Dateline: Lewes, Delaware
This morning on Facebook, I posted my last Vito Lopez item from the era before the end of the beginning of the end:
Money quote: “Mr. Lopez proceeded to discuss the race that he cares little about for about 30 minutes before hanging up" Small Election Race Causes a Stir online.wsj.com
The quote almost perfectly summed up the overbearing arrogance of “The Man Who Was Not From Bushwick.”
A perhaps apocryphal story goes that, in the early nineties, three Brooklyn political operatives were discussing the health of Vito Lopez, who had been stricken with leukemia.
All three agreed he was not long for the world, and they were talking in terms of weeks. The three were Norman Botwin (alev ha-sholem, 1993), Billy Gelfond (alev ha-sholem, 1993) and Gerry Dunbar (alev ha-sholem, 2007).
A lot of people who’ve written premature obituaries for Vito Lopez, whether literal or political, are now remembered, if at all, with yartzheit candles, whether literal or political. Lopez is one wily and ruthless player, but it is hard to see how he gets out of this one.
This time, the usual suspects who call for Lopez’s resignation on a weekly basis were nearly trampled getting to the microphone by terminal cynics like Marty Markowitz and Christine Quinn.
Blood is clearly in the water, and even the eleven horses who Lopez personally appointed to the Party’s Executive Committee are more likely than not going to join in the feast.
Perhaps a few years back it would have been different, but that was before Ridgewood-Bushwick was under investigation and partially reorganized; and it was before Lopez went on his kamikaze crusade to beat Nydia Velazquez, and got his ass handed to him. Lopez’s other power bases have already been constricted; now with the loss of the Housing Committee, most of his Assembly payroll, and with the loss of the smoke and mirrors symbolized by his vanishing institutional support, it is hard to see how Lopez survives.
And all this over accusations never before part of the public Lopez narrative, even among his most spiteful blogger enemies.
Take down Lopez because of hubristic dictatorialism? You have a case.
Take down Lopez over allegations of corruption in his not-for profit empire? I’m listening, let’s see the proof.
But over this? This is like getting Capone on tax evasion.
If only he and Naomi Rivera had hooked up instead, so many problems could’ve been solved.
I know sexual harassment is serious, but the slimy and pathetic encounters documented by the Assembly Committee are an unworthy exit vehicle for a giant, even if in my life he was mostly a giant source of aggravation.
Vito Lopez, a young social worker, came to the Bushwick community as a young man and built almost literally by hand a social service empire which bettered the lives of tens of thousands, if not more.
His entry into politics was to serve those goals; power was a means which later became the end. (Although, even then, he was an extremely accomplished legislator, especially in the area of housing–nine out of ten loft tenants agree).
Vito was part and parcel of a band of late 1960s/early 1970s vintage community organizers of Italian-American origin, who combined Alinsky-inspired tactics and programs with techniques reminiscent of the old time Italian-American padrones, mixing old-fashioned empire building with a radical world view.
Besides Lopez, these folks included people like North Newark’s Steve Adubato (still one of Jersey’s most powerful bosses) and the South Bronx’s Father Louis Gigante (and to a far lesser extent, Carroll Gardens’ Buddy Scotto).
In their fiefdom’s, these visionary men administered a local, warm and paternal version of democratic socialism and opposed their communities’ reactionary elements, but at the same time, they sometimes seemed ruthless in their methods, and had no qualms about making alliances based solely upon accumulation of power, without regard to ideological principles.
I should note that “progressives” who readily excused the likes of Steve Harrison for endorsing Republicans to further a zoning proposal in middle class Bay Ridge really have no business in criticizing those who do the same to help obtain money for programs to help the poor and working class (in the same way they have no business criticizing Lopez for endorsing social conservatives unless they criticize “progressives” who do so as well ).
Progressives who delight in the coming storm should note that the bandwagon is filling up rapidly, and the final knife will probably be placed by those who come as friends.
Progressives will not control the outcome, and the outcome might not be an improvement.
My suggestion is they get together, decide on a list of their negotiable demands, and then start preparing for the negotiation. They might not have many votes, but they are worth the same as everyone else’s, and rules changes are just as negotiable as patronage, if that’s what you’re really looking for.