I hate it when the better candidate works with sleazy people. It really makes it hard to endorse that candidate. In the city council race for the 19th district in Queens, Democrat Kevin Kim has brought onto his staff someone I have come to know all too well, the ultra sleazy, usually loser, Michael Tobman. Now Kevin Kim seems a reasonable candidate, and his Republican opponent is, well, a Republican with all the unfortunate baggage that carries with it since Bush threw the nation down the toilet for the benefit of Saudi Arabia. [UPDATE: Let me say again just to be clear...I do prefer Kim over Hallorn]. But hiring Michael Tobman is such a stupid move that it calls Kevin Kim's judgment into question given Tobman's nastiness and losing record. My own experiences are at the bottom. First, here is a press release from Kim's Republican opponent regarding sleazy tactics and Tobman:

Statement from Steven Stites, Spokesman, Dan Halloran for City Council Regarding Kevin Kim Consultant Michael Tobman

“At what point does Kevin Kim have to answer for the questionable conduct of his staff and the people he has chosen to run his campaign? The unfounded name-calling and sleazy tactics have escalated into destroying Halloran signs on private property, moving from dirty politics to outright criminality are just a part of a pattern that has emerged since Kevin Kim unexpectedly defeated all of the more mainstream centrist Democrats in the primary on September 15.

“We know Kevin Kim hired Michael Nussbaum of Multimedia/The Queens Tribune paying huge sums to do his hit pieces against Dan, including spurious attacks on Dan Halloran's heritage and faith. We know Kim was involved with a ‘bait and switch’ backdoor endorsement with the scandal-plagued Working Families Party, which is under investigation in multiple jurisdictions and is tied to the national scandals with ACORN. Add to that Kim's attempt to hijack the Independence Party's line by an ‘opportunity to ballot’ petition in August, which was fortunately thrown out by the Board of Elections because it was ‘riddled with improprieties in the signatures gathered.’ It’s a never-ending list.

“Now we find out that Kevin Kim's newest advisor is none other than Michael Tobman. Tobman is an infamous lobbyist known for his Karl Rove-style gangster campaigns. He has been called by the Gotham Gazette the ‘Sleaziest Lobbyist in New York,’ and he has admitted to violating a series of ethics and lobbying laws. These are the people being employed to advance the Kim campaign.

“Tobman is infamous for his brand of dirty politics. Nussbaum, another consultant to Kim, is a convicted felon, dubbed the infamous ‘bag man’ for Queens Borough President Donald Manes by the New York Times for his arrangement of a bribe for a public official.

“Voters in Northeast Queens want to know, Kevin Kim: Why you surround yourself with sleazy hucksters like Tobman and criminals like Nussbaum? And why do you insist on using their political playbook of dirty politics and mudslinging rather than addressing the issues?

Now I don't agree with all of this, and over all I think Kevin Kim is a better candidate than the Republican in the race., [UPDATE: Since I have taken some crap for this piece let me re-iterate: I THINK KIM IS THE BETTER CANDIDATE]. But I have to agree that hiring sleaze like Tobman detracts from Kevin Kim and suggests he is willing to make deals with any sleaze that comes along if he thinks it will win him the race. Ironically, that is behavior I normally associate with Republicans.

I first encountered Tobman when he worked for Schumer. I was part of a MoveOn.org delegation that presented a petition to Schumer in opposition to funding Bush's Iraq War. This was after it was discovered that there WERE no WMDs and that we had been lied to by Bush, so we had good reason to oppose a war we all KNEW was based on lies. The delegation was a mix of young idealists and old women who cut their teeth on activism in the 1970's. We were very typical NYC democrats who donated to candidates and causes, joined organizations, and helped campaigns. We were core members of the Democratic Party.

Michael Tobman was sent to manage us. He didn't even invite us in but, even though our delegation included elderly New Yorkers, kept us standing on the sidewalk. He tried charming us with an oily smile and told us that Schumer knew the war was based on lies, that the war was wrong, and that giving more funding was wrong...but that Schumer was going to vote for the funding anyway.

He then seemed genuinely frustrated that we weren't satisfied with that cop-out answer. I felt a little sorry for him at first as he was yelled at for quite some time by these old ladies, with some yelling from Joy and me as well. I tried calming things down by pointing out to him that we all were Democrats and were, in fact, Schumer's real base, his strongest supporters. He gave a sarcastic "Yeah, right" to me, basically showing me that he had no clue what a Schumer supporter in NYC looked like. He basically insulted a group of loyal Democratic donors, activists and voters right to our faces. Joy and I met with several of the group (none of whom we had met before) and they had nothing but contempt for Tobman and anger for Schumer. I found my own liking for Schumer shaken by the encounter. That is not what a staff memeber is supposed to do for his boss. Tobman was so incompetent that he couldn't even placate loyal Democrats.

When I lived in Los Angeles I was in a similar situation vis a vis Congresssman Mel Levine's office regarding funding of the repressive El Salvadoran military during the Reagan administration. In that meeting I was actually with a much more militant group than MoveOn.org ever has been, and yet we were invited in, given a similar non-answer, and had a similar confrontation. And yet the gentleman who had the job of handling us handled us with respect and sympathy. I had a lengthy exchange with Congressman Levine by letter regarding the situation and was left with respect for both the staff member and Congressman Levine himself. Levine's staff member did his job properly. This was in sharp contrast to Tobman's mishandling of a far less militant crowd of young activists and elderly ladies.

I have since met Schumer himself and found him a far better representative of his own opinions than Tobman had been. Had Schumer met with us instead of Tobman, I strongly suspect we wouldn't have gotten a better answer, but the justification would have been more satisfying and Schumer would have treated us with respect. And we would have left feeling far more happy with Schumer than Tobman left us.

So that was my first encounter with oily Tobman.

After leaving Schumer's office Tobman became a consultant for the conservative organization Teach NYS, an organization lobbying for tax money to be used to support private and religious schools, something I strongly oppose and feel, in the case of religious schools, violates the separation of church and state. So I can safely say that this is a second strike against Tobman, basically taking up a right wing Republican issue. I am certainly open to disagreement on this issue, but Tobman nevertheless is working for a primarily right wing position.

But my main experience with Michael Tobman was when he ran the judicial campaign of Roger Adler, a very conservative lawyer who cited the judicial philosophies of Supreme Court justices Scalia and Thomas as his inspirations and whose main political donations have been to Republicans and the Conservative Party. Adler's main legal contribution has been to write the amicus brief for the Conservative Party opposing marriage equality. Tobman worked with Adler's campaign and ran it in the nastiest possible way. Many people were horrified by how Tobman ran the campaign, commenting that they never saw Tobman put out a piece that told voters why they should vote for Adler. He merely attacked, mostly with lies, Adler's opponent (who happened to be a friend of mine). Personally, I went from admiring Adler, despite my disagreement with him and my opposition to him, to despising both Adler and Tobman for running a campaign low enough to be worthy of Karl Rove.

In short, Tobman is untrustworthy, nasty, and seems to favor right wing positions (tax breaks for private school tuition, funding the Iraq war, support for right wing judicial candidates...). What is more, Tobman bungled Adler's campaign very badly. He bungled it so badly that despite having far more money, they so repulsed Brooklyn politicians that almost no one was willing to endorse Adler.

This year Tobman ran the campaign of Leslie Crocker Snyder for Manhattan DA. Personally I thought she had a good chance of winning. Until I saw she had hired Tobman. At that point I wondered if she had just thrown away her chances of winning. In the end she did indeed lose. Yet ANOTHER loss for Tobman. I know people who know Snyder. Some have negative things to say. Some have positive things to say. That is to be expected. But the bottom line is that even though he had a good candidate to plug, Tobman lost. Again.

Why would someone hire Tobman? His sleaze tactics don't even work! He lost it for Roger Adler despite a clear initial advantage for Adler. He lost it for Manhattan DA candidate Leslie Crocker Snyder, an early frontrunner in that race. In this case Tobman will likely win simply because the race is so overwhelmingly favoring his candidate, the Democrat running against a Republican in NYC. So Tobman will be able to brag about winning this one even if overall his track record is lousy and sleazy. In a lopsided race like this, even someone as incompetent as Tobman can't lose it. But in a close, or even slightly lopsided race, I consider it a sign of a loser if a candidate hires Michael Tobman.