Sitting down to write about the recent outbreaks of hate speech embroiling Brad Lander’s City Council race, I suddenly was reminded of Mark Green and included within that article a relevant digression about Mr. Green’s travails during his 2001 campaign for Mayor.
During Mr. Green’s 2006 race for State Attorney General, I concluded that those travails, and an even more ancient incident involving Andrew Cuomo, were sucking all the air out of the room concerning discussions of both men, and I wrote an article discussing the antiquated allegations, such as they were.
Now, thanks to the efforts of Councilman Bill DeBlasio, one of Mr. Green’s opponents in Green’s “Jaws II” race for Public Advocate, I find myself compelled to discuss such matters again.
DeBlasio’s campaign surrogates (according to Gatemouth’s Political Dictionary, a “SURROGATE” is either a Judge making miserable the lives of widows and orphans, or someone pretending to be independent who delivers an attack on behalf of MY CANDIDATE. By contrast, a “SOCK PUPPET” is someone who delivers an attack on behalf of YOUR CANDIDATE) Rev. Al Sharpton, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke and her mother, former Councilwoman and Pataki-hack Una Clarke, have been unrelenting in dredging up this political corpse as if it were Green’s Mary Joe Kopechnie.
As I noted back in 2006, during the 2001 runoff for the Democratic mayoral primary, the campaign of Mark Green’s opponent, Freddy Ferrer, distributed flyers in black areas reminding voters that Ferrer was endorsed by Al Sharpton, while in white areas, Green’s campaign distributed flyers which did the same. No one questioned Ferrer’s right to do this, but if it was racist to point out that Sharpton was supporting a candidate, then the leading Klansmen in 2001 would have been Freddy Ferrer and his surrogates, who, in front of the right audience, never failed to remind folks who Sharpton was backing.
Was it racist to remind white voters of the same? Al Sharpton is a polarizing figure among white voters, not because of the color of his skin, but because of the content of his character. Let’s consider a few examples from his track record: Fat Freddy's fire; Tawana Brawley; “Diamond merchants”; etc, etc. Similar efforts in Brooklyn campaigns to tie candidates to less controversial black pols, solely for the purpose of reminding voters that their opposition was supported by some black people (whose only crime was “endorsing while black”) have, in recent years, failed miserably.
Al Sharpton is a sleazebag (and often, and not coincidentally, a Republican shill); it was not racist for the Green campaign to raise this issue.
What it was stupid and, ultimately, counterproductive. The lit itself featured a NY Post cartoon of Ferrer kissing Sharpton’s ass, and the image was so grotesque as to be arguably racist in and of itself. The flyers were clearly distasteful to the point of nauseating, and, as any idiot could have foreseen, the backlash they created cost Green big in the end.
Green’s campaign made efforts to hide their involvement in the flyers because they knew that distributing a Sharpton piece would cause outrage, some feigned and some sincere. That alone should have stopped them from distributing them. I believe that, with or without that repulsive cartoon, any piece raising the Sharpton question, even if it featured quotes from, and a picture of Floyd Flake, would have generated the same outrage.
So my first question to Bill DeBlasio is, is any criticism of Sharpton per se racist? Frankly, Bill, anyone who says no makes the piece's purported racism a matter of debate over increments, while anyone who says yes has pretty much removed themselves from the rational world and need not be answered.
Yes, one can make the argument that ethnic and racial based targeting is per se racist, but Ferrer didn't send his Sharpton endorsement piece to even the most liberal white areas; if he had, he would have been doing Green's GOTV for him. As I’ve noted, Ferrer and Green both did a "Sharpton endorses Ferrer" piece; they just dropped it in different areas. And if Green just reprinted Ferrer's piece, and his campaign semi-plausibly stated that Ferrer's folks must have gotten lost and made an error, would that have been racist too? Or just smarter?
Anyway, DeBlasio hardly seems in the position to get morally outraged over racially based targeting, given his recent mailing of an endorsement piece from his wife (I envy him that; under similar circumstances, Domestic Partner would likely have done a “Dear Neighbor” letter for one of my opponents, while asking me to pay for the stamps), who happens to be African-American, to minority and white liberal areas, but not to places like Gerritsen Beach.
One doubts Green knew about the “ass-kiss” piece. This is the sort of thing campaigns do without telling the candidate; it’s the job of campaigns to do such things without telling the candidate, and the larger the playing field, the less likely the candidate is to know (by contrast, the protests of ignorance from a City Council candidate like Brad Lander seems far less likely to be credible).
Certainly, Green could have taken stronger action afterwards, and dismissed the campaign aides who seemed to be responsible; this is the course I have publicly advocated for Mr. Lander. But in Green’s case, as opposed to Lander’s, that would have been more about damage control than morality.
Nonetheless, at the time Ferrer, Sharpton, Ramirez and their cohorts called for blood. Similar to my call yesterday that the Lander campaign dismiss its Borough Park Head Macher in Charge, Yitzchok Fleisher, they called for Green to terminate with extreme prejudice the five aides who seemed most likely to be guilty of the non-existent crime.
Since there was no crime committed, except for extreme stupidity, for which the statute of limitations has run, I will not name four of the five aides targeted by Ferrer’s crew ; however, one name is relevant to this story.
Shortly before the 2001 runoff, five Green campaign aides, one an Orthodox Jew, and one who’s since become one, met with a group of southern Brooklyn pols, including State Senator Carl Kruger, at Nick’s Lobster House to fress deeply into treife and to discuss how to motivate white southern Brooklyn voters to take any interest in helping Manhattan liberal Mark Green beat Freddy Ferrer.
Witnesses say that Kruger loudly advocated that Green’s campaign drop a piece in white Brooklyn letting voters know that Ferrer had been endorsed by Sharpton. There was fierce opposition from many around the table, and the issue was left unresolved.
Kruger, probably disgusted by the group’s lack of cojones, left the meeting and almost immediately endorsed Ferrer (although some believe Kruger was actually setting up Green to ultimately help Bloomberg, which if true, given Kruger’s current poisonous relationship with the Mayor, would seem to be poetic justice).
Though the circumstances remain murky, literature was eventually commissioned and created by an operative named Micah Lasher (named here because the literature Lasher designed made matters worse by including the offensive cartoon, and because Lasher ultimately was rewarded for thereby helping to elect Bloomberg with a top position in Bloomberg’s wholly owned Department of Education).
The literature was then printed and distributed out of the Working Families Party Office, then located at 30 Third Avenue in Brooklyn, probably without the candidate’s knowledge. The distribution of the literature was coordinated by one of the five Green aides at the lobster banquet, JON KEST, who was on leave of absence from his position with the Working Families Party (WFP) to serve as Green’s Field Director.
In true WFP fashion, though Kest had shifted payrolls, he had never left the office.
And so it continues today; only last week, The City‘s Campaign Finance Board pierced the corporate veil, separating the WFP and Data and Field Services, one of the many interconnected entities operating out of the same offices as the WFP and ACORN. Today’s Daily News casts a wary eye on another entity operating out of the same location.
But, of far more relevance to the instant matter is this item recently reported in City Hall News:
“Four city candidates have paid over $38,000 so far this cycle for a range of reported services to a private company based at the same Brooklyn address as ACORN, the Working Families Party and Data and Field Services—a company for which no official records could be located.
The company, NY Citizens Services Inc., is reported in campaign filings as having the same address as ACORN’s, at 2-4 Nevins Street. The candidates’ public disclosures listing the company’s name are the only listing in public records for the company available.
There is a well-known for-profit canvassing company, Citizens Services Inc., which is run out of ACORN’s national offices in New Orleans…But no payments to a company identified specifically as NY Citizens Services Inc. appear in public records before the current election cycle headed to the September primaries. In this cycle, Council Member Bill de Blasio’s public advocate campaign has paid a total of $20,451.20, beginning with a $2,175 payment for professional services and canvassing in March, early for a campaign to engage in canvassing. The rest of the de Blasio payments, made in July and August, are reported as being for campaign workers, staff, campaign consulting and field staff….
…Campaign staffers from de Blasio…did not return calls and emails requesting comment to detail the services being provided…As for NY Citizens Services Inc., the widely different amounts paid and different services listed leave unclear if there are different rates for campaigns. These four campaigns appear to be the company's only clients so far this election cycle.
Also unclear is whether there is a financial relationship between Citizens Services Inc. and NY Citizens Services Inc., or whether the two are separate entities. Though a company called Citizens Services Inc. is registered with the New York Department of State Division of Corporations (with a home jurisdiction listed as Louisiana), there is no listing for NY Citizens Services. However, one of the candidates using the company…listed one of her payments to “Citizens Services Inc. (ACORN).
A search of GuideStar, a national database of non-profit tax filings, turned up no listing for NY Citizens Services Inc., meaning that the company has not reported filing as a non-profit.
No separate phone number for NY Citizens Services Inc. could be located. A call to the ACORN main line at 2-4 Nevins Street asking for NY Citizens Services was met with confusion by the receptionist, who said “that must be some other company.” When asked who at ACORN should be talked to about political campaigns, she transferred the call to Greg Basta, whose message identifies him as working at ACORN canvas.
Basta did not return a call for comment. Nor did JON KEST, who runs ACORN’s New York offices.”
If Mr. DeBlasio is so morally outraged by what occurred in Green’s 2006 campaign, why is he delegating such a substantial part of his operation to the likes of JON KEST?
In 2001, Rev. Sharpton demanded that Mr. Green immediately fire Mr. Kest before he receive absolution; but today Mr. Kest is united with Mr. Sharpton in working to defeat the candidate Mr. Kest’s activities (which so outraged Mr. Sharpton) helped to destroy in 2001, an impact which might have been mitigated but for Mr. Green’s seemingly misguided loyalty to Mr. Kest.
It would be unfair not to note that Mr. Sharpton’s outrage at Green, though selective, is at least genuine. Though Mr. Sharpton has an ample posterior, and is perfectly happy having politicians kiss the ring he keeps in his back pocket, the cartoon was insulting, so aside from the Rev’s selective memory, one can concede that his anger is the real deal.
One cannot say this about the Clarkes.
In 1998, Congressman Major Owens had endorsed Mark Green for US Senate in a primary which also featured his colleague, Congressman Charles Schumer. Schumer then reminded Owens that he’d helped to elect him in the first place, and that Owens’ district contained significant blocks of voters who had once been represented by Schumer. Groking the message, which was undoubtedly delivered with Schumer’s customary subtlety and grace, Owens switched his endorsement to Schumer.
In 2000, Councilwoman Una Clarke, who owed her initial election largely to the efforts of Owens, suffered a bout with the political malady commonly known as “What have You Done for Me Lately?” Not surprisingly, Clarke’s election became nigh unto a religious crusade for Mr. Green.
2001 was payback time; Owens endorsed Ferrer against Green in the runoff and all but endorsed Bloomberg in the general election. By contrast, Councilwoman Clarke endorsed Green for Mayor, and Green endorsed her daughter Yvette for the City Council. It is noted that in the initial primary, Green beat Ferrer in most of Brooklyn’s Caribbean neighborhoods, largely owing to the efforts of the elder Ms. Clarke.
Since only a year had passed since the quid, Una Clarke stuck with Green through the runoff, when Ferrer’s election had suddenly become “a black thing.”
And come the deluge which followed, the Clarkes maintained their loyalty to Green and defended him against the charges of racism which came in the wake of the “ass-kiss” literature. This took some courage, and they took some heat for it, including a nasty diss form Village Voice columnist and Sharpton groupie Peter Noel, who had formerly been one of the Clarkes’ strongest supporters.
Other than the passage of time and the acquisition of new allies, what bothers the Clarkes about Mr. Green in 2009 that did not bother them in 2001? And how come they’ve failed to complain about the presence of Mr. Kest during the course of either year?
If I were in John Kest’s place in 2001, I would have not distributed the cartoon. But if portraying Freddy as being Sharpton's Siamese twin was a crime, then we should jail the entire Ferrer campaign.
Ferrer’s chickens came home to roost. Of course, so did Green's.
To the extent Green deserved to pay a price for this piece, he already has. However, and not surprisingly, Mr. DeBlasio seems intent upon making him pay again.
But where is Mr. DeBlasio’s outrage toward the shenanigans committed by Mr. Lander’s campaign?
The piece of ancient Green literature so decried by Rev. Sharpton and The Clarkes was only arguably objectionable, while, as I pointed out yesterday, the ad authorized by Mr. Lander’s Borough Park Schtacker, Yitzchok Fleisher, is inarguably hate speech.
Mr. Lander has been endorsed by Mr. DeBlasio as his successor on the Council in every manner but in name–it is imperative that Mr. DeBlasio join this columnist in calling for Mr. Fleisher’s immediate public dismissal from Lander’s campaign for procuring hate propaganda.
It would be a moral imperative for Mr. DeBlasio to do so in any case, but his failure to take such an action will have the additional impact of rendering the outrage of Mr. DeBlasio’s surrogates over the Green incident in 2001 into something even more hollow than it is already.
I can’t help noting, in passing, that like Mr. DeBlasio, a significant part of Mr. Lander’s campaign is in the hands of the same Nevins Street-WFP-ACORN-DFS-CSI circle jerk. I cannot but help wonder if it was Lander’s proximity to Mr. Kest which lead to his campaign’s Mark Green Moment.