Although I am back from vacation, the lab I work in just moved from downtown NYU to the NYU Medical Center (where I used to work!). So I still can barely catch up politically.
But since I have been following the Brooklyn Surrogate judge race, I want to remind people that when Vito Lopez suddenly pulled Shawndya Simpson out of thin air to run against Diana Johnson (the candidate endorsed by reform and progressive democrats), many speculated (myself included!) that Vito's real goal was to split the black vote so that Leo Beitner (seemingly a more logical ally for Vito) would win with the white vote. When I proposed this, I pointed out that there were clear ways in which this can be disproven prior to the primaries. One was was if Beitner drops out.
Rumors of his dropping out circulated before, but one always has to be careful of such rumors because false rumors of that sort are a typical tactic in Brooklyn politics. But I have been informed that Beiter did not file petitions, which means he dropped out. Which means it is down to Diana Johnson and Shawndya Simpson. Which indicates that the "split the black vote" theory is disproven.
I will also note that my coming out in favor of Johnson never had anything to do with that theory. I simply find her the better candidate and said so even before the club I am on the board of (Independent Neighborhood Democrats) and the club my wife is on the board of (Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats) both endorsed her.
I should note that both have strong and weak point and both have had past ties to the corrupt Brooklyn machine. However, Simpson is CURRENTLY siding with corruption, while Johnson is currently opposed by the corrupt machine. Many I know, including many lawyers and people who are immersed in local politics, favor Johnson anyway, but it is also always nice to oppose corruption as well.
Other rumors I have heard about other behind the scenes backstabbing also proved untrue...which goes to show, one CAN pay too close attention to every move of every potential candidate and read too much in.
On a couple of other notes, I hear that Karen Yellen, who helped to put away Clarence Norman (see for example, here [1]), is running against Noach Dear [2], who has had some problems with the FEC in the past (fraudulent contributions and exceeding campaign finance limits), and so we seem to have another race pitting a relatively clean candidate against a definitely corrupt candidate. Finally, Pia Wood has appeared to challenge Fred Ariaga (who has been endorsed by both Independent Neighborhood Democrats and Cenral Brooklyn Independent Democrats).
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