I've been taking the Times Empire Zone and Ben Smith to task today for being anti-Statenite.

Link Texthttp://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/its-election-day/#comments

Link Texthttp://www.r8ny.com/blog/ben_smith/turning_out_in_the_40th.html#comment-369392

I've been involved to a limited degree with Manny Innamorato's special election campaign to fill Andrew Lanza's usually empty Southshore/Mid-Island council seat (Marchi's successor and Titone's State Senate opponent had the worst attendance in the Council)against State Assemblyman Vincent Ignizio, a Vito protege.

Manny, the head of IT for the City of Yonkers (Talk about bad commutes), held a fundraiser last night on the Island. Steve, Janele and most Staten Island Democratic officeholders, activists and operatives were there.

Daniel is right, that a win here would help Democrats win other races in the forgotten borough (Although I appreciate Daniel not forgetting us). Ignizio, who ran unopposed for his Assembly spot, is being groomed to eventually succeed Fossella. Iggy defeated Manny for the Assembly seat in 04. Beating him in the council race will dampen his ambition and possibly give a Southshore Democrat the courage to oppose him when he runs for reelection to Albany.

The Council district is slightly more Democratic than that of the all Republican dominated Southshore Assembly because it includes New Springville which is mixed (New Springville became slightly less Democratic two days after election day when my wife and myself moved to the Northshore.)Manny should do better than he did against Iggy for City Hall than for Albany just based on that.

Yvette Clarke's City Council seat will be vacant as soon as she is sworn in January 1st as the new Congress Critter from NY-11. The race to replace her will be a very hotly contested one with probably a huge number of candidates getting in on the game. At last night's Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats meeting last night (where more factional fighting provided the same kind of entertainmen as a bombing stand up comic) two candidates for the 40th City Council spoke. Both came off well. These are my impressions of them.

Jesse Hamilton:

Jesse Hamilton is fresh from a great win against the corrupt Brooklyn machine when his grassroots campaign beat the machine by about 2:1. For those of us who want to see the end to Clarence Norman/Vito Lopez corruption in Brooklyn, Hamilton's win was sweet. When running for district leader he says he was endorsed by both David Yassky and Chris Owens, though I should note there was also controversy over his first endorsing, then un-endorsing Yassky then campaigning for Chris.

Hamilton came off endearing but a bit unpolished, but this fits his description of his self as being a "community activist, not a politician." He now adds district leader to his resume of serving on Community Board 8 and being elected to the school board in the Crown Heights area where he served as president. During his stint on school board he claims that district's preformance improved by 12%. He attributes this to a better connection between the school board and ALL segments of the district, reaching out to every school and setting up awards for students to encourage better performance. By better engaging parents the school board better served the students.

The New York State Board of Elections website has got to be one of the worst government sites in the nation. Can you believe these people don't use HTML for their updates? No. They publish their updates in PDF files.

I would love to know who is the dishonest web developer/consultant or IT Director who is squandering my tax money on that piece of electronic crapulence. In terms of usability that site sucks at all levels. Who the hell is earning $100K + a year for doing nothing but putting up PDF files of some of the most important information all New York voters ought to have readily available.

Anyhow...

More for my benefit that yours I will be publishing all throughout the weekend the lists of candidates we will be faced with come Tuesday.

The primary source is that awful site, but I would like to also give a hat-tip to Democratic Underground's effort in putting together a voter's guide for the state.

Steve Harrison, the Democrat running against Vito Fossella, the corrupt buddy of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, is calling for increased funding for building schools. Anyone who has a kid in NYC schools knows that more schools are critical for our children's education.

From the Staten Island Advance:

Harrison calls on U.S. to increase spending on school construction

Dem congressional hopeful says more funds are needed to reduce size of classes

Thursday, October 05, 2006
By GLENN NYBACK
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

The federal government ought to spend more money on building schools in order to reduce class sizes and implement education initiatives outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act, Democratic congressional candidate Stephen Harrison said yesterday.

Flanked by representatives of the United Federation of Teachers and Democratic elected officials, Harrison said too many schools on Staten Island are overcrowded, creating poor learning environments for children forced to compete for attention from their teachers...

Fossella, Harrison said, "doesn't pass the test" and received a failing grade from the National Education Association based on his performance in enhancing education...

Planned Parenthood NYC has just sent me an email that endorses Velmanette Montgomery (SD-18) and Eric Adams (SD-20) for State Senate. They both score 100% pro-choice on Planned Parenthood's questionaire. Tracy Boyland (opposing Velmanette), and Anthony Alexis and Guillermo Philpotts (opposing Eric Adams) never bothered to respond to Planned Parenthood's questions. So, the pro-choice vote in my neighborhood is Velmanette Montgomery and Eric Adams.

Well, I suppose this COULD just be one of those Board of Elections "glitches" that State Senator Marty Connor keeps telling us about, but from what I can tell Hakeem Jefferies is no longer running for Assembly. Either that or he has inadvertently violated NY campaign laws.

This comes from Atlantic Yards Voter Guide (forgot to give credit last night!!). Candidates are required to file certain statements regarding donations and expenditures at particular periods before an election. One such filing is required not later than 11 days before an election. Today is 7 days before the primary election and Hakeem Jefferies has not filed his 11-day pre-primary statement. The list of statements filed by Jefferies can be found here. Compare that with his rival, Bill Batson's, listing which includes an 11-day pre-primary statement.

Here is the appropriate election law (taken from the 2006 NY Election Law (PDF):

The New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), a statewide affiliate of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), has set up a phone bank for Velmanette Montgomery's re-election effort. It is located at 335 Adams St. next to the Marriott Hotel. They are looking for volunteers from 5:30 to 8:00 PM every night. Anyone who is interested, call Velmanette's volunteer coordinator, Linara, at 646-369-6230 or 718 230-3485 or 718 230-4165.

This is getting to be the final push!

After getting a near-endorsement (and a check!) from Democracy for America this week, Chris Owens has now been endorsed by the Amsterdam News. I have yet to confirm this and my lab is moving today, so I will have to trust my source.

It may not be the NY Times, but these days the NY Times isn't really what it used to be either.

[Bouldin's Update]: Here's the text of the endorsement, as typed by campaign staff:

For the 11th Congressional District We Choose Chris Owens:

We choose Chris Owens to replace Major Owens, who has retired from Congress. Chris Owens is running against Carl Andrews, Yvette Clarke, and David Yassky. We already know Yvette Clarke and Carl Andrews. David Yassky, who happens to be white, is a newcomer who sees three prominent Blacks running against one another in an area which has been predominantly Black for a generation, and has calculated that with three Blacks of almost equal popularity running against one another he can, with only the minority white Democratic Party enrollees of that district, win the primary.

Of those who are running in the primary, it is Chris Owens who has the best opportunity to win the primary, and who is the most talented. A graduate of Harvard and Princeton, Chris returned to this Brooklyn neighborhood after graduation and started toiling in the vineyards where his father worked. During the period of time after his graduation to the time he decided to run for office; he has become an astute politician. Not only is he astute, he learned to battle in the trenches of Brooklyn politics. He should become the next congressman for District 11. We urge that you select him.

Rock Hackshaw of Room8, after much soul searching, has this to say about the CD-11 race:

Without further ado, let me state today that I am endorsing Chris Owens for the 11th Congressional District.

He has emerged as the best candidate for this seat at the present time. He is articulate, bright, talented, competent and capable. I believe that he has the potential to make himself a better congressman than his dad; and I consider his father to have been a “fair” congressman overall. Chris will not hurt us in any way. He has the potential to be an exceptional congressman, because he is strong and passionate about his convictions. I differ with many of his positions, and as such I would love to debate him one day, but for now he deserves his shot. I am not in favor of his gay marriage stance (since to me it’s not a right), and I think his opposition to the Ratner plan is a bit rabid (not that I support it- I don’t in its present form- but you have to agree that the area was sitting there wasting for decades and no one moved to develop it), and also probably a lil opportunistic in a political sense. Still, Chris deserves a chance here. His stand against the Iraq war is commendable; plus he has ideas, and is not afraid to offer them up for scrutiny and critique. He has been the “understudy” for this job for two decades. He is qualified beyond any reasonable doubt, and has had experience as an elected official (school board), and also in government and public policy (see his resume). His ivy-league education will be surely put to test in Washington, but I am certain that he will pass with flying colors.