Category: News and Opinion

A reader asks:

“I’ve just read this article by Wayne Barrett (11/14/06) in the Village Voice, and can’t help but notice that its points almost exactly echo those you made (11/10/06), here (11/8/06) and here (in the section on races for the State Senate) (11/6/06).

In addition, I can’t help noticing that both you and Barrett became writers because it was less difficult than giving up masturbation (Barrett is actually on record about this) and both of you have been accused of having difficulty restraining yourself from writing stories favorable to your personal friends.”

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my view that there’s too much praise for people in winning campaigns and too much criticism for those who lost.

I ended the post by writing “I would like nothing better than to see the Democrats win the Senate and House and then to read a Robert Novak column calling for Bush to fire Rove.”

Well Novak hasn’t done it yet but Deborah Oren in the New York Post has come close, here.

Every two year, I’ve looked forward to the time coming when a Democratic victory would put an end to the endless post-election game of finger-pointing and recriminations that came after our every defeat. So, I didn’t expect to be playng the same games after we'd won an unequivocal victory.

My complaint here does not apply to local finger-pointing and recriminations about the senseless loss of the opportunity to take away Serph Maltese’s State Senate seat; let’s form a firing squad in a circle and mete out justice to everyone responsible; but, on a national level, it seems a strange way to celebrate. Gingrich had “The Contract on America” (Freudian Slip intentional); Democrats take contracts out on each other.

It’s time to start thinking about who will vote in the first New York City election of 2007. There will be two Special Elections for City Council in February. One in the 40th Council District in Brooklyn will pick the replacement for Yvette Clarke who is going to Congress. The other is the 51st and will select the successor to Andrew Lanza who is becoming a State Senator.

These elections are non-partisan with nobody running on the Democratic, Republican, Independence, Conservative or Working Families lines. There is no runoff, so candidates have won with less than a majority. Turnout in these elections are usually small, ranging from 5% to 15% depending on how serious contested the race is.

They say that battles in academia are so nasty because so little is at stake; the same might be said of the Jewish vote. At 3% of the country and dropping, with Muslims eclipsing us for place number one in the list of non-Christian religious minorities, Jews are an important voting bloc in a few states, and a few Congressional districts. Moreover, even in those areas where Jews are a significant constituency, their votes have not necessarily been objects of great contention, mostly because the conclusion concerning their destination has often been forgone.

As a rule, the real Jewish primary is fought in "The Green Party". Jewish political power is at its most potent when Jews vote with their wallets. While both parties benefit, especially from those who view politics as transactional and money as coming in  categories “A” and “B” (despite Tom Delay’s noble efforts to eliminate from politics the nefarious influence of “B” money), “Jewish Money” is for Republicans mostly ice cream on the cake (although these folks are junkies for their sweets), while for the Democrats, it’s three courses, drinks, desert and a midnight snack.

Unexpected victories delight everyone. Back in 1984, Senate Minority Leader Fred Ohrenstein decided to diss a local County legislator running for Senate in Syracuse after she’d been dissed by one of her own references, the local County Leader. Waking up election morning, Fred’s Chief of Staff found out she’d won and immediately told all who would listen of his brilliant strategic decision not to draw attention to the race and thereby draw to it Republican resources he couldn’t hope to overcome. The new Senator was Nancy Larraine Hoffman, soon known in both Albany and Syracuse as "The Tail of Two Cities" (and later as "The Tail of Two Parties", a title apparently acquired even before she switched to become a Republican).  

 “One way or another, Alan Hevesi is toast. The smart move for New York voters is to vote for him, so that on his reelection, he can be replaced by a first-rate candidate, such as City Comptroller Bill Thompson, former State Comptroller candidate Bill Mulrow, Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell or Assemblyman Richard Brodsky.” 

“The Green Party consistently nominates really interesting eccentrics for Governor (Malachy McCourt won my heart when he did a one man show as George Washington Plunkett; Stanley Aronowitz is married to the World's Greatest Left Wing Writer; Al Lewis was Grandpa and, perhaps more importantly, Leo Schnauzer)”

Gatemouth 11/6/06

I’m going to have to stop invoking the names of my inspirations as a writer. One too many of my citations to Michael Kinsley's genius immediately preceded the announcement that he required brain surgery. Then, on August 30, in response to the news that Congressional candidate Chris Owens recorded an anti-war song, I listened to the supernal piece of crap and then wrote a review of it in the style of my favorite rock-crit, Robert Christgau (also a pretty fair political pundit in his own right). On September 1, Christgau was fired from his position as Music Editor of the Village Voice.