Harold Ford jr.'s run for Senate is dead...

"A penny for the old guy"

Hillary Clinton, the very accomplished, brilliant wife of a very popular President, moved to New York to run for the Senate. She was widely criticized initially as a "carpetbagger," but in the end won our confidence and won her Senate seat. Hillary is an exceptional person and NY State appreciates exceptional people even if they come from elsewhere. Even though it didn't pass Congress (due to the exact same Democratic divisions and Republican obstructionism we are seeing now), I think many appreciated her efforts and recognized her Healthcare plan as something America sure could have used.

Harold Ford, jr., the failed Senate candidate from Tennessee and Wall Street fat cat, somehow convinced himself he was as exceptional a person and Hillary Clinton and thought he could follow in her footsteps. Moving from Tennessee he thought he could waltz into the Senate, banking on dissatisfaction with so-far only appointed Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.  read more »

Yet another reason to dislike the Brooklyn Machine, that corrupt wing of the local Democratic Party that the Working Families Party decided to ally with in 2009. Wonder what WFP and Steve Levin think about this little inside rumor. Source is the Post, so take with a grain of salt. But then again, Vito Lopez has a record of backing conservatives like Noach Dear and Pataki.

B'klyn Dems eye Ford in drive vs. Gilly
January 18, 2010, Fredric U. Dicker, INSIDE ALBANY - NY Post

The powerful Brooklyn Demo cratic organization may be about to throw open the door for Harold Ford Jr.'s challenge to US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, The Post has learned...

"I just think that somehow, Gillibrand doesn't connect to the voters, and I believe that's what's making her as vulnerable as she is. Harold Ford seems very gracious, he's a very nice talker, and is an impressive personality," Lopez said.

"I want to meet with him and begin a dialogue. He called me last week and asked if we could talk. If he decides he is running, and if the dialogue we have with him is a good one, we're going to move ahead," Lopez continued.  read more »

I recently wrote about the fierce competition between corrupt Party Boss Vito Lopez's aide, Steve Levin, and social conservative Isaac Abraham for the conservative votes in the 33rd City Council district while progressive reformers Jo Anne Simon and Ken Diamondstone fight over the majority progressive votes. Interestingly, my piece got picked up by several Hasid-targeted blogs as a way of plugging Isaac Abraham among the conservative voters. (The other part of the article covered the 39th district where a parallel fight between Dov Hikind-endorsed Brad Lander and social conservative John Heyer is taking a similar course with progressive reformers Josh Skaller and Bob Zuckerman battling over the progressive majority votes).

Here's what I wrote (in part) about the 33rd District race:

In the 33rd district, Isaac Abraham is a Satmar Hasid who is running on a combined platform of opposition to Vito Lopez (hence technically reform) and what, for the district as a whole, would be extreme conservativism. Isaac Abraham has been a supporter of Connectitcut Senator Joe Lieberman, the former Vice Presidential candidate who became a McCain supporter in 2008. Abraham, who is running in the Democratic primary, has gone on record urging Jewish Democrats to re-register Republican. Abraham supports tax-payer funded school vouchers for private schools, a tradtionally Republican stand. Abraham is also opposed to gay rights and is anti-choice. These stands put him at odds with most of the voters in the district but is in sync with the orthodox Jewish and old-school Catholic neighborhoods. I have met Isaac Abraham and he is a dynamic community activist and entertaining speaker. So he combines a certain odd charisma with activism and...extreme social conservativism.

Competing with Abraham for these conservative votes is the machine candiadte Steve Levin whose boss, Vito Lopez, has connections in the conservative neighborhoods and is pulling strings to get the conservative vote for Levin over Abraham and is exploiting personality conflicts among the Hasids to siphon away votes from Abraham. So Hasids have the choice of voting their values (and so voting for Abraham) or voting according to political alliances and exchange of political favors (and so voting for the machine's Steve Levin). It should be noted that Levin's boss has had a history of supporting Republicans over Democrats before he became Party Boss, and even after that has had a history of actively discouraging challenges to Republicans in Brooklyn, so Vito Lopez certainly has his connections to conservatives. For those who aren't familiar with the Brooklyn machine, keep in mind that the former boss, Clarence Norman, is in prison for corruption and Vito Lopez should also be in prison. Steve Levin, as Vito Lopez's right hand man, cannot have been innocent of the corruption Vito Lopez is known for (for more info, see here here, and here)...

Meanwhile the true progressive reformers, like Jo Anne Simon and Ken Diamondstone in the 33rd...compete over the majority of the district with eachother and with the machine candidates who try to downplay the scandals their respective machines are associated with.

The Villiage Voice has an article that goes into some detail about Steve Levin's candidacy and how it represents a power play by Party Boss Vito Lopez. Here's what they have to say about this race:  read more »

Someone sent me an earlier version of a smear being done by City Council candidate Doug Biviano, but I chose to ignore it. I don't like jumping on people at the first chance. I like to give them a chance. In Doug Biviano's case I particularly wanted to give him a chance because I had met him and he seemed a genuinely decent person, if rather inexperienced. But now Biviano is making a habit of outright lies in his long-shot (to put it mildly) for the City Council. This time it is in a mailing I received today where he is trying to paint ALL his opponents as pawns of corrupt Party Boss Vito Lopez. And this is just plain bullshit.  read more »

I wrote about this earlier but wanted to add more background information and add a short statement made by City Council candidate Jo Anne Simon, who is well known for being one of the few district leaders who stands up to Vito Lopez.

Assemblyman Vito Lopez, political ally of WFP and city council candidates like Steve Levin and Maritza Davilla, is under attack from child advocates for watering down a bill to protect children abused by sex offenders sheltering in religious institutions. Here's video from a local TV station (sorry, includes an ad at the beginning...thanks to a reader for passing it on to me).  read more »