The Albany Project has some interesting debunking of a claim made by Joe Mondello in The New York Times:

First, The Times:

The campaign is off to a quick start. "We had 500 people going door to door last weekend, and we hope to have 700 this weekend," Mr. Mondello said. Democrats say they have an equally ambitious field operation. Their county chairman, Jay S. Jacobs, said that with an expected 10 to 15 percent voter turnout, "the ground game is the decider."

The word at TAP is that it just ain't so with 500, let alone 700 O'Connell volunteers. They're right. I just talked to Steve Behar, who ran volunteers in Mineola on Saturday, and who confirms that he saw very few O'Connell walkers (he originally said there were 'none', but corrected that to 'a few'). To quote:

"I saw more people from our side, and very few O'Connell people, maybe one or two. We only saw a few scattered pieces of O'Connell literature. Where they have an advantage is yard signs, which favor O'Connell, probably because the Johnson signs aren't ready yet or something. That said, the Democrats I talked to are very enthusiastic about and on board with Craig Johnson."

And here's your buried lede: Steve, a lawyer heavily active in Progressive politics, is running for the City Council seat currently held by Tony Avella. He'll be filing papers for the 2009 race this week, and this is his first public announcement. So mark this blog post down as the first time The Daily Gotham, or any New York blog for that matter, has officially announced a candidacy.

Yup, that's historic. Best of luck to Steve Behar.

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