Recently saw a reasonably good rundown of the race for Brooklyn's 33rd City Council District in City Hall News. Now there is a particular reporter for City Hall News who I plan on never quoting because I have learned from my wife that he is a little weasel who believes it is his job to sneak into private meetings and quote people without permission, and that little weasel will never get a link from me (not that he cares, most likely). But the author of this article is not that little weasel so I am willing to post about it.

The interesting thing about the race for this district, currently Yassky's seat, is just how it pits some real nasty characters against reasonably clean candidates.

Now there are two candidates who I am sure expected to be frontrunners...but they aren't. I am of the impression that Jo Anne Simon is currently the frontrunner in almost every way, though in a 6-way race that may change. I will discuss Jo Anne later. First I want to discuss the two who surely expected frontrunner status but who are just as surely lagging.  read more »

You hear a lot about political machines - for example, my friend Roatti on Albany Project writes about the subject - and at the risk of acid commentary from machine-owned bloggers, I have some thoughts on it as well.

Machines exist in what is essentially an apolitical space, which is surprising, given that they operate on the field of politics. But the deep relationships that seem to enmesh the machines of both parties, especially in the outer boroughs and in some regions upstate, suggest that they exist mainly for the maintenance of jobs and revenue to a selected group of insiders. It is, essentially, the professionalization and unionizing, if you will, of the exercise of political power. Machines are, literally, a closed shop.

It's worth pointing out that the results aren't all bad. For example, some machine politicians have a sterling record on affordable housing. That's not a small thing. In minority communities, machines have proven an effective mechanism for guaranteeing disadvantaged ethnicities a seat at the table.

The downside of machine politics is equally clear: in a system that consists of, essentially, a professional class supported by carefully chosen voters, the central systemic benefit of the democratic process, of a feedback loop between the people and their representatives, erodes.  read more »

Below is a link to a story positioning Steve Harrison as the candidate of the people and Domenic Recchia as the Brooklyn machine's choice in City Hall News.

The article mentions the Daily Gotham, but the reporter didn't contact Bouldin and Mole as I suggested when he was writing the piece.

http://www.cityhallnews.com/news/128/ARTICLE/1316/2007-11-12.html

As this year's judicial races get going, the hints of corruption have already surfaced. My most recent article on the subject announced the Corruption candidate, Vito Lopez's personal choice, Simpson. In it I also analyze one theory about Vito's choice, that Simpson was being run only to split the black vote with the current frontrunner, Diana Johnson, leaving Beitner, Vito's real choice, to clean up with the white and Orthodox Jewish vote.  read more »