Author: Jerry Skurnik

From Wednesday’s nytimes.com

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/the-long-stagnation/

I was planning to write something explaining why the Iowa Republican Straw Poll was like National Football League Preseason games.

I was going to say that neither has even a mediocre record of predicting success by pointing to the fact that only one winner of the Straw Poll has ever been elected President and that the San Francisco Forty Niners were the NFL Preseason champs last year at 4-0 and finished the regular season 6-10.

After I posted the report on who filed petitions to compete in this year’s Primary contests, I received an email from Gatemouth asking about the 5 NYC Special Elections that will be held on Primary Day.

Not wanting to disapoint Gatey,  here is the list –

Congress

9 CD

Thursday was the deadline for candidates to file designating petitions for the Democratic, Republican, Conservative, Working Families & Independence Parties.

This year, being a real “off-year” in New York City politics, there are very few potential Primary contests.

The 2011 edition of Prime News, the annual newsletter from Prime News will soon be mailed. Prime News lists the results of the 2010 elections in New York City, along with information about our products and services. If you are not on our mailing list or wish to download and print a copy, you can do so by clicking on this link –

http://primeny.com/newsltr.11/prime-news-11-5-1.pdf

On Wednesday, the NY State Senate will convene with a 32-30 majority. Numerous explanations have been given and plenty of people have been blamed for this change but one possible reason has not been discussed.

I think if it wasn’t for the new voting machines, the Senate would be in a 31-31 tie.

Justin Elliot at Salon.com has become (I think) just the 2^nd person in the “big leagues”, joining Ben Smith at Politico.com to notice what I has first pointed out in September –

THE MOSQUE STORY IS NO LONGER CONSIDERED NEWS

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/31/park_51_a_look_back/index.html