Tomorrow NYC votes in a primary election that will determine, in many ways, the political landscape for NYC for the next 4 years. Sadly, it will be a low voter turnout primary which means it is desperately hard to predict.

Public Advocate is one of the positions up for grabs tomorrow. It is one race that could go into a runoff if the few polls I have seen are any indication.

There are four candidates running: civil rights attorney and former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union Norman Siegel, former Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Mark Green, and City Council candidates Eric Gioia and Bill de Blasio. All polls show Mark Green in the lead but without the necessary votes to avoid a runoff. So it is likely to come down to Mark Green vs. one of the other candidates.

Mark Green is generally recognized as doing a pretty good job as Public Advocate. But he also is one of the most problematic politicians in the city. No matter what, I have never been able to be enthusiastic about supporting him. It isn't that I don't think he does his job well. I think it comes down to that I don't think he does his job well enough to overcome his personality problems where he seems incapable of opening his mouth without irritating people. Now in a Public Advocate, that may not be a liability. But I have never been enthusiastic about Green and these days he seems like old news. That said, he IS the frontrunner and I would be okay with it if he wins. But I cannot endorse him. But he is one of two people I feel could stand up to Bloomberg.

The other one who can, and would, stand up to Bloomberg is Norman Siegel. To me Norman Siegel, who has been fighting for civil liberties since 1968, is the ideal Public Advocate. He has been a key figure in lawsuits helping 9/11 families, firefighters, bloggers, bicycilists, homeowners fighting eminent domain, etc. etc. etc. In essence this is what he has been doing for 40 years. As a friend puts it, it is about time the city pays him for it. It is my hope that Norman is the guy facing Mark Green in a runoff after tomorrows votes are counted. If that happens, I can relax and be satisfied that EITHER of them will be okay. I think I feel Mark Green would be adequate, Norman Siegel will be ideal. And according to polls, Norman Siegel is running either 2nd or 3rd in this race, and those polls came before Siegel even started sending out mailings to voters. Now that he has, hopefully he is nudged up to 2nd place. Some years back, when I talked to one of the gentlemen who wrote the law creating the Public Advocate position, he pointed out Norman Siegel as PRECISELY the kind of person they envisioned for the job. Now I recall he also had good things to say of Mark Green in the position, so I don't want to put words in his mouth regarding which of the two he'd endorse this time around. But he had specifically referred to Norman Siegel as the ideal man for the job of Public Advocate, and I heartily agree.

Eric Gioia seems decent, though I have personal reasons for not trusting him. But he seems the lightweight in the race, though given the gravitas of Siegel and Green, that may not be such a disgrace. It is hard to shine when running against two such excellent candidates. But Gioia seems in last place according to polls, though the margin of error is large enough that he could be running third. But that won't bring him to a runoff.

Which brings us to the one candidate who is, quite honestly, terrible. This is the wolf in sheep's clothing who would be the worst possible person to be advocating for the people of New York. Bill de Blasio is the advocate for no one but Bill de Blasio and developers, plain and simple. I wish I could say better of him, because I actually like him. But he is the one candidate in this race who is pretty blatantly corrupt. Bill de Blasio is one of the worst participants in the slush fund scandal where councilmen funnel city money into pet "non-profits" that then funnel money to those councilmen's campaigns. From the linked article in the Daily News:

City Councilmen Bill de Blasio and David Yassky, both Brooklyn Democrats, were co-sponsors of $145,000 for the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy for the past two fiscal years. Board members and the nonprofit's director raised $16,150 for de Blasio and $22,700 for Yassky in the same period.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/06/01/2009-06-01_city_council_membe...

That's a lot of money being shifted around that winds up helping de Blasio himself...and that is OUR taxpayer money.

But although de Blasio might be one of the worst slush fund offenders, he is by no means alone in the use of slush funds. From that same Daily News article, nearly 3/4 of the City Council has made use of such slush funds as ways to indirectly channel money into their own campaigns. Even Eric Gioia's name is mentioned in the article, but with no details to show that he did anything but help the Sunnyside United Neighborhood Network get a trailer with no real mention of anything in return. These kinds of slush fund schemes were clearly scandals, and de Blasio the kind of those schemes, but actual laws may not have been violated.

But Bill de Blasio is also involved in another major scandal, this time involving the Working Families Party, and this time laws WERE violated and Bill de Blasio, along with 5 other WFP candidates, are having to pay for it. This WFP scandal was exposed in great detail and with great care by City Hall News, though Hildy Johnson of Room 8 covered the same scandal earlier and the New York Times is even calling for Bill de Blasio to be investigated even though they had endorsed him. The absolutely disgusting sleaziness of Bill de Blasio is one of the few things Room 8 blogger Gatemouth and I agree on. Though he endorses Mark Green and I endorse Norman Siegel, we both agree that the defeat of Bill de Blasio is the number one imperative in this race. Gatemouth, like Hildy, has been eying the practices of WFP with considerable distrust for sometime, as outlined in an earlier article on Room 8. As I and Gatemouth have said about WFP and Bill de Blasio in the past, they are a pay to play system and we do NOT want that being the way our Public Advocate works.

So vote for Mark Green, as Gatemouth would urge you, or for Norman Siegel, as I would urge you. But either way, keeping Bill de Blasio and his corrupt cronies out of the runoff is the most important goal.