[Posted on Room Gate 4/18/13]
Politics and Poker, Politics and Poker
shuffle up the cards and find the joker
Neither game's for children
Either game is rough
Decisions, decisions, like:
who to pick
how to play
what to bet
when to call a bluff!
Councilman Stephen Levin makes it awful hard not to like him.
He works hard. He caters to the whims of every civic type in his area, even when, as is often the case, they are being stupendously silly. The only time Levin can’t please the activists in a community is when they, as is sometimes the case, are at war with each other.
He goes the extra mile in bringing home resources to his constituents. And he takes a special interest in his poorest, least organized constituents. Representing one of the City’s most affluent districts, he champions the causes most dear to residents of its NYCHA projects.
And it’s even harder not to like him on a personal level.
Though smart and politically savvy, Levin is basically a wide eyed sweet earnest goofball.
No wonder he attended Brown University (also, not coincidentally, the alma matter of Levin’s almost but not quite opponent Lincoln Restler—rumor is they were library rats together).
He’s the sort of guy who is unaccountably attached to a ten year old Honda which appears to be held together by discarded chewing gum. The sort of guy who suffers a bad story because someone tweeted a picture of him dancing at a Hasidic wedding with a guy who was under indictment, and only suffered that bad story because he himself tweeted the picture, thinking it looked cool.
The sort of guy who spends nearly an entire evening at a political club Christmas party talking with a nine year old about American history trivia (Yes, it was Dybbuk, who thinks Levin is “awesome”).
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