Last week I took a deserved "spring break", since being out of the city for a bit is always re-invigorating. Thanks for the e-mails and phone-calls from those of you who missed me here and were concerned. I am fine , except for a lil hypertension- which is genetic. I must admit that I was surprised (and no, Gatemouth wasn’t one of them), it tells me that people are reading "Room 8". So let’s take our hats off to Ben Smith and Gur Tsabar. Real pioneers in this day and age.

I walked right in to the poll showing Spitzer still leading big, and yes I am a bit taken aback that Suozzi hasn’t cracked the twenty- percentile as yet. I am still hopeful though. I hate coronations even more than I hate royalty. I like a good old- fashioned horse race. After all, in November we democrats will be all lining up behind our nominee, to ensure that another Republican like Pataki ( "Potato-head") doesn’t trick us anymore. 

In researching my three part series on the race for the Democratic nomination in the 11^th Congressional District, I came across a remarkable document which bears discussion. It is a “10-point reform plan” for the Kings County Democratic Party written by Congressional candidate Chris Owens. The plan is interesting not so much for what it says about Owens (nothing not already suspected), as for what it says about “reformers”. In undertaking an uphill and not unmerited battle for reform of the Kings County Democratic Party, would-be reformers are well advised to first do two things: 1) Get Your Facts Straight, and 2) Get Your Goals Straight. The Owens document fails on both counts.

You might recall the flap last year over the differences between the various public polls on the Mayoral Election and the actual results. Freddie Ferrer supporters claimed that inaccurate polls doomed his candidacy. This wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time candidates will complain about these polls.

What is has been missed by many is that there is a major difference between the NY1, Quinnipiac and Marist polls and the private polls conducted by political campaigns- a difference that often explains why so many election results are quite different than the poll projections.

Friday’s Daily News had this little gem in Lloyd Grove’s gossip column who was taking time out from making fun of his rival s at the Post –

Here’s another reason why I miss Teresa Heinz Kerry – she’s fabulous gossip fodder.

Who can forget, for instance, how the Mozambique-born billionaire would boast to black audiences on the 2004 presidential campaign trail: "I am African-American"?

Who can forget it?

Who can remember it?

In an election like the 11^th CD Congressional race, where so little separates the candidates on most issues, perhaps it’s time to looks at the candidates’ characters. Unfortunately, there is no better topic to bring one back to a discussion of the issues.

Chris Owens must have the most unique campaign for Congress ever conducted in New York’s sorry, sleazy political history. In a certain sense he’s selling himself as the cross-racial unifier, the only candidate with appeal across both sides of  the color-line, but it’s a peculiar appeal indeed. To white audiences he essentially says “this is an historically black seat which a white candidate has no moral right to hold, so vote for me, because I’m the one black candidate who shares your values” (this may only be a Brownstone phenomena, as white guilt does not play a big role in the politics of Midwood). To black audiences he essentially says “the whites are trying to steal our seat, which is part of our birthright, I’m the best guy to stop them, because I’m the only one who can get white votes.”

The following two stories show that the NY State Senate Republicans are breaking new ground in their use of taxpayer’s money to fund their campaigns.

Times Union and The Journal News

I was amused by a story in the Buffalo News about an attempt to do away from some tolls on the thruway up there.

John Faso pledged to eliminate with the tolls (an idea that has merit) but his explanation of where the lost money would come from is the amusing part: 

Faso said he would end the tolls and replace the lost toll revenue by separating the New York State Canal Corp. from the Thruway Authority.

The canal agency, which oversees the state’s sprawling canal system upstate, had its budget transferred to the Thruway Authority in 1991 to save money in the state’s general fund. Since then, the canal office has been a financial drain on the Thruway.

I find the Sun indispensable for its lack of respect for the conventional wisdom, and its willingness to poke into areas the other dailies chose to ignore. But every once in a while they get a “talking points” memo from the RNC, and turn over their news pages to the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy”. Today’s page one featured a headline “Democrats Plan Race-Based Campaign Against Black Candidate in Maryland”. The article features excerpts from confidential memos from the Maryland Democratic Party and the DSCC which purport to outline this pernicious strategy. How do the Dems plan to discredit black Republican Michael Steele? “Connecting Steele to National Republicans, especially on issues such as Medicare Reform and Social Security privatization, can turn Steele into a typical Republican in the eyes of voters, as opposed to an African American candidate”.

Andrea Peyser has a column in the Post supposedly explaining how Mark Green’s arrogance doesn’t let you like him.

But if you deconstruct the column, it’s not clear what Green did wrong.

Here are parts of the column and my comments:

I was running [for mayor] after 9/11 in the face of $74 million" spent by Mike Bloomberg, a lean Green told me yesterday over eggs easy …

"If I told you I ran for election in Hawaii and the date was Dec. 7, 1941…, would you say the attack had nothing to do with the election?