voting used to look like one needs go no further than the Russians of Greater Sheepshead Bay/Brighton Beach:
TILZER: Manhattan Beach polling site: 210 for Jeffries. 3 for Barron. IS68 371 Jeffries to 92Russian District Shorefront Y Jeffries 617 Barron 16 Grady HS Jeffries 115 Barron 10 Corbin Place Jeffries 299 15 Barron…
However, it should also be noted that, even without a single white vote, Barron would have gotten his clock cleaned; as I noted last night on my Facebook page, shortly after 9PM:
GATEMOUTH: IS 68 –black area of Canarsie: 371 Jeffries to 92 Barron. If Barron is getting beat so badly in a black area so close to ENY, it is probably over.
As to the other races:
Grace Meng’s majority victory in a four way race proves that it helps to have a smart strong ruthless machine behind you, but it helps even more to have the most attractive (looks aside) candidate.
There is going to be some debate whether Clyde Williams’ attractiveness caused Charlie Rangel to hang on in a minority victory. My guess is that Williams would not have looked so attractive if Mr. Espaillat was more so. To cite one example, Dominican President Lionel Fernandez’s open support in an American election is just one of the ways Mr. Espaillat’s ethnic cheerleading turned off affluent educated voters who might just as soon voted for Rangel had Mr. Williams not been available.
And the story lost among the clutter?
Two certifiable lunatics and a white rapper together managed to get a higher percentage of the vote against Greg Meeks than was managed by either Mr. Dilan or Mr. Barron.
A real opponent might have beaten Meeks.