City Hall - October 1, 2007

Dan Donovan, below, defends hispolitical future (Page 10), in

Imagemakers, Perfect Pitch fields a politics-baseball blog (Page 26),

and Henry Stern, above, goes Back & Forth about his place in the political world and the Liberal Party’s future (Page 35).

Vol. 2, No. 5

www.cityhallnews.com

An Imperfect Union

If He Did It...

Bid to organize workers at Bloomberg LP gone, but not forgotten

October 2007

BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS or employees of Bloomberg LP longing for the comforts of a union, success proved to be elusive.

In September, three top female executives, claiming the company discriminates against pregnant women, filed a lawsuit against the financial services and media giant founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Unaff.).

Less well-known is an effort by the company’s rank-andfile—reporters, editors and technicians—to organize for better hours E OF TH and better AT pay, which flared up briefly three years ago UN IONS before fizzling.

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In 2004, the Newspaper Guild of New York, which represents employees of The New York Times, The Daily News, Newsweek and other major publications, kicked off a guerrilla campaign to get Bloomberg LP employees to join their ranks.

A website, found at www.nyguild.org/Bloomberg/ CONTINUED ON PAGE

5

BY EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE

A Bloomberg ’08 O campaign manual

Sheekey speaks INDEX: Kevin On/Off the Record 2

n Feb. 6, 2008 the mayor of New York will wake up to a country that will likely have settled on its Republican and Democratic nominees for president. Like many Americans, he probably will not be entirely happy with either candidate. Like

Bronx BP Race Mort Berkowitz Shows Off Heats Up 4 His Button Collection 24

CONTINUED ON PAGE

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Hillary and Rudy trick-ortreat around town 33

2

CITY HALL

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OCTOB E R 2007

ON/OFF THE RECORD BREAKFAST

Kevin Sheekey Steps Forward A s the chief strategist behind Michael Bloomberg’s two campaigns for mayor and, before that, as the chief of staff for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey has become well-versed in working behind the scenes in politics. But as the featured speaker at the fourth City Hall On/Off the Record Breakfast, held Sept. 20 at the Commerce Bank flagship location on 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, Sheekey stepped forward for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with City Hall editor Edward-Isaac Dovere.

An invite-only crowd heard Sheekey discuss how government in Albany and New York compares to government in Washington, how term limits have helped Bloomberg govern and, of course, his thoughts on the potential for a Bloomberg presidential run. These and several other topics came up during the off-the-record portion, available only to those in the room.

Some excerpts from the on the record portion of Sheekey’s interview:

and that it wasn’t working. They wanted to give control to anyone else. And when a fresh face comes in, it allows them to do that.

Q: How do the mayor’s private comments to you compare to the public comments he has made about running for president?

A: Listen, it’s not my job to show up at Commerce Bank on 42nd street and talk about my private comments with the mayor. I will say, I think you know, you get back to the idea of bringing in someone new. There is no question, it doesn’t have to be Mike Bloomberg, there is no question we are at a crossroads in an America where they need to bring in someone new to get the political parties working together.

Q: The idea of Mike Bloomberg running for president is one you floated first, right after he won re-election.

A: Well, I’ll take it one step further, I do think that he’s the only person that is out there that can do it. I mean the truth is, I think he is the ideal, if not the only, choice for a credible third party candidate.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

Q: So though a lot of people know who you are and are familiar with the work you have done on the mayor’s campaigns, they may not know exactly what your responsibilities as deputy mayor of governmental affairs are. So what is it, day to day that you have to get done, to make sure that your job is being fulfilled?

A: We have an office here in New York City that deals with the City Council, we have an office in Washington that deals with the federal government. ... And New York City is interesting in that way, it’s really important.

We have a $60-billion dollar budget but about $40 billion of that is what we call ‘non-controllable.’ … Those rules are set in Albany, or in Washington. And so it’s our job to make sure that we can lobby those people involved so we can make sure that services are delivered in the way that we want them to do in the context of what we can afford.

Q: Your experience in government before coming to New York to work for Michael Bloomberg was in Washington. How have you found that Washington compares to the city and state government?

A: I don’t actually believe that we have Democratic government, on the Council and in Albany. And that works for a lot of people. It works for City Hall in a lot of cases, so there’s a reason for it. But things as simple as they did in the Watergate reforms in the ’70s, where you have direct election of chairmen. I mean you actually had members who had real power who were elected through the body or were elected through seniority. You know in the Council we went through this whole big debate about whether the Council should get a pay raise or not, which in a sense is totally bull---- because the truth is the Council does lulus. And the Council could do a lulu, they could put aside $20,000 lulus for everyone.

Why not? Listen, it’s nice when you have a speaker whom I respect and I look at as a partner like Christine Quinn, who’s doing good government and trying to

move things forward. But if you step back and actually look at the structure, you know you have a speaker who really dominates the body, and that is not good for the democratic institution underneath it.

Q: Do you agree with Mayor Bloomberg that term limits are good for government?

A: I think the mayor certainly thinks it’s a good idea, that it’s important to bring fresh blood in. I think the best thing about Mike Bloomberg is not necessarily that he succeeded in business, it’s not necessarily that he had ideas that made better sense than anyone else for government. It’s not necessarily that he was smarter than the other candidates, though I would believe that all three of those things were true. The best thing about Mike Bloomberg is that he came in and fundamentally could work with everyone.

No one else could have gotten control of the schools. I guarantee if Mark Green came into office he would not have gotten control of the schools. Because someone of the three or four or five principle players who decide how that would be set up would say ‘you know what I don’t like Mark. And I’m not gonna give him control.’

Right? Everyone knew that the schools were f----d up

Q: Potential candidates are always very careful not to say flatly “no, I’m not running,” just in case they decide to enter the race. If something happens and the mayor changes his mind, are you worried that all of these denials that he’s made might be a problem?

A: Hey listen, I talked about that the other day. Barack Obama wasn’t running for president. “I’m not running,” he said over and over, right? Then Barack Obama went on Meet the Press. Tim Russert said “Are you running for President?” Barack Obama said “I’m running for President.” Tim said “What changed?” he said, “I changed my mind. Okay. Now let’s talk about health care.”

The thing about running for president is it makes sense if it makes sense. If there’s a reason for you to run, and there’s a constituency that’s calling for you, and you have real ideas, then people will support you.

And if not, they won’t. I have not heard anyone in six months run around talking about Barack Obama saying, “He swore he wasn’t going to run.” ’Cause no one cares.

They care about what he’s going to do for the country.

Q: So let’s say there were a Bloomberg White House.

You always talk about how you want to get out of government. If there were a Bloomberg White House, what position would you ask for?

A: I figure Ambassador to Ireland would be pretty good.

Q: Would you ever think of running for office yourself?

A: Yeah, but for what? I’m gonna run for Gale Brewer’s job?

Q: Well, the mayor once said maybe you should run for president.

A: I like that. Do you think I could run for office? Do you have any idea what they pay Councilmen? I mean, no way. Hell, no.

C

2

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

OCTOB E R 2007

ON/OFF THE RECORD BREAKFAST

Kevin Sheekey Steps Forward A s the chief strategist behind Michael Bloomberg’s two campaigns for mayor and, before that, as the chief of staff for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey has become well-versed in working behind the scenes in politics. But as the featured speaker at the fourth City Hall On/Off the Record Breakfast, held Sept. 20 at the Commerce Bank flagship location on 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, Sheekey stepped forward for an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with City Hall editor Edward-Isaac Dovere.

An exclusive crowd heard Sheekey discuss how government in Albany and New York compares to government in Washington, how term limits have helped Bloomberg govern and, of course, his thoughts on the potential for a Bloomberg presidential run. These and several other topics came up during the off-the-record portion, available only to those in the room.

Some excerpts from the on the record portion of Sheekey’s interview:

and that it wasn’t working. They wanted to give control to anyone else. And when a fresh face comes in, it allows them to do that.

Q: How do the mayor’s private comments to you compare to the public comments he has made about running for president?

A: Listen, it’s not my job to show up at Commerce Bank on 42nd street and talk about my private comments with the mayor. I will say, I think you know, you get back to the idea of bringing in someone new. There is no question, it doesn’t have to be Mike Bloomberg, there is no question we are at a crossroads in an America where they need to bring in someone new to get the political parties working together.

Q: The idea of Mike Bloomberg running for president is one you floated first, right after he won re-election.

A: Well, I’ll take it one step further, I do think that he’s the only person that is out there that can do it. I mean the truth is, I think he is the ideal, if not the only, choice for a credible third party candidate.

Quinn, who’s doing good government and trying to move things forward. But if you step back and actually look at the structure, you know you have a speaker who really dominates the body, and that is not good for the democratic institution underneath it.

Q: Your experience in government before coming to New York to work for Michael Bloomberg was in Washington. How have you found that Washington compares to the city and state government?

A: I don’t actually believe that we have Democratic government, on the Council and in Albany. And that works for a lot of people. It works for City Hall in a lot of cases, so there’s a reason for it. But things as simple as they did in the Watergate reforms in the ’70s, where you have direct election of chairmen. I mean you actually had members who had real power who were elected through the body or were elected through seniority. You know in the Council we went through this whole big debate about whether the Council should get a pay raise or not, which in a sense is totally bull---- because the truth is the Council does lulus. And the Council could do a lulu, they could put aside $20,000 lulus for everyone.

Why not? Listen, it’s nice when you have a speaker whom I respect and I look at as a partner like Christine

Q: Do you agree with Mayor Bloomberg that term limits are good for government?

A: I think the mayor certainly thinks it’s a good idea, that it’s important to bring fresh blood in. I think the best thing about Mike Bloomberg is not necessarily that he succeeded in business, it’s not necessarily that he had ideas that made better sense than anyone else for government. It’s not necessarily that he was smarter than the other candidates, though I would believe that all three of those things were true. The best thing about Mike Bloomberg is that he came in and fundamentally could work with everyone.

No one else could have gotten control of the schools. I guarantee if Mark Green came into office he would not have gotten control of the schools. Because someone of the three or four or five principle players who decide how that would be set up would say ‘you know what I don’t like Mark. And I’m not gonna give him control.’

Right? Everyone knew that the schools were f----d up

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

Q: So though a lot of people know who you are and are familiar with the work you have done on the mayor’s campaigns, they may not know exactly what your responsibilities as deputy mayor of governmental affairs are. So what is it, day to day that you have to get done, to make sure that your job is being fulfilled?

A: We have an office here in New York City that deals with the City Council, we have an office in Washington that deals with the federal government. We have about eight people in all three of those offices. And New York City is interesting in that way, it’s really important. We have a $60-billion dollar budget but about $40 billion of that is what we call ‘non-controllable.’ … Those rules are set in Albany, or in Washington. And so it’s our job to make sure that we can lobby those people involved so we can make sure that services are delivered in the way that we want them to do in the context of what we can afford.

Q: Potential candidates are always very careful not to say flatly “no, I’m not running,” just in case they decide to enter the race. If something happens and the mayor changes his mind, are you worried that all of these denials that he’s made might be a problem?

A: Hey listen, I talked about that the other day. Barack Obama wasn’t running for president. “I’m not running,” he said over and over, right? Then Barack Obama went on Meet the Press. Tim Russert said “Are you running for President?” Barack Obama said “I’m running for President.” Tim said “What changed?” he said, “I changed my mind. Okay. Now let’s talk about health care.”

The thing about running for president is it makes sense if it makes sense. If there’s a reason for you to run, and there’s a constituency that’s calling for you, and you have real ideas, then people will support you. And if not, they won’t. I have not heard anyone in six months run around talking about Barack Obama saying, “He swore he wasn’t going to run.” ’Cause no one cares. They care about what he’s going to do for the country.

Q: So let’s say there were a Bloomberg White House.

You always talk about how you want to get out of government. If there were a Bloomberg White House, what position would you ask for?

A: I figure Ambassador to Ireland would be pretty good.

Q: Would you ever think of running for office yourself?

A: Yeah, but for what? I’m gonna run for Gale Brewer’s job?

Q: Well, the mayor once said maybe you should run for president.

A: I like that. Do you think I could run for office? Do you have any idea what they pay Councilmen? I mean, no way. Hell, no.

C

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CITY HALL

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OCTOBER 2007

Candidates Sizing Up Themselves and Potential Ethnic Splits in Race for Bronx BP With Diaz and Rivera already set to run, questions over whether there is room for a third candidate—and whom

BY JOHN DESIO 51 PERCENT LATINO population, according to a 2005 Census estimate, the Bronx’s political realities mirror its population growth. And as the race for the borough’s next president takes shape, a second generation of young Latino elected officials seems set to dominate, stepping forward to take the reigns of leadership from their fathers.

The 2009 race will pit at least two, possibly three, rising Latino stars against each other in the all-important Democratic primary to succeed Adolfo Carrión Jr., who will be barred by term limits from seeking reelection.

Assembly Member Ruben Diaz Jr. made his candidacy official in August, followed just days later by City Council Member Joel Rivera. A third candidate, State Sen. José Marco Serrano, is also considering a run.

All three come from strong political backgrounds. Diaz’s father, State Sen. Rev.

W

ANDREW SCHWARTZ PHOTOS

ITH A

Joel Rivera

José Serrano

Ruben Diaz, serves as president of the powerful New York Hispanic Clergy Coalition. Rivera’s father is Assembly Member José Rivera, the current chair of the Bronx Democratic Party. His sister, Naomi, also serves in the Assembly.

Serrano’s father is the popular Rep. José Serrano, who has represented the South Bronx in Congress since 1990.

Through not only family connections, but their own talents for bridge-building,

Ruben Diaz Jr.

all three have amassed extensive campaign and fund-raising networks, and have solid name recognition well beyond their districts.

But their strength could also be their weakness. Given that borough president races across the city have often divided along racial lines, some observers note that a vote split between two, or even three, Latino candidates could open the door for a white or African-American candidate.

With term limits also on the minds of many Council members, several potential con-

tenders are taking a hard look at the race.

“It’s certainly something I’m considering,” said Council Member Helen Foster, herself a product of a political dynasty.

Her father, Rev. Wendell Foster, was a leader of the city’s civil rights movement, and for 24 years represented the same portion of the southwest Bronx his daughter has represented since 2002.

Foster feels that the demographics exist to carry an African-American woman to victory.

She also noted her independent streak, pointing to her unsuccessful fight last year to prevent the construction of a new Yankee Stadium in her district. She believes this iconoclasm will set her apart from her opponents in the field, should she decide to run.

“I don’t let those definitions of where I should be running or what my base should be define me,” she said. “I think I have a wide range of appeal, not just to AfricanAmerican voters.”

City Council Member James Vacca is far more coy about his future. Though he CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

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CITY HALL

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Unions CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

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and calling itself OurBloomberg.com, served as a rallying point. Employees were urged to sign guild cards so the union could gauge the level of support.

“Bloomberg management will never see your card,” said one bolded and underlined statement on the website.

The guild got only a handful of responses, something its president, Bill O’Meara, attributes to a climate of fear at the company.

After a year-anda-half, the guild pulled the plug on the website.

“We tried in a number of ways,” said O’Meara. “We gave out cards in front of the offices. We had meetings with people. And everybody thought, ‘Yeah, people are going to fill out these cards.’ Why they didn’t, I don’t know.”

O’Meara said the union would have only needed a slim majority of employees to respond in order to feel confident calling for representational status.

“We collected quite a few, I can tell you that, but not enough to merit meeting

our normal standard in asking for an election,” O’Meara said.

Bloomberg LP spokesperson Judith Czelusniak, for one, was not surprised the organizing effort failed.

“We assume that our employees saw no need for a union in light of the terrific benefits, salaries and working environment here at Bloomberg,” she wrote in an email.

Czelusniak cites employee discounts, a family-friendly environment, tuition reimbursement and free food as some of the many perks of working at Bloomberg LP. But according to O’Meara, long hours and dwindling benefits led many employees to consider unionizing.

“They would bring in food, but that was to keep people working at their desks,” said O’Meara. “It’s like passing out food among the slaves as they row the boat for you.”

As mayor, Bloomberg has a successful track record with labor interests in the city. During his 2005 reelection campaign, several of the major unions broke with their tradition of supporting Democrats to endorse the then-Republican.

But O’Meara portrays the atmosphere at the company the mayor once led as hostile to unions. The guild did not start its organizing effort until after Bloomberg left the company to become

IONS

mayor in 2002.

“He has plausible deniability of any responsibility for what goes on at the company now,” O’Meara said.

Bloomberg LP, which employs about 10,000 workers at 132 offices worldwide, is known for its generous salaries and benefits. But hundreds of anonymous comments on the OurBloomberg.com site posted by people claiming to be past and present employees paint a far different portrait of the media firm.

OCTOB ER 2007

5

sionable students through public humiliation, abusive criticism and arrogance.”

Attorney Milo Silberstein, who represents the three women suing Bloomberg LP, said the effort to unionize employees has little to do with the company’s current legal problems because of the divide between “white collar” workers and “the rank-and-file” employees who have more reason to organize.

O’Meara said the guild continues to keep in contact with some employees.

“We tried in a number of ways,” said Bill O’Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild, on the efforts to organize at Bloomberg LP. “We gave out cards in front of the offices. We had meetings with people. And everybody thought, ‘Yeah, people are going to fill out these cards.’

Why they didn’t, I don’t know.”

Many trace the deterioration of the workplace back to Bloomberg’s departure as chief executive.

“When I was working at Bloomberg,” one wrote in August 2005, “I often was reminded of my graduate school days when tyrannical professors attempted to break the will of their young and impres-

But obstacles to unionizing Bloomberg LP loom large.

“One of the problems at Bloomberg is they pay pretty well,” said O’Meara. “No one would argue that it’s a low paid sweatshop. It’s a sweatshop, it’s just not a low paid one.” ahawkins@manhattanmedia.com

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OCTOB ER 2007

7

No Siren Song for Bloomberg and PBA BY

A

ANDREW J. HAWKINS

T A RECENT GOLF BENEFIT FOR

the city’s corrections officers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Unaff.) was playing the same hole with every foursome. When Detective’s Endowment Association (DEA) president Michael Palladino arrived, he joked that they should bet on the hole to decide the DEA’s contract with the city.

Bloomberg hit a terrible shot, Palladino said.

“It filled me with confidence,” he added, recounting the story at an Oct. 2 press conference announcing the terms of the new DEA contract, which includes an over 20 percent increase in wages and benefits.

But the mayor’s face-off with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) and its president Patrick Lynch is one that seems unable to be settled with a joke or a golf stroke.

Since July, the city has settled contracts with the DEA, the Uniformed Firemen’s Association, the Sanitation Officer’s Association, the Correction Officer’s Benevolent Association, the Lieutenant’s Benevolent Association, the Captain’s Endowment Association and the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association—every uniformed service union except the PBA. Lynch blames the mayor for slashing rookie pay to finance police veteran benefits. Bloomberg charges the union has used misleading statistics to back its claims.

The dispute has gone to arbitration once and will go again in November.

Both sides hope to revive the contract that last expired in August 2004. Under the Taylor Law, which governs labor relations in the state, the city’s 23,000 cops represented by the PBA must adhere to the terms of the preexisting contract until a new one is established and cannot strike.

Despite the impasse, Bloomberg and Lynch have insisted they are more than willing to negotiate. “I’ve said a thousand times,” Bloomberg said at the DEA press conference, referring to the PBA, “you get a better deal when you sit and face each other across the table. And we’re always willing to do that.”

The PBA also claims to be eager for a resolution. “Pat Lynch will meet any place, any time, any day,” said Albert O’Leary, a PBA spokesman.

The PBA blames the contract dispute for the New York Police Department’s

(NYPD) dismal recruitment numbers.

Rookie cops start out at $25,100 annually.

The top salary is $59,588, which the union says is $22,478 below the average pay of cops in nearby departments.

Enticed by higher starting salaries in neighboring cities and towns—and even the Port Authority—new recruits are dropping out of the academy in droves. About 15 percent of a class of 1,400 new recruits dropped out in 2007, up from a 7-percent drop-out rate in 2000, according to the Police Pension Fund.

“Our guys are strapping on their bulletproof vests, driving along in their patrol cars, all the while looking across the border into Nassau County and their $85,000 salaries,” O’Leary said.

City Council Member Joseph Addabbo Jr. (D-Queens), who chairs the Council’s Civil Service and Labor Committee, said there is widespread concern that the dispute between Bloomberg and Lynch could affect public safety. Addabbo said he was “hopeful and optimistic” that a contract could be reached by the end of the year.

According to O’Leary, the main sticking point for the PBA remains the city’s use of pattern bargaining to negotiate pay increases, which would give the union the same raises employees of other city agencies have received.

The current contract is retroactive, covering the years 2004 and 2005. During that period, the city granted other uniformed service unions a 3-percent pay increase the first year and a 3.5-percent increase the second, O’Leary said.

Because the negotiations are technical-

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

As mayor sets contracts with other uniformed unions, standstill continues

PBA President Patrick Lynch has not been able to reach a contract with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, though the administration has negotiated new deals with every other uniformed service union in the city since July. and Lynch, and more to do with protecting the PBA leadership.

“The leadership at the PBA may have raised expectations, and one of the risks is sometimes you can’t deliver,” Adler said. “Cops expect a contract that’s better than every union in the city.

Whatever firefighters got, they want one more.”

Lynch and other top brass at the PBA may have decided they cannot sell the contract the city is trying to negotiate to the rankand-file, Adler said.

And if the contract is lacking, Lynch’s chances in the next union election are less than certain.

“In effect, the union’s got a deal where they sacrifice the guys coming in the door”—rookies and cops who have yet to join the PBA—“to give a bigger piece of the pie to the guys already there,” Adler said.

Bloomberg is not the first mayor to be at loggerheads with the police union. In 1994, negotiations with the PBA proved contentious for then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), who broke with tradition by not settling the union’s contract first and

About 15 percent of a class of 1,400 new recruits dropped out in 2007, up from a 7-percent drop-out rate in 2000, according to the Police Pension Fund. ly ongoing, the mayor’s office declined to comment on the specifics.

Michael Merrill, dean of SUNY Empire State College’s Center for Labor Studies, said the use of pattern bargaining depends on the specifics of the contract.

“Pattern bargaining works when you actually have similar groups as part of the pattern,” Merrill said. “But when you try to reduce dissimilar groups, it’s an unnecessary approach.”

But according to Norman Adler, a lobbyist at Bolton-St. Johns, the dispute may have less to do with pattern bargaining or personal differences between Bloomberg

then using it as a model for all the other uniformed services unions.

At that time, the PBA was without a contract since 1991. After a two-month impasse, Giuliani eventually reached an agreement that granted the union a 7-percent increase in wages.

The Bloomberg-Lynch dispute has turned ugly over the past year, with the PBA waging an all-out war of words with the administration. Stories about cops on welfare and food stamps appeared in the tabloids. The NYPD admitted to using unmanned police cars, or scarecrows, on major highways to deter speeding, which the PBA says is a symptom of drastic short-staffing. And then there are the full-page newspaper ads.

“City Hall blames the PBA for the police retention and recruiting crisis,” claimed one of the PBA’s recent newspaper advertisements. “But they have only themselves to blame.”

Addabbo, for one, pines for the days when the city and the unions worked together. During the fiscal crisis in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, there was a lot of tension between the city and the PBA about wage increases.

“But they put it aside,” he said, “to pull the city out of the doldrums.” ahawkins@manhattanmedia.com

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CITY HALL

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OCTOBER 2007

The GOP’s Westchester Blues Once dominant, the county’s elephants are getting poached

BY JOHN R.D. CELOCK ATTORNEY JANET DiFiore and Assembly Member Mike Spano have flipped to the Democratic Party.

Now the remaining Republican state legislators representing parts of Westchester live in neighboring Putnam County, and the five-member county legislature delegation is in danger of losing at least two more seats.

What was once among the state’s most rock-ribbed Republican counties looks as if it might become a Democratic stronghold.

Westchester helped provide the margin of victory for native son George Pataki in his 1994 defeat of Gov. Mario Cuomo. That was then.

What changed, say observers, has to do with the rightward swing of local Republican leaders, along with the national trend of growing suburban Democratic parties.

Republican political consultant Mike Edelman, who has worked with Westchester candidates for 20 years, believes that DiFiore and Spano were upset by the endorsements last year of conservatives John Faso for governor and John Spencer for Senate. This, Edelman said, influenced their decisions to switch parties.

“Westchester should have fought for Bill Weld,” Edelman said, referring to the one-time candidate for governor. “Both Mike and Janet were concerned with the fact that the New York State Republican Party were appended to the politics of Mike Long.”

In mentioning Long, the Conservative Party chair, Edelman was alluding to Faso and Spencer’s strategy of obtaining the Conservative nominations in order to force the hand of state Republican leaders in obtaining the nominations last year.

Spano said his decision was not impacted by the Spencer and Faso endorsements, but stressed the national rightward trend of the GOP played a larger role in his decision making. “The main reason I left was the agenda and issues out of the Republicans in Washington has been destroying the Republican Party,” Spano said, critiquing the national party’s opposition to gay marriage, abor-

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tion and stem cell research.

That, he said, explained why State Sen. Nick Spano lost last year as he ran for reelection against Andrea Stewart Cousins.

“The state party drove candidates who were too extreme and out of sync with the state,” Mike Spano said. “That’s why someone like my brother lost his Senate seat. There were no coattails.”

Edelman said that the Westchester GOP has been trying to obtain Conservative and Independence Party support for local candidates, with the parties forcing ideological questions in making endorsements.

He believes this has cost some moderate candidates minor party backing.

“There is too much room for back room deals,” Edelman said. He called for an end to cross-endorsement of candidates.

Gerald Benjamin, a political science professor and dean of arts and sciences at SUNY New Paltz, said the conservative bent has been hurting suburban Republicans across the state and nationally, along with other trends.

Historically, Benjamin noted, when urban Democrats moved to the suburbs, they became Republicans. Over the last decade and a half, urbanites have been increasingly keeping their Democratic registrations in the suburbs or choosing not to affiliate with a party, with many leaning

liberal. This, coupled with a decline in straight ticket voting, has hurt Republicans in Westchester and on Long Island.

In the past, Benjamin said, it was typical for Republican precinct committee members to knock on the doors of new residents shortly after the moving vans arrived. Though part welcome wagon, the primary purpose of the visit was to register the new residents as Republicans and to promote the local Republican agenda. Benjamin believes that any resurgence of the GOP in Westchester would have to include a return to this.

George Oros, the Westchester County Legislature minority leader who hails from Peekskill, said local Republicans have been failing to reach out to new residents, in particular younger residents. While the local party has talked a lot about grassroots outreach, it has not done much on the subject. He noted this has cost the party several races and puts his own reelection, along with the reelections of two colleagues in the fivemember caucus, at jeopardy in November.

The Democrats’ rising tide in Westchester may cause ripples throughout state politics. As more of the county’s residents vote Democratic, Republican candidates hoping to stay afloat will have to go elsewhere to find swing voters in an increasingly blue state. Moreover, the historical pattern of having at least one Westchester resident on the ticket in every statewide election since 1958 may soon be over.

Vincent Reda, the Rockland County Republican chair and vice chair of the state Republican Party, said the state GOP is not concerned about the Westchester flips and knows the county’s new Republican chair, Douglas Coltey, will be able to rebuild the party at the grassroots. And along the way, Reda said, Republicans will rise up to defeat DeFiore and Spano.

“What they failed to remember is they were elected as Republicans,” Reda said of the two new Democrats. “People don’t like people who change midstream.” johncelock@aol.com Direct letters to the editor to cityhall@manhattanmedia.com.

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ALSO RUNNING

★The Other Presidential Candidates from New York ★

ORION KARL DALEY From: New York City Party: Balanced Party Job experience: Author, founder of Orion Computer Systems, Inc. #1 campaign promise: To deliver. Period.

On Balance

Orion Karl Daley and the new New Deal he says is right for America

BY DAN RIVOLI REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL RUDOLPH Giuliani can campaign on his experience with 9/11, so can Orion Karl Daley.

After the attacks, Daley, then a consultant for Smith Barney and CEO of Orion Computer Systems, Inc., was financially wiped out. Daley asked the government for assistance but also offered his ideas.

“I sent a lot of recommendations to the Democrats,” said Daley, who is waging a presidential campaign as the candidate of the Balanced Party. “I didn’t expect to get a response but I expected people to pick up on the ideas.”

By 2004, Daley, fed up with what he saw as inaction by his fellow Democrats, formed the Balanced Party.

“Basically, I put together a promise, a summary, of what I wanted to see from my family,” Daley, 56, said. “This applies to the people of my nation.”

The five tenets of the Balanced Party tout human rights and an incentive-based economy.

In addition to the economy, incentives are key to reforming other issues like foreign policy, he believes.

His platform is outlined in his 2007 book, The New Deal: An Election 2008 Primer. As the title suggests, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was an influence.

“We are very much aligned in the same direction,” Daley said. “My New Deal goes much further.”

Daley is using his book and book tour as a stump speech, campaign trail and fundraiser. For every book he sells, the proceeds go to his campaign. Of course, he is open to donations.

He has not yet raised enough money to file with the Federal Elections Committee.

Though he may not get much radio or television airtime, he plans to buy billboard space on the country’s highways. “I hitchhiked across the country as a teen. I remember billboards,” he said.

He will not say what will be on the billboard, only predicting that they will include an “image that will stick in the hearts and minds of Americans.”

When Daley talks about his political aspirations, he switches back and forth between policy details and the smooth talking sensibility of many aspiring politicians.

But he shrugs off being called a politician.

“I can’t say I have the experience of a politician,” he said, “because I can’t pay lip service.”

Instead, he calls himself a statesman, an entrepreneur— “not the most successful one,” he admitted”—a thinker, and a working man.

While he does acknowledge he is the ultimate dark horse candidate, if called upon, he is ready to report to the Oval Office.

And if not, he has a backup project waiting.

“When this country is back on track,” he said, “there’s a book I want to get back to: theoretical physics.” danrivoli@gmail.com

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CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

OCTOBER 2007

Staten Island Political Parties Bank on DA Race The only contested election in the city this year will determine the strength of the borough’s top parties.

Richmond County. “The momentum is on our side.”

Donovan is running on the achievements of his first term in office, which includes a diversified staff, implementing a witness protection program and a rise in felony conviction rates.

Before he took office, he explained, Staten Island trailed the other four boroughs in convictions.

By contrast, he said, “the first quarter I was in office, we led the city in convictions.”

BY DAN RIVOLI district attorney may be New York City’s sole competitive general election race this fall, but it has already had more than its fair share of accusations of lying, having insufficient experience and using false statistics.

In a city where district attorneys rarely face significant primary or general election opposition, Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan (R), first elected in 2003, finds himself locked in a reelection battle against attorney Mike Ryan (D).

Donovan has made a name for himself in the Republican political scene.

He started his career as a prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, leaving to become chief of staff to then-Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari (R), and then deputy borough president to current Borough President James Molinaro (Con.).

Only two years into Donovan’s first term, Republican insiders tried to draft him for the attorney general’s race and as gubernatorial candidate John Faso’s (R) lieutenant governor running mate. Many political observers expect him to make a run for citywide or statewide office in the future, but according to Richard Flanagan, associate professor of political science at the College of Staten Island, Donovan needs to win this election, and by a significant margin, to keep those dreams alive.

“The test would not be winning but winning with a nice plurality,” Flanagan said. “He’s really got to win by double digits to show he’s viable for statewide office.”

Democrats, however, view the district attorney race as an opportunity to build their party’s standing in the borough, the last real GOP stronghold in the Big Apple. The party has picked up seats in the Assembly of late, and looks set to run competitive elections against Rep. Vito Fossella (RStaten Island/Brooklyn) in 2008 and for what will be the open borough president race in 2009. The district attorney race, Democrats believe, is a chance to show their growing strength.

“We’ve come together as a party,” said Chris Bauer, executive director of the Democratic Committee of

Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan says he is responsible for bringing down the felony rate in the borough, and wants to continue that work.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ PHOTOS

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HE RACE FOR STATEN ISLAND

Mike Ryan, staging a rare challenge to an incumbent district attorney, says he wants to depoliticize the office.

Ryan contended that the statistics Donovan uses only count cases he chose to indict, while ignoring the number of people charged with a felony who plead guilty to a lesser crime.

Ryan keeps a large placard with the felony conviction rate for all the boroughs in his campaign office. Staten Island’s total number of felony arrests

and over-politicizing the district attorney’s office.

“I don’t approach this race with a political philosophy,” Ryan said. “I approach this job as a lawyer, not a politician.”

Ryan’s background as a defense attorney with no prosecutorial experience became fodder for the Donovan campaign, which argued that Donovan’s experience as a prosecutor and an administrator, gives him the foundation necessary to serve as district attorney. “It’s the perfect background for the DA’s office,” Donovan said.

But Ryan argues that he has the right background from the work he did overseeing agencies in the criminal justice departments in the administrations of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) and Gov. George Pataki (R).

“I served at a time when we saw record reduction on crime throughout the city,” Ryan said.

Managing criminal justice departments, rather than working for borough presidents, is what will make for a good district attorney, said Ryan. Donovan’s background with Molinari and Molinaro and term as district attorney aside, Ryan charged that he is the one with the working knowledge of the position. “You can’t get that,” Ryan said, “in Borough Hall.” danrivoli@gmail.com

This competitive election will be a barometer of the strength of the two major parties in Staten Island. where suspects are convicted is 29 percent, the fourth lowest in the city. The statistics, Ryan said, were copied straight from the Division of Criminal Justice Services website.

“It calls into question the integrity of the entire office,” Ryan said.

Ryan also criticized Donovan for eyeing a higher elected position

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Johnson and Brown Also Face Races, But Not Opponents oth major parties are endorsing Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown for reelection.

That is how it should be, said Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy (R), president of the New York State District Attorney Association, who explained that district attorneys are encouraged to seek cross endorsements from political parties.

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Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, like Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, is technically up for reelection, though neither has a major party opponent.

“DA’s do not run their office on politics,” Murphy said. “Our code of conduct really precludes us from being political in non-election years, which underscores the importance of the nonpolitical office.”

Johnson said that races like his this year are a welcome change from the more competitive ones he waged in the past.

“It’s a lot less strenuous when you don’t have an opponent,” he said.

Each election year, Johnson said, he speaks with the leaders of Bronx’s political parties to receive cross endorsements, which lowers the possibility of an opponent.

“We represent everybody in the county,” he said. “They have various political enrollments, and I try to report to everybody.”

Despite needing political nominations, Johnson said that partisan politics do not influence judicial and prosecutorial positions. “I think public safety knows no party lines,” he said.

Queens District Attorney Brown, who is running for his fifth full term, said that being cross–endorsed is indicative of the position’s nonpartisan nature.

Without a single opponent since being elected 16 years ago, Brown is concerned with his job rather than satiating political objectives or party goals.

“Once the district attorney takes office and does an adequate job, he or she will get multiple party endorsements,” Brown said. “I threw out my political career.”

—DR danrivoli@gmail.com

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HEALTH/HOSPITALS

Universal Health Coverage for New York

BY ASSEMBLY MEMBER RICHARD GOTTFRIED

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HISTORIC

by Be ra C U. st H nk on S. o ed sis N sp a te ew it m n a s ls on tly & in g W A th or m e ld er Re ica po rt

opportunity to make our health care system dramatically better and fairer for everyone. Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) is working to develop a plan for “affordable, universal health insurance for all New Yorkers.”

People who have no coverage or too little coverage face serious health and financial damage. People with health coverage selected by their employer find their health plan often puts their employer’s needs first. Employers find the cost of coverage a burden. People who try to buy coverage on their own find the cost way beyond their means and the fine print makes intelligent consumer choice almost impossible. Subsidized programs involve red tape (to prove eligibility) that keeps many people from getting the coverage and care to which they are entitled. Health care providers face endless hassles in dealing with health plans, and they are not rewarded for providing preventive care.

A plan for New York should not only help the uninsured, but also improve

things for people who have coverage, employers, health care providers and taxpayers. It should promote better health care, reasonably control costs and fairly distribute costs.

Educating children is a parent’s responsibility. But we expect our government to provide free quality education for every child. Shouldn’t that also be true for health coverage?

This is what I think New York should do: 1. Build on our well established and widely popular Family Health Plus and Child Health Plus—publicly-sponsored, publicly-designed and publicly-funded comprehensive health coverage, delivered through a variety of health plans.

Individuals choose which plan they want to enroll in.

2. Eliminate income eligibility for that coverage. Every New Yorker would be eligible to enroll—with the premium paid by the state.

3. Finance it fairly through progressive taxes, instead of through premiums paid by employers or individuals.

4. Individuals or employers could opt

out and pay for private coverage if they choose.

The plan uses building blocks already in place. No new programs or bureaucracies are created.

Family Health Plus and Child Health Plus now provide comprehensive coverage at lower cost than anything employers or individuals can buy. New York sets the premiums it pays and can provide standards and incentives to control costs and improve the quality of care.

But under privately-sponsored coverage, health plans have little incentive to promote quality or preventive care, because an individual patient is likely to have moved on to another employer or another health plan by the time any savings are seen.

Health plans today are accountable mainly to cost-conscious employers, so they are under extraordinary pressure to refuse to pay for care and pay as little as possible. But under this proposal, while there would still be pressure to control

costs, there would also be pressure—on our elected government—to deal fairly with patients and providers.

All patients—rich and poor—and health care providers would be in the same boat. That’s the best guarantee that the governor and Legislature (not insurance companies) would make sure it’s the best possible boat.

We should distribute costs fairly, through progressive taxes.

We can make New York dramatically more employer-friendly by eliminating the need for any employer to provide health coverage for its workers. This is especially important for start-up companies, small businesses and low-margin businesses.

Businesses and individuals would be taxed based on ability to pay.

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Richard Gottfried is a Democrat representing parts of Manhattan in the Assembly and chair of the Assembly Health Committee.

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has been upgraded, including those for women, children, and patients with chest pain.

Downtown Hospital has also dramatically expanded patient services, and acquired the latest in medical diagnostics and technology. The Hospital’s efforts in quality improvement and patient care have recently won several awards, including the State Health Department’s 2006 New York State Patient Safety Award.

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CITY HALL

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HEALTH/HOSPITALS

New York’s Cure for Health Care

BY COMMISSIONER RICHARD DAINES, M.D. U.S. HEALTH CARE system continues to fall behind other advanced nations, states are being left to develop ways to fix a system that is increasingly unaffordable and ineffective. In New York, Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) has directed the Department of Health to develop an agenda that includes providing universal access to health insurance; restructuring health care to improve efficiency and affordability, using health information technology and changes in reimbursement methodology to improve quality and providing incentives for greater access to primary and preventive care.

These reforms must proceed together, because access to health care alone will not improve health without changes in quality and affordability.

Reform is necessary because too many New Yorkers are going without needed health care, and those who do get care are not experiencing the expected improvement in health. New York is rated only “average” on key health indicators and “weak” on certain chronic disease management measures by the federal Agency

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for Healthcare Research and Quality.

“Average” and “weak” are not what we should be getting in a state with the highest per capita health care spending.

Working with the State Insurance Department, the Department of Health is taking a building-block approach to providing universal insurance coverage. The state’s current public insurance programs— Medicaid, Family Health Plus, Child Health Plus and Healthy New York—form the foundation for this effort, and our first job is to make sure these programs work.

As the initial step, we are focusing on getting health insurance coverage to the 1.3 million uninsured children and adults who are eligible for these insurance programs but not currently enrolled. We are streamlining program rules to make it easier for those who are eligible for these programs to get coverage and keep that coverage. We are also strengthening our marketing, outreach and enrollment efforts to help more New Yorkers get enrolled.

A second step is to allow thousands more uninsured children to get health insurance through Child Health Plus, New York’s program under the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program. As part of last year’s state budget, New York

expanded eligibility for this program to families with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

The current eligibility level is capped at 250 percent.

In September, the Bush administration officially disapproved New York’s expansion plan on grounds it doesn’t comply with new, more restrictive federal rules. Gov. Spitzer and 29 other governors, as well as 24 members of New York’s Congressional delegation, have called on the federal government to rescind the new rules. Meanwhile, the 70,000 children in New York who would be eligible to enroll under the expanded program must wait to get affordable access to health care.

A third step in the process of achieving universal coverage involves finding an affordable way to provide health insurance coverage for the 1.3 million uninsured New Yorkers who don’t qualify for any state programs. There are many ways to go about doing this, and to make sure we have an opportunity to hear all the best ideas, we are soliciting input from New Yorkers across the state through six public hearings.

Meanwhile, we are moving forward with efforts to improve the quality, affordability and efficiency of the health care we are buying.

An examination of the hospital and nursing home industry by the bipartisan Berger Commission determined that excess bed capacity, duplication of services and outdated facilities among our hospitals and nursing homes are contributing to the high cost of health care.

Universal coverage, health system restructuring, reimbursement reform and health information technology are all essential to reform the health care system to achieve affordable, high-quality, patientcentered care for New Yorkers. We call this reform agenda the “Partnership for Coverage,” because it involves many partners working together to improve health care. I encourage all New Yorkers who have an interest in access to affordable, highquality health care to get involved.

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Richard Daines, M.D. is the New York State health commissioner appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D).

“I believe everyone deserves quality health care they can afford. My union is N Y S U T .”

Renee Gestone-Setteducato, Lutheran Medical Center, Brooklyn

NYSUT represents more than 585,000 professionals in education and health care who are committed to the principle that all New Yorkers, regardless of economic background, deserve access to quality health care.

Richard C. Iannuzzi, President Affiliated with AFT • NEA • AFL-CIO

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CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

OCTOBER 2007

HEALTH/HOSPITALS

Alleviating the Nursing Shortage Now

BY REP. CAROLYN MCCARTHY S A NURSE,

I HAVE FIRSTHAND experience with the health care system in the United States. I feel I bring a unique and important perspective to Congress regarding the importance of making sure all people are safe and healthy. I am using my

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expertise to address the problems associated with today’s health care system by writing and supporting important and necessary legislation.

America’s nursing shortage is one of the biggest challenges our health care system faces. But few realize that nursing schools are actually turning away qualified applicants because of a lack of facul-

ty. In their 2007 survey of 722 schools of nursing, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing found that U.S. nursing schools turned away over 42,000 qualified applicants to baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs. The top reason cited by nursing schools for not accepting qualified applicants was an insufficient number of nurse faculty.

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Dedicated. Keeping our skills sharp and our knowledge current. Doing the vital work that all New Yorkers depend on. And doing it right.

We fight for fair pay, decent benefits, fairness and respect.

It’s not just the right thing to do – it’s a great investment.

Quality. Effectiveness.

And a better community for all.

The current faculty shortage will be even further compounded over the next few years as many nurse faculty members begin to retire.

It is expected that 200 to 300 doctorally prepared faculty will be eligible for retirement each year from 2007 to 2012, just as more than 1 million replacement nurses will be needed.

In an attempt to alleviate this issue, I have introduced H.R. 2384, the Nurse Faculty Higher Education Act. The bill creates a pilot program to increase the number of graduate educated nurse faculty. Specifically, the bill provides scholarships to nurses who seek advanced degrees with the goal of becoming faculty in an accredited nursing program. The bill also provides grants to hospitals and health facilities to support the institution while they permit qualified nurse employees to earn a salary and obtain an advanced degree to become nursing faculty.

We cannot truly alleviate the nursing shortage without providing potential nurses the means for proper education and training. With the high costs of education, many potential nurses are abandoning their dreams due to financial restrictions. As a member of the House Education and Labor Committee, I work very closely with student loan issues and understand the restrictions our young people are facing.

To help our young nursing students afford the high costs of their nursing education, I have introduced the Teacher and Nurse Support Act. This legislation encourages individuals to enter and continue in the nursing profession by providing loan forgiveness and loan cancellation to nurses.

To be eligible, nurses must work full time, for five consecutive, complete years in a clinical setting; or as a member of the nursing faculty at an accredited school of nursing.

Our nation’s health care system is in serious need of attention. Health care costs are skyrocketing and access to care has been on the decline. I truly believe the shortage of trained, qualified nurses has had a grave impact on the situation. I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to alleviate the nursing shortage and take positive steps toward health care reform.

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Carolyn McCarthy is a Democrat representing parts of Nassau County in Congress and chair of the House Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities.

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CITY HALL

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OCTOBER 2007

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HEALTH/HOSPITALS

Fighting Obesity by Breaking Unhealthy Attitudes and Behaviors

BY CITY COUNCIL MEMBER JOEL RIVERA

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unprecedented health crisis, with epidemic obesity rates generating a wide range of otherwise preventable illnesses. Unhealthy dietary habits and physical inactivity contribute to nearly 300,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.

This situation is even worse in New York City, where the Bronx leads other boroughs in the prevalence of heart disease, diabetes and stroke, ailments that can all be traced back to the unhealthy consequences of obesity. A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control found that Hispanic children in New York City have the highest rate of obesity.

Scientists point out that many Hispanics carry genes that make us predisposed to being overweight. I won’t disagree with the scientists, but I do believe one major factor contributing to this epidemic is a significant lack of nutritional knowledge.

As the chair of the City Council’s Health Committee, and in response to this growing health emergency, I have

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set a number of priorities in order to properly direct Health Committee resources to address these issues. Needless to say, looking for creative ways to educate New Yorkers and mitigate the obesity epidemic is my number one priority.

One way my committee is contributing to the battle against obesity is through a partnership with Health Corps, an educational and mentoring program that educates American youth on the workings of the human body, and looks to motivate our young people to become health advocates in their communities. Health Corps was founded by cardiac surgeon, best-selling author and Oprah Winfrey show regular, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was propelled to action after operating on many overweight young adult patients with blocked arteries.

Dr. Oz and I recognize the need for a change in attitudes and lifestyles, a major step that requires a new mode of education, not only for our youth, but also for school faculty and parents.

Highlighting simple steps to healthier lifestyles, the program’s health coordinators urge students to read food labels, carry pedometers and walk at least 10,000 steps daily. What I particularly like about the program is the way in which it encourages our students to become agents of change.

The Health Corps, employing a team of idealistic health coordinators, delivers its nutritional and fitness education to students throughout the city. Backed by a strong public-private partnership, the Health Corps initiative spans 35 high schools in four states, including 28 New York metropolitan schools that benefit from a $2 million appropriation from City Council that I helped secure.

Given the gravity of our burgeoning health crisis, it is essential that we look for ways to break the unhealthy attitudes and behaviors that will, if we’re not successful at altering them, inevitably bankrupt our entire health care system. The Health Corps model and Dr. Oz’s visionary work are the kind of dramatic steps that we need to change our country’s unhealthy direction. I am grateful that I’ve been able to collaborate with the doctor’s vision for the future, and I am also deeply appreciative for the support of my City Council colleagues in this vital task ahead.

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Joel Rivera is a Democrat representing parts of the Bronx in the City Council, the Council’s majority leader and the chair of its Health Committee.

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• Keep a list of all your medications, insurance, doctors, family members and friends to call in case of an emergency.

Post it on your refrigerator and by your main phone and carry a copy as well.

• Monitor your health at home through nonprofit services like homemaking, personal care, home healthcare and telehealth technology.

• Set up transportation with Access-a-Ride or another bus service.

Nutrition • Consider CityMeals-on-Wheels or other programs that deliver well-balanced meals to your home.

• Ask for groceries to be delivered regularly by local grocery stores or services like Fresh Direct.

Senior Networking • Join a program that matches seniors with caring volunteers or “adopted grandchildren,” who will make calls or visit regularly.

• Visit a senior center, where you can make new friends or take a class.

• Contact 311 if you have questions about money management, government benefits and/or financial and legal planning.

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If He Did It...

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

many Americans, he will probably wish there were some other choice.

But like no other American, Michael Bloomberg may be able to do something about it.

Given that Bloomberg built what is estimated to be a $12-billion fortune largely on his media and marketing savvy, some see a plan, fashioned and fine-tuned by his political mastermind, Kevin Sheekey. Some see that plan leading right to Bloomberg being elected the next president of the United States.

The way a lot of experienced political

observers see things, that plan seems to be running exactly according to schedule.

This is what happens next. ccording to several experienced campaign observers, Bloomberg has a few months to continue laying low, periodically bursting into the news and then issuing his presidential denials.

He cannot be coy, and he cannot let the anticipation morph into expectation.

There is much he can learn—though he probably does not need to be taught— from the experience of Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and Law & Order district attorney, who toyed with the

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idea for so long that the story had already become stale by the time he declared.

Bloomberg and his advisors know something about marketing. If he does run and intends to win, he will need to sell himself as the fresh alternative.

Products cannot be sold as new for 12 months. Bloomberg and those around him with their marketing expertise would understand this. Even if Bloomberg has definitively made up his mind to run, part of the way to win would be to keep things under wraps for now.

By the beginning of next year, if they are planning to sell a Bloomberg campaign, his stance on some major presiden-

Laying the Groundwork ohn Anderson, the former Republican congressman from Illinois who ran as the independent candidate for president in 1980, believes in the power of a Bloomberg presidential campaign.

“I think he has to get in and suggest that there is a third way appearing at a unique moment when people can see the failures first by the administration that is in power, and now by the Democratically-controlled Congress,” Anderson said.

But the official line from Bloomberg, repeated ad infinitum and ad nauseam, is that while all the speculation is flattering and certainly makes his 98-year-old mother Charlotte happy, there is nothing more to be said on the topic. He is not running for president, has no plans to run for president, he says. He is, to judge by his public comments and manner when making them, exasperated that reporters will not let the question rest.

Nonetheless, among New York political observers, some see a telling sign

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION / PHOTO BY LUCIA DI POI

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in the fact that he has kept his main presidential promoter, Kevin Sheekey on the payroll, and has not, according to Sheekey, told him to stop promoting an idea he himself has dismissed.

Sheekey is not the only one. All around New York and all across the country, people are talking intensely about a Bloomberg presidential campaign. They are dreaming of having him in the race, fantasizing about pulling the lever for him next Nov. 4.

Desperate for hope and information, maybe they turn to the internet.

On a whim, they type in www.bloomberg08.com. Or maybe www.mikebloomberg08.com. Neither loads. Instead, the URL redirects to www.mikebloomberg.com, the mayor’s campaign site for his citywide runs, which, when relaunched in May, prompted a stir of stories about his future political plans.

Speaking on behalf of the mayor’s website operations, Robert Lawson of

Rubenstein Communications explained that the purchases were nothing more than “an effort to prevent cybersquatters,” pointing out that both www.bloomberg07.com and www.mikebloomberg07.com redirect to the personal site as well. Meanwhile, www.mikeforpresident.com redirects to a porn site and www.bloombergforpresident.com, which was registered on Oct. 21, 2005-two weeks before Sheekey first floated the presidential possibilities--and last updated this past Sept. 12, is owned by someone who has asked Register.com to conceal his or her identity. There is no content on the site.

And that is just the most subtle of things he has been doing that, in one way or another, have made people believe in the stealth Bloomberg campaign.

On April 22, he unveiled PlaNYC. On May 10, he relaunched his website. On June 19, he announced he was quitting the GOP. Woven in

tial campaign issues which he has not yet addressed will need to be clear. With his record in office, he has well-established stances on education, guns, immigration, fiscal policy, environmental sustainability and, to an extent, homeland security. If he wants his potential as a credible independent presidential candidate to remain high, he will need to fill in the gaps— especially on foreign policy, particularly on the Iraq War. He already made motions in this direction when speaking with Tom Brokaw at Cooper Union Sept. 25.

“There’s no good choices here,” Bloomberg said, when considering what to

between each were trips to potential swing states, each of them prompting a little more speculation.

The summer was slow. Then on Sept.

25, he was sitting with Tom Brokaw for the third in the Cooper Union Dialogue Series, conceived as a forum for presidential candidates. The conversation was supposed to cover three topics: poverty, education and environment.

Though they touched on each, Bloomberg spent much of the hour going into depth about his thoughts on the Iraq War--a topic he had previously resisted discussing publicly, arguing that the conflict was beyond his purview as mayor. The next week, he was in Paris and England, 10 days after former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani crossed the Atlantic to shore up his own foreign policy credentials as he battles for the Republican presidential nomination.

The groundwork, many agree, is carefully being laid. Whether or not Bloomberg actually gets into the race, the campaign has already begun.

—EIRD eidovere@manhattanmedia.com

CITY HALL

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OCTOB ER 2007

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Ticket Takers f he runs, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will need to pick a running mate. Ballot laws will let him hold off on doing so until late summer, an option he may well exercise if he is spending the time until then introducing himself and his candidacy to the nation.

The name most often mentioned is Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican who has become one of the leading critics of the Iraq War and President George W. Bush’s management of the military. Hagel’s background as a Nebraska Vietnam War veteran and champion of veteran’s rights has given his war critiques added weight.

Hagel could add conservative credibility to the more liberal-leaning Bloomberg, but he could provide two other important balances as well. An immensely popular Midwesterner, Hagel won his second term in the Senate in 2002 with 83 percent of the vote. A better geographical counterpart to the mayor of New York would be hard to find.

Perhaps more importantly, Hagel has extensive experience in Washington and in foreign affairs as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As Bloomberg’s vice presidential candidate, he could give the ticket the international relations heft Bloomberg will be unable to provide.

And the two do seem to agree on the broad strokes of the foreign policy challenge for the next administration.

Speaking at Cooper Union Sept. 25, Bloomberg touched on the topic.

“This country’s in big trouble and somebody’s got to pull it out. We’ve lost our relationships with the world,” he said.

“Somebody’s got to go out and rebuild those relationships.”

Delivering the Sidney Shainwald Public Interest Lecture at New York Law School Oct. 11 on “Re-Introducing America to the World,” Hagel spoke about the need to do just that.

And, Hagel said, an independent presidential candidacy might be the way to get this and other national priorities restored in a country he says has been off-balance since the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I think it would make sense,” Hagel said. “I would welcome a strong, viable, accomplished independent candidate into the race.”

Asked whether he thought Bloomberg made sense as the candidate to fit this bill, Hagel spoke of the mayor’s prospects with great enthusiasm. “I think he’d be a very good president,” Hagel said.

He praised Bloomberg’s record in business and government, and noted the power his personal fortune could have.

“That doesn’t qualify him to be president, but it certainly helps him get there, because you need those kind of funds to do it,” Hagel said. “I think it would be revitalizing, and I think it would be a renewing time for American politics, to shock the two major parties a bit. And I think that’s what this country wants.”

I

you. And if not, they won’t. I have not heard anyone in six months run around talking about Barack Obama saying, ‘You know, he swore he wasn’t going to run.’

Because no one cares. They care about what he’s going to do for the country.”

If that constituency calls and Bloomberg decides to answer, the first and largest issue will be ballot access. Each of the 50 states has a different and uniquely convoluted process for putting candidates

EMILY BERL

do about Iraq. “I find it distasteful that everyone always talks about how we got here when you ask them what we should do.”

But though he mused on the importance of the United Nations and the imperative to repair America’s reputation in the international community, and reflected on how the Iraqi insurgency paralleled the American Revolution, he did not make any specific proposals for addressing the situation in Baghdad. As we approach the end of year five of American involvement in Iraq, this is a topic that Bloomberg the prospective presidential candidate will need to tackle more directly.

If Bloomberg is running for president, there will be more speeches on this and other topics he has stayed away from as mayor, like universal health care, a proposal he all but endorsed in another portion of the Cooper Union discussion.

Then comes Feb. 5. As of now, eight states will have already voted by the time the new Super Tuesday dawns, and by the time polls close that evening, delegate-heavy behemoths like California and New York will be among the 19 to join them. The Democratic and Republican nominations will likely be set.

With a full seven months until Election Day, Americans will be left with two people whose presidential ambitions they will have at that point already been hearing about for at least a year. With voter turnout always low in primaries, realistically, most people in the states which have weighed in by Feb. 5 will not have voted, and none of the residents of the remaining 23 states will have voted at all.

Especially if the candidates are particularly polarizing figures with high negative ratings and they have been through bruising primaries, Bloomberg may have an opening.

Angus King hopes so. An independent elected to two terms as governor of Maine in the 1990s, King is a member of the board of directors of Unity08, the movement to transcend the two-party system.

The site has, at last count, attracted about 113,000 people to register as members.

“Come January or February of ’08, when the primary system has almost already run its course, the people are going to be saying, ‘Look, isn’t there another choice? I didn’t really have any say in this.’

And I think that’s where you’re going to see Unity08 take off,” said King. “In one sense, the parties have played into our hands by starting this process so early.”

As long as Bloomberg keeps denying his interest in the race, if he announces his candidacy in February, he could be the gust of fresh air that King and others believe the national electorate will be gasping for by then.

And if the moment is right, Sheekey believes, none of Bloomberg’s denials will matter.

“The thing about running for president is: it makes sense if it makes sense,” he said. “If there’s a reason to run, and there’s a constituency calling for you, and you have real ideas, then people will support

Sen. Chuck Hagel could be a Bloomberg VP. Several other possibilities have been floated, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. A popular, moderate Republican with clear campaign appeal, Schwarzenegger has developed an alliance with Bloomberg on environmental initiatives and a push to get things done by states and cities, instead of waiting for the federal government to act.

His celebrity, though, might be a drawback, as he could potentially overshadow the less bombastic Bloomberg on the campaign trail. And though the votes he could help deliver in California might be a draw, his Austrian upbringing would not. Though he may well be able to serve as vice president and be skipped over in succession if Bloomberg cannot complete the job, the legal question is unclear. And that kind of Constitutional debate would be an unwelcome distraction to a campaign trying to establish itself.

“Traditionally, you try to balance the ticket geographically,” said Ed Rollins, a political consultant who served as campaign manager to Ronald Reagan and Ross Perot.

But referring to Bloomberg’s limited experience in foreign policy, Rollins said, “I think he needs to put someone on who has the credentials that he doesn’t have.”

Some believe that candidate will be Sam Nunn, a moderate conservative Democrat who served four terms as senator from Georgia and chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee. But Nunn has already been out of the Senate for a decade, and is hardly well known any more.

Hagel, who recently announced that he would not seek election to a third term in the Senate, may be the right man at the right time, if Bloomberg is looking for a running mate next August.

Hagel did not deny that the idea of joining Bloomberg on an independent ticket had crossed his mind, but he insisted that things had not gone further.

“I have not had any serious conversations with Mayor Bloomberg on this,” he said. “We’ve talked, we’ve had dinner, but we’ve never gotten down into depth with that.”

Asked whether he would accept if asked, Hagel said he does not deal in hypothetical questions.

“I don’t anticipate that I’ll be on any ballot for any office next year,” he said. “But this is an unpredictable business.”

—EIRD

on the presidential ballot, and finding lawyers and activists in each state familiar with the rules will be no small task.

However, for a candidate of Bloomberg’s financial resources, this will not be an insurmountable one, explained Micah Sifry, the author of Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America.

He does not think Bloomberg will run, but he thinks that he could.

“It’s really a combination of money

and people power,” he said. “But certainly for somebody with a checkbook as big as Bloomberg’s, getting on the ballot in all 50 states is basically just an expensive irritation.”

Coming off the first-ever national Independence Party convention, chairman Frank MacKay said that members from all across the country are excited by the prospect of a Bloomberg bid, and are committed to taking the steps toward

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OCTOBER 2007

getting an independent 2008 presidential candidate onto all 50 states’ ballots.

“If Mayor Bloomberg chooses not to run, we feel that there are other choices out there that may emerge. But we’d be lying if we said there’s someone more popular than Mayor Bloomberg in the party,” he said. “Michael Bloomberg is the dream candidate for the independent movement.”

Suddenly, the single greatest obstacle to an independent presidential candidacy is off the table. If Bloomberg began running shortly after the Feb. 5 primary glut, he

CITY HALL country and mission to do something different would help keep this kind of coverage coming.

Though informed observers disagree about whether Bloomberg will actually get in to the race, they agree that if he does decide to run, he will be out to win.

To do that, he would need to quickly propel himself to equal standing with the major party candidates.

Fortunately for Bloomberg, said political consultant Ed Rollins, the mayor has the resources and method to be able to do just that.

“We have never experienced the kind of campaign that Michael Bloomberg could run if he decides to participate,” said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf.

“We have never experienced the kind of resources a Michael Bloomberg could bring to the campaign.” could probably have the whole question of ballot access wrapped up by Leap Day. Along the way, the petitioning effort could help kick off the actual campaigning, organizational structuring and voter outreach.

By March he could be firmly in the race, propelled by the tremendous amount of media coverage a serious independent presidential candidate would inevitably attract. A clearly articulated message about his vision for the

Rollins has some experience in this area. In addition to managing Ronald Reagan’s unprecedented Electoral College blowout in 1984, he was, for a time, Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign manager.

Rollins suggested Bloomberg adopt a tactic employed to some success by Perot: buying major chunks of airtime across the country not for standard 30second campaign spots, but for substantive addresses to voters on major issues for a minute or two at a time. These

Feeling the Draft In the automotive business, logistics is everything.

“The mission of NJ CAR is to serve the essential business needs of automotive retailers throughout New Jersey.This state has a large and vibrant network of vehicle dealers and they all rely on the port to get the cars here on time.With nearly 750,000 cars entering or leaving the port every year, logistics is everything.You may not give much thought to the port, but it is truly the engine that keeps our economy revved up. For the automotive industry, the Port of New York and New Jersey means business.”

James B.Appleton President NJ Coalition of Automotive Retailers (NJ CAR)

.com New York Shipping Association, Inc. © 2007

arin Gallet has been convening the members of Draft Bloomberg for months on Tuesday evenings at the Old Town Bar on East 18th Street. A health care administrator with no previous political experience, but a deep admiration of the mayor, Gallet says she is being assisted by political professionals who have taken pity on her. They have launched a website, www.Bloomberg08nyc.com, and registered an accompanying Political Action Committee with the Federal Elections Commission. They are scouting spots for a fundraiser.

She is organizing the volunteers to show up at Bloomberg’s public events with signs encouraging him to run, and even to wait outside the WABC studios from where he broadcasts his weekly radio show, hoping to demonstrate to him the strength of his support.

“Our main goal is to make our presence known, show ourselves to the mayor and not get arrested,” she said.

She advises the group on how to make supportive comments on political blogs and is coordinating a letterwriting campaign to encourage Bloomberg to run. Sample letters are

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available on the group’s website, she told the six people who gathered for their Oct. 2 meeting. Encouraging them to spread the word, she dangles a prize in front of them: she expects to be able to deliver the letters to Bloomberg in person in City Hall’s Blue Room, and says the top three letter collectors will get to join her.

Envisioning “a Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment,” Gallet said, “It’s not going to matter if it’s a hundred. It’s not going to matter if it’s a thousand. It’s only going to matter if it’s several thousand.”

Gallet and the others in the group have thought through every eventuality, every possible scenario that favors or hobbles the prospects of a Bloomberg for president campaign.

“We can’t have a president who is shacking up with his girlfriend,” she said, referring to how Bloomberg lives in his East 79th Street townhouse with his companion, Diana Taylor. “I believe there is a quiet wedding by the end of the year, or at least a quiet engagement. That, to me, is the strongest indication that he’s running.”

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advertisements could run from March through August, Rollins said, beginning right as the major party candidates are retooling and refilling their emptied campaign coffers in preparation for the general election.

With the minimum $1 billion Bloomberg is rumored to be willing to commit to a presidential campaign and most expect he would spend, he could buy a lot more airtime than Perot ever did. Bloomberg blanketed the airwaves in New York City in 2005. Within a few short months, he went from having an approval rating in the 40s to winning 59 percent of the vote.

Sheekey acknowledged that the money made victory possible in the mayor’s races, and that only through massive spending would Bloomberg have a chance to win a presidential election, should he decide to run.

“I don’t kid myself and tell you that if Mike Bloomberg wasn’t a billionaire, he was going to get far in the mayor’s race,” Sheekey said. “Mike Bloomberg had to break in. And he had to break past politics. And he did it with money.”

If employed correctly, Rollins believes Bloomberg’s money could take advantage of the compressed election cycle to establish his candidacy by the fall.

“Because of the idiocy of the calendar this year, you’ve got this big six-month period where you can run up the middle and really dominate the airwaves,” Rollins said. “Once you come into September, then you’re in a three-way race, and you’re being compared equally to the other two.”

ack in 2004, George W. Bush and John Kerry spent and had spent on their behalf about $500 million each.

In his 2001 race for mayor, Bloomberg took no donations and spent $74 million of his own money to win. He spent $77.8 million on his reelection, giving him the record for spending the most personal money on a race in American history.

He is estimated to be worth about $12 billion these days. Dropping a billion of that to get elected president of the United States, especially after spending almost a tenth as much to get elected mayor, does not seem so far-fetched.

But as much money as he has, the mayor has never been known to toss dollars nonchalantly into the wind. Even his charitable donations tend to be directed toward established organizations, making for safe philanthropic investments. Since then he has said repeatedly that he intends to follow up his time in City Hall with a career in giving away his fortune. If he feels he can make more of an impact by being in the White House, maybe he would put $1 billion toward a campaign rather than his foundation.

If he is performing well by October, the Democrats and Republicans will have no choice but to include him in the debates, giving him a forum to discuss his management competence and record, while letting the two other nominees jab at each other for partisan points. Two or three debates, coupled with his ongoing barrage of advertising and outreach, and Bloomberg will no longer be the other guy. He will be one of three. And at that point, going into Election

B

She says the mayor’s staff is happy to have them making the push.

“They clearly are supportive in spirit, even if they can’t do it actively,” she said of people in the Bloomberg administration. “No one ever says, ‘You should give it up.’”

And though she will not name names, she says she is in reasonably regular contact with “someone who’s not in Kevin Sheekey’s circle, but in the next circle out.”

However, according to Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser, no one from City Hall is in contact with Gallet or the Draft Bloomberg effort. Loeser did, however, acknowledge that standing on the street after Bloomberg appeared at Cooper Union Sept. 25, chief Bloomberg presidential prospect cheerleader Kevin Sheekey recognized Gallet’s picture from her Facebook page and introduced her to the mayor for their first-ever meeting.

That, however, is the extent of the contact, Loeser said.

She and others whisper about the help they have been getting, claiming

that efforts are being coordinated from within the Bloomberg camp.

There are rumors of consultants who worked with Bloomberg in the past effectively placing themselves on hold for the presidential race, still waiting to hear whether he will make the race. But they guard the details very closely.

Loeser said that while all the talk was flattering and understandable, and while Sheekey continues to speak about his hopes Bloomberg will run, neither the mayor nor anyone else in his administration has anything to do with the effort.

As for the involvement of advisors and supporters who used to work for the mayor but no longer do, Loeser said he could not speak for them.

“It’s not surprising that people who worked to build the largest and broadest coalition in New York history are still supportive of the mayor,” Loeser said, “and some of them are going to be involved with Draft Bloomberg.”

—EIRD eidovere@manhattanmedia.com

OCTOB ER 2007

21

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OCTOBER 2007

Day, he will be a candidate who can win, and a man who may have changed the course of American politics along the way.

The absolutely unique circumstances surrounding Bloomberg mean that he

sure his accountant is not a master thief to keep the interest growing on his massive fortune. And, of course, he will need to keep consulting with Sheekey to make sure the plan is progressing.

Hank Sheinkopf, the political consultant who ran Mark Green’s losing campaign to Bloomberg in the 2001 mayor’s race, says there is every reason to take the prospect seriously.

“He is in complete control of his destiny,” said Sheinkopf. “He’s got all the time in the world.”

Sheekey and Bloomberg, along with First Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris and the others in the inner circle who helped make

“Michael Bloomberg is the dream candidate for the independent movement.”

—National Independence Party Chair Frank MacKay. needs only to keep doing the job of New York City mayor to stay very much in the public spotlight and needs only to make

him mayor, have the skills to make a real presidential race, Sheinkopf said, and Bloomberg’s billions have the power to make the candidacy possible.

“We have never experienced the kind of campaign that Michael Bloomberg could run if he decides to participate,” Sheinkopf said. “We have never experienced the kind of resources a Michael Bloomberg could bring to the campaign.”

As for whether the campaign could be politically viable across the country,

CITY HALL attracting enough support to earn Bloomberg the minimum 35 percent plurality in enough states he would need to come out on top in the Electoral College, Sheinkopf said the idea is just crazy enough to work.

“Who else but a billionaire could go to the working class and tell them he can help them? Nixon went to China. Sadat went to Jerusalem. Bloomberg,” he said, “could go to Detroit.” eidovere@manhattanmedia.com

C

ichael Bloomberg has the potential to overcome many of the obstacles that conventional wisdom puts in the way of an independent presidential campaign.

They may both be billionaires, and Bloomberg may seem poised to become the latest independent presidential candidate to self-finance, but Bloomberg is not by any means Ross Perot.

The Texas businessman seized on an odd political moment in 1992, riding widespread discontent with the economy to what was at one point a top position in the polls. But his decision to drop out of the race and then get back in months later, coupled with his somewhat manic behavior, led many to question his credibility.

“Obviously, he was a very naive candidate and turned out to be a nutcase,” said Ed Rollins, who helped manage the campaign. “But it was a phenomenon, and a lot of people who wanted an alternative to the two-party system looked to him, and they were very disillusioned.”

Rollins recalled arguing with Perot about an advertising budget, among other fights which he said revealed the candidate as completely unfamiliar with what a political campaign requires.

“He had a total naïveté about the political system,” Rollins said.

“Obviously, Michael Bloomberg doesn’t, and neither do the people around him.”

Bloomberg has proven his political potential by winning two terms as a Republican mayor of ultra-Democratic New York. He has proven his management and governing potential, covering everything from turning around the post-Sept. 11 economy to beginning to reform the public schools. Going into the 1992 race, Perot had neither.

John Anderson, the former Republican congressman from Illinois and 1980 independent presidential candidate, said that distinction will be essential.

“He didn’t have what Bloomberg has,” Anderson said, referring to Perot.

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“He didn’t have a record of accomplishment in public office, of actually solving problems as a day-to-day administrator of government. I think Perot, even though he poured a lot of money into his campaign, he didn’t measure up to the mark that I would establish for someone to run a government.”

But enter the realists: Bloomberg is a short, Jewish billionaire divorcé from New York. Just about any political consultant in the country would say that any one of those factors would be enough to knock him out of contention.

But then look at the rest of the field.

There has never been a female president in the 230-year history of this country, nor even a serious female contender in the top spot. Plus, as those familiar with the conventional wisdom know full well, sitting senators rarely win the White House—that has happened only twice in history, and not for almost half a century.

And yet Hillary Clinton is the candidate of the Democratic establishment, and, for most watching the developing race, the favorite to win it all.

Then there is former Vice President Al Gore. Rarely in history has a party nominated an unsuccessful candidate again. Rarely in history has the man who won the popular vote not won in the Electoral College. But then again, only once in history has the Supreme Court decided an election. Now the reinvented Gore has a Nobel Peace Prize to put on his shelf next to his Oscar and Emmy. A latecomer campaign would probably not be the strangest thing in American political history, but it certainly would not be steeped in conventional wisdom.

Things look even stranger on the Republican side. Forget about how the twice-elected vice president is not even in the running, or that a two-term administration has failed to produce any clear political heir. The party which has for years been a coalition of social conservatives, Christian activists, hardline

SCOTT WILLIAMS

How He Wins

right-wingers, gun rights advocates, foreign policy hawks and the urban-suspicious seems ready to anoint Rudolph Giuliani, the thrice-married, pro-choice lapsed Catholic who endorsed Mario Cuomo and stricter anti-gun provisions while mayor of New York and appeared on Saturday Night Live, among other places, in a dress.

The old white establishment Protestants, the ones who fit the mold of our 43 presidents to date, sit in the back of the pack, watching the race whiz by them.

So there is no rule book. Not for 2008, anyway.

But if he does decide to take on the major party nominees, Bloomberg will be able to learn from Perot’s run. The results of the 1992 race, when Perot spent $65.6 million dollars of his fortune to win 19 percent of the vote but not a single stake in the Electoral College are often used to discredit the prospects of a Bloomberg presidential run. But Bloomberg spent more than Perot did on each of his mayoral campaigns, and has indicated that he could commit $1 billion to running.

So the better comparison from 1992 might be to Bill Clinton, who got 43 percent of the vote, and then 370 votes in the Electoral College. Clinton was the Democratic nominee, but his campaign cost only about $130 million.

Bloomberg could easily spend 10 times as much, and he only needs a 35 percent plurality against two candidates in a handful of states to win. With the possibility that the Democrats and

Republicans could face a challenge from another candidate representing the far reaches of his or her party’s ideological base, the likelihood of this increases.

Micah Sifry, author of Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America, does not believe Bloomberg will run, but sees how victory might be possible.

“Could he win? Of course. If Giuliani’s the Republican nominee and Hillary’s the Democratic nominee, the New York thing is neutralized. All the regional things about him coming from New York are neutralized, because they all do,” he said. “It’s anybody’s guess what the dynamics would be, but starting out, certainly he has a shot.”

In fact, said Angus King, the former independent governor of Maine and member of the board of directors of Unity08, the Electoral College system could work in favor of an independent candidate, particularly one with the funding Bloomberg would be able to provide.

“The idea that this is some sort of crazy idea that can’t happen, I don’t think makes any sense,” he said.

But, King said, Bloomberg must wage a national campaign, competing in states across the country.

“If you’re a national candidate with appeal across the country that has a reasonable chance of winning a majority in a lot of states, what the heck?” he added. “I don’t think the Electoral College is a problem.”

—EIRD eidovere@manhattanmedia.com

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Do You Know the Button Man?

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

Mort Berkowitz decorates lapels from coast to coast and in key primary states

Mort Berkowitz owns the largest Adlai Stevenson button collection in the country, and he estimates his own political button-making business has churned out 25,000 different buttons since 1972.

BY DAN RIVOLI

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ITCH,

I WANNA DESIGN A button: ‘Happy Birthday Hillary.’ It’s her 60th birthday,” says prolific button maker Mort Berkowitz into his speakerphone.

“We’ll do a 60th,” responds Mitch Kuhn, a designer from Michigan.

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“Thanks, man.”

Soon, vendors from across the nation will decorate their tables with another button for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D) presidential campaign, one of the already 400 political buttons Berkowitz’s company has designed for the 2008 presidential election season. His buttons will be displayed across the nation, including in key

primary states.

In addition to vendors, Berkowitz sells merchandise to local political clubs who then sell it to the general public. The practice is a deviation from a time when national party organizations would sell buttons to the local chapters, which were then given away for free.

His buttons—he says he has made more than 25,000 since 1972—vary from traditional: “Keep Hope Alive Obama–President–2008,” to irreverent: “The Flaw in the Theory of White Supremacy” above a picture of President George W. Bush to amusing “I Only Sleep With Republicans” (a Democratic version is also available).

And no politician is spared from a campaign button. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (RGa.) and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Unaffil.) have 2008 presidential campaign buttons even though each has tamped down on rumors that he would enter the race.

“Everyone you can think of, there’s a button here,” Berkowitz said.

During each presidential cycle, Berkowitz and his colleagues examine the field of candidates who could make a run four years later. In 2004, Berkowitz, looking ahead to 2008, designed a button for former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

When campaign season begins, Berkowitz’s company, Bold Concepts, sells buttons wholesale to retailers in major cities, like Boston and New York City. The company also organizes street fairs where vendors can sell buttons.

When Berkowitz is commissioned to design a button, any politician or party is fair game.

However, if Berkowitz’s office is an indication of his political beliefs, he is unmistakably liberal. The walls are decorated with a pencil sketch of President Franklin Roosevelt (D) and campaign posters from his polit-

ical idol: two-time Democratic presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson—though Berkowitz does have a thick book on his shelf about the man who beat Stevenson twice, Dwight Eisenhower (R).

In 1956, a young Berkowitz shared the stage with Stevenson at a rally for Brooklyn Democrats. “It’s corny to say it changed my life,” Berkowitz said. “But I went on to have one of the largest Stevenson campaign button collections in the country.”

Berkowitz was an active member in the Brooklyn Democratic and Liberal Party club. His father was a trade unionist, and he comes from a family where the only split allegiances were over baseball—each of the male Berkowitz’s rooted for a different New York City team. Mort Berkowitz was the Dodgers fan.

While volunteering for the last campaign of Rep. William Fitts Ryan (DManhattan) in 1972, Berkowitz went from button collector to creator. He turned his craft into a business during the Watergate hearings, and soon joined his first presidential campaign, that of Democratic nominee George McGovern.

With open fields for the Republican and Democratic presidential nominations, Berkowitz has been busy. The steel shelves in his office are packed with numbered yellow and blue plastic containers, filled with buttons.

But he has trouble finding some of the ones he wants to show off with pride. “The difficulty in showing my buttons,” he said, “is that I run out of them so quickly.” danrivoli@gmail.com

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OCTOB ER 2007

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Comrie Hopes for Weight Loss Gains

BY ELIE MYSTAL COMRIE IS A BIG MAN IN New York City politics. He is the deputy majority leader for the New York City Council, and he is expected to be a major contender for Queens borough president in 2009. The Council member put himself, all 6’1’’, 335 pounds of him, directly behind the cause of public health when he announced last month he was taking The 50 Million Pound Challenge.

Comrie, who said his weight has been a factor in his public and private life, talked of people, especially children, looking at him scornfully. Going forward, he does not want to be connected with

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INT. 607 A Local Law to amend the New York City Charter, in relation to accepting legally blind applicants for New York City Disability Parking Permits.

SPONSOR: Joseph Addabbo Jr. (D-Queens) “This is a great snapshot of how government should work,” said Addabbo.

He was approached by an elderly blind man at a Democratic club meeting who was having difficulty Bills on the burner for the Council attaining a handicap parking pass for his driver.

Without the pass, the driver could not park close enough to certain facilities for the man.

Addabbo approached the mayor’s office to see if changes could be made administratively that would ease the process of acquiring a parking pass. The administration, however, was less than receptive, Addabbo said.

The Queens Democrat said he is confident the measure will pass. “It’s not a financial burden on anyone of any great proportion,” he contended.

But more so, this is an example of how government should serve the public. “One person has an issue,” Addabbo said, “and that’s enough for me.”

—AJH

:

ON THE

any of the negative stereotypes associated with the overweight or obese.

“People have tried to project a negative self image onto me because of this,” he said. “I’m pushing past that now.”

Comrie also wants to lose weight because he has been running out of energy lately. He said that at the end of the day, his aches and pains have become more intense.

“I just want to be healthy,” said Comrie.

Michael Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and dark horse GOP presidential candidate, can attest to the political upside of extreme weight loss. Before his national campaign began, he was already a moderate celebrity for losing 110 pounds while governor and writing a bestseller, Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork about the process. In his campaign speeches in Iowa and New Hampshire, he regularly refers to the loss as a jumping off point for stump speeches.

Huckabee placed second in a the summer straw poll and a recent statewide poll put him in third place, ahead of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R).

Whether weight loss will have a similar effect on the Queens borough president race in 2009 is unclear. Political consultant Joseph Mercurio resisted the notion that elections turn on cosmetic issues, citing the examples from the pudgy Fiorello LaGuardia to the short Michael Bloomberg, both of whom won

DAMION REID PHOTO

With 50 Million Pound Challenge, Queens BP candidate hopes for Huckabee-esque boost

Legendary R&B singer Freddie Jackson congratulates Council Member Leroy Comrie after his announcement that he has joined the 50 Million Pound Challenge. wide margins in races for mayor.

Comrie has a record to run on which will marginalize discussion of weight, Mercurio argued.

Mercurio said that losing weight is one of a number of steps smart politicians should take. At the outset of elections, he said, politicians should go to the gym, buy new clothes and get a check-up.

The 50 Million Pound Challenge attracted a lot of local media attention before Comrie joined, due in part to its public support from high profile area celebrities like Giants defensive end Michael Strahan and musician Wyclef Jean.

The challenge seeks to promote awareness of the health dangers associated with obesity in the AfricanAmerican community. Comrie was particularly attracted to its minority focus

because of the high rates of obesity within the African-American community.

Comrie said that his goal of losing weight is separate from the Queens borough president race. But he does intend to keep the national challenge focused on Queens by using Queen Hospital’s “Healthy Family Lifestyles” diet program.

Constituents and prospective voters can track his progress online through the challenge’s website.

But he says he knows that when campaigning for his next job, he can have a bigger impact by slimming down.

“People are very image conscious, especially in my field,” said Comrie. “I’ve been told privately by people that if I want to continue in my field, I better look better.” emystal@manhattanmedia.com

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OCTOBER 2007

IMAGEMAKERS

Starkey said--expertise in polling, which he called the firm’s specialty. “The people who know polling know Bob Sullivan is the best,” he said. “He’s a bona fide genius, a quiet genius.”

Sullivan said the key to successful polling and political forecasting was not only in the construction of questions, but also in accurately interpreting the answers.

“It’s a psychological interview in that you have to try to get a spontaneous and undecorated opinion from somebody,” he said, adding that he thought polling in general had improved as pollsters have learned to keep their own biases at bay.

Assembly member. Since then, he has served as state attorney general, school board president and, since 2002, a City Council member.

He admits that he has given some thought to the possibility of making a second run, though his entry is unlikely.

“I haven’t ruled anything out, but probably not,” Koppel said.

He added that he felt a non-Latino candidate would have trouble winning borough-wide.

“It’s never impossible, but the borough is so heavily Hispanic now,” he said.

“Given what we know about ethnic voting patterns, it probably couldn’t happen.”

In 2001, June Eisland faced Carrión and then-State Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. in the Democratic primary for the seat. With two decades on the Council and a strong

reputation, Eisland came in third, with about 22 percent of the vote.

Still, some familiar with the borough say that a Diaz-Rivera clash of the titans might throw the race to a non-Latino candidate.

“The potential is there,” said George Friedman, the former Bronx Assembly Member and Democratic Party boss, who noted that Diaz and Rivera were very popular and would have the ability to raise money and run a strong campaign.

“If the Latino candidates see their votes split, it could make room for someone else to slip in.”

Democratic political consultant Jerry Skurnik disagreed, arguing that such predictions of sharp ethnic splits almost never come to pass. He pointed to last year’s defeat of City Council Member David Yassky in the Democratic primary

to succeed Rep. Major Owens (DBrooklyn). Though Yassky was well-funded and faced three African-American candidates, he still placed second.

An even better example, said Skurnik, is the 1992 defeat of Rep. Stephen Solarz, who not only faced five Latino challengers but also raised the most money of all contenders. Nonetheless, Solarz was defeated

by Rep. Nydia Velázquez in the newlydrawn district, ending his 18-year congressional career.

“In theory, the split-vote idea works, but it very rarely happens that way,” said Skurnik. “Voters aren’t stupid.

They don’t necessarily split evenly along racial lines.” jd903@aol.com Direct letters to the editor to cityhall@manhattanmedia.com.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

for the State Senate and Assembly. The firm has also worked for candidates such as Tom Suozzi, Mark Green and Christine Quinn, and ran the 2001 public advocate campaign of Norman Siegel.

Starkey, who was a columnist for the International Herald Tribune in Paris before joining Cuomo’s staff, called the Perfect Pitch style “minimalist.” “We don’t have any of the advantages the celebrity consultants have,” he said.

“There’s not too much glitz here.”

The firm, which normally retains three or four clients at a time, does have one distinct advantage over the competition

While things were going well at the firm, Starkey decided in early 2007 that Perfect Pitch needed a change.

He decided to combine his dual loves of baseball and politics and launched The Nub, a daily blog on the firm’s website, www.perfectpitcher.org. Blending politics, international affairs and, above all, baseball, the Nub has gained notable attention since launching, earning praise from many, including Bill Moyers.

Like many serious baseball fans, Starkey imbues the game with particular importance. “Baseball is a reflection of society in so many ways,” he said.

But unlike most baseball fans, perhaps, Starkey also sees a strong connection between the game and politics. The two can reflect each other, he said, particularly when it comes to money.

“Money is so important in politics and so important in baseball,” he said. “Every year the Yankees make the playoffs, they buy their way into the playoffs. And Hillary Clinton is leading in the money raising.”

The firm does not demand their clients be baseball fans. “But it helps,” Starkey said. “Baseball is key to making friends out of acquaintances. It’s a common thread, a common interest that is so deeply rooted that it’s remarkable.”

Starkey’s baseball predictions on The Nub have at times been as prescient as his political ones. In a post last April, he saw the eventual collapse of the Mets coming and wrote that they were doomed because of a weak pitching staff.

“Everyone was saying ‘The Mets,’” Starkey said. “And I said, ‘I’m a Mets fan, but I’m not a blind Mets fan.’”

With the Yankees’ loss to Cleveland, New Yorkers are without a team in the post-season, but The Nub continues to track the politico-baseball beat. And the lineup for the pennants and World Series is fine with him, Starkey said. He likes the Red Sox more than the Bronx Bombers anyway. jamespcaldwell@gmail.com Direct letters to the editor to cityhall@manhattanmedia.com.

The Yankees and Mets are done for the season, but Bob Sullivan, Laura Olkowski and Dick Starkey at Perfect Pitch are still batting for their clients.

In the Swing of It Blending politics and baseball, Perfect Pitch focuses on small client roster

BY JAMES CALDWELL STARKEY, MARIO CUOMO’S press secretary and head speechwriter, and Bob Sullivan, the former governor’s pollster of 15 years, began Perfect Pitch Communications in March 1995, in the aftermath of Cuomo’s 1994 reelection loss.

The firm, whose name reflects its cofounders’ love of baseball, was first retained to promote smaller high schools in New York City. Today Starkey, Sullivan and Laura Olkowski, the firm’s third member, work mostly on political campaigns

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Bronx BP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

does not face term limits until 2013, Vacca is generally considered potentially the strongest white candidate. He enjoys popularity among black and Latinos from his years as a community board district manager for a collection of diverse neighborhoods from Throggs Neck to Co-op City.

Though less forceful than Foster, Vacca cited his successes so far on the Council, and left the door open to a potential run.

Vacca said he “will remain open to all opportunities which arise, that will enable me to have an even more substantial influence over the future direction of our city.”

G. Oliver Koppell first ran for borough president in 1979 as a reform-minded

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CITY HALL

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Skirting the Issues Women’s Campaign Forum initiative aims to encourage female candidates

BY LEAH NELSON DWYER, A REPUBLICAN who represented New Jersey in Washington between 1957-1973, famously said, “a Congresswoman must look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, speak on any given subject with authority and most of all work like a dog.”

The Women’s Campaign Forum is asking women to embrace that challenge, and is racing to get 1,000 pro-choice women nominated to run for public office before its national She Should Run campaign concludes at the end of October.

The West Village’s Stacy Schneider is already on board. A long-time fan of the Forum, she frequently attended panels and events and knew of the campaign even before it started. So she was not completely surprised when her husband

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working among a younger crowd.

Though the contents of the women’s agenda may have shifted since the days of bra-burning and Betty Friedan, Schneider believes the agenda still exists. Education, health care and shifting employers’ expectations of new parents are among the issues that female candidates are more likely to be concerned about than men, she said.

“Because of the basic construct of the family, it’s women who are dealing with them on a day-to-day basis,” Schneider said.

Julie Menin, president of Manhattan Community Board 1, mother of three and honorary chair of She Should Run understands that all too well. Breathless from dropping her sons off at nursery school— “They have a separation thing, you know”—she managed to squeeze in a few minutes to talk before getting started on

OCTOB ER 2007

Coming Next Month:

Banking & Finance Issue Forum

with Political perspective from Congress Woman Carolyn Maloney Chair of the House Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee

Assembly Member Daryl Towns Chair of the Assembly Banks Committee

“We’ve long been impressed by the research that says women win as much as men when they run,” said Women’s Campaign Forum president Ilana Goldman. “We thought, how do we make sure women get that nudge?” began a drive to have her friends call in to the Forum to support her nomination.

At first she thought it was “cute.” But as more and more people expressed excitement about the idea, her enthusiasm grew as well.

“It was really exciting,” she said.

A She Should Run nomination does not specify an office, nor does Schneider’s acceptance require her to seek one. Rather, explained Campaign Forum President Ilana Goldman, the campaign’s purpose is to get women thinking about the options that appeal to them and let them know that education and support is out there should they decide to run for public office.

“We’ve long been impressed by the research that says women win as much as men when they run,” said Goldman.

“We thought, how do we make sure women get that nudge?”

Schneider’s fans think she should run, but the 31-year-old litigator is not sure she will. “Maybe down the road, but I’m not there now,” she said. “It’s certainly something that I would discuss at length.”

Right now, she is busy with other projects. A modern-day suffragette, Schneider is devoted to getting young women involved in the political process early. She runs a Facebook group called “I’m a girl and I vote” to promote political awareness and civic involvement, and facilitate net-

the daily tasks that have made a full-time job out of her community board presidency for the area including Ground Zero.

“We certainly have a lot of unique challenges in our neighborhood,” said Menin. “I’ve tried to take the board in a very proactive direction.”

The Women’s Campaign Forum and New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service will sponsor a more formal discussion of the female agenda at the Oct. 23 panel “Politics and the ‘F’ Word: Does Feminism Matter?” Panelists include Menin; Ann Lewis, who serves as a senior advisor to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D) presidential campaign; and US Weekly editor Janice Min. She Should Run officially ends Oct. 30. Up to 1,000 candidates nominated before then will receive personal phone calls from Forum researchers and be invited to participate in a first round of national conference calls and regional support activities.

But the Women’s Campaign Forum sees She Should Run as the kickoff to an ongoing campaign to help women considering a run for public office get the support they need.

“There will not be a day in the year,” Goldman said, “ that we won’t want to hear of a talented woman waiting to make a difference in her community.” leahanelson@yahoo.com

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State Senator Hugh Farley Chair of the State Senate Banks Committee

Reach every elected official in New York City and all of New York State legislature.

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OCTOBER 2007

Pushing for an Upstate Uptick

BY JOHN R.D. CELOCK NEW YORK GOVERNOR for the last three decades has grappled with the upstate region’s transformation into what has been called the runway of tears: once college educated, many of the region’s young professionals are forced to move out of state in order to find a job.

The manufacturing base has fled. Local leaders continue to hold out hope for a resurgence. But the population decline continues in what some see as a death spiral.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) has tried a different approach. In addition to splitting the state’s economic development agency in two, to deal with upstate and downstate concerns, he has charged his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, with spearheading work on the issue.

Noting that job creation needs to come first, Wall Spitzer said the only way to anchor young professionals upstate is to enhance the cultural, volunteer and social opportunities in an overall improvement of the quality of life. She calls the initiative “I Live New York.”

“What we are doing is looking at it as being about jobs and the economy and having livable communities,” Wall Spitzer said.

“What we are looking at is not one economic development strategy that can be imposed on the state. There is no magic wand.”

Spitzer’s upstate economic development czar, Dan Gunderson, said the regional approach is what is differing this administration’s approach from that of former Gov. George Pataki (R). He has been working with local leaders to develop the separate regional plans, which he said will include

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regular meetings between state officials and business leaders to discuss the business climate. This approach copies Pennsylvania, where Gunderson was the number two economic development official, in which state officials have at least one 90-minute meeting with each of 10,000 business owners annually.

Gunderson said he plans on building on the Pataki administration’s center for excellence initiative, where the private sector and universities partnered on various science-related programs to stimulate economic growth, including bioinformatics in Buffalo and photonics in Rochester. But he said that he wants to grow the initiative so the impact of each center is not just regional, but statewide in nature. Outside of this, he wants to change the way the state views economic issues.

“Our approach from an economic development perspective has been to look at economic development as real estate transactions,” Gunderson said. “We need to be more up-to-date with noting industrial trends. We need to be more proactive.”

Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino (R) said state mandates, notably Medicaid costs, have caused county taxes to rise, in turn putting a stranglehold on the county’s ability to promote itself as a business destination. According to her calculations, 84 cents of every county tax dollar pays for state and federal mandates, leaving her with only 16 cents to split between economic development, public safety, infrastructure and other county services. Jimino noted that while she been able to recruit business with the county’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and nanotechnology programs, she would

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

As Wall Spitzer focuses on livable community, tax rates and business laws remain major concerns

Silda Wall Spitzer is spearheading the Spitzer administration’s efforts on upstate economic development. like to be able to spend more.

Assembly Member Robin Schimminger (D-Erie/Niagara), chair of the Assembly’s Economic Development Committee, said an unfriendly business climate has kept business away from upstate. Aside from being home to some of the highest tax rates in the country, Schimminger said, there are a slew of laws he sees as unfriendly to business which need to be addressed, such as Section 240 of the state labor law, which places companies at blame for construction workers who fall off of scaffolds while working on capital projects.

Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks (R) agreed.

“New York State needs to wave a banner

ries. Armed with that informahis past June, Vermont tion, companies can tailor their passed a law that promotions to specific doctors. would prohibit the Data mining companies use of patient prescription have already blocked the New information for commerHampshire law, which is simicial purposes. The Vermont lar to Vermont’s, by making a law is similar to one being successful challenge in federal considered by the New court on First Amendment York Assembly. Versions of grounds, by ruling that these the prohibition have companies can use the pubalready passed in Maine

By Elie Mystal licly available information in and New Hampshire. marketing.

Supporters of the new Sponsors of the Vermont legislation modified their legislation contend that the practice of data mining (also called “detailing”) raises the cost of prescriptions law in response to the ruling.

“We studied the New Hampshire court decision in drugs by encouraging physicians to prescribe expengreat detail and tailored our bill to address the court’s sive medications.

Harry Chen (D), a member of the Vermont House of concerns,” Chen wrote.

In addition to the First Amendment issues, the court Representatives and a practicing physician, contends that pharmaceutical companies spend more money on reviewing the New Hampshire case also suggested that marketing than on research and development. Chen consumer health was promoted by drug companies’ called data mining a particularly effective marketing aggressive marketing tactics. The court was not pertechnique, and explained that he and other legislators suaded by the public policy concerns offered by New had felt pressure from local doctors to stop the practice. Hampshire lawmakers.

Assembly Member Kevin Cahill (D-Ulster/Dutchess) Data mining allows drug companies to gather information about physicians’ individual prescription histo- paid close attention to these proceedings. Over the last

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Montpelier, Vermont

Questionable Prognosis on Prescription Drug Marketing Legislation

that says we are open to business,” she said.

Gunderson and Wall Spitzer said these concerns are very much on the minds of people in the administration. They have helped create an economic development cabinet to address interagency concerns and the reduction of state business taxes in the current state budget. Wall Spitzer also argued that the worker’s compensation reform package passed earlier in the year should be seen as part of Spitzer’s businessfriendly program. “Everything that I am doing is to build on the entire administration’s plan,” Wall Spitzer said.

Wall Spitzer said she hopes to put upstate on the path of her native North Carolina, which experienced many of the same issues as manufacturing jobs left and the agriculture sector declined. After investing in medical research in the Raleigh/Chapel Hill area, North Carolina now ranks as the top destination for many upstate young professionals after college.

“It followed a similar trajectory as upstate,” Wall Spitzer said. “It was bringing a focus to the issues and taking strategic steps on the issues to follow that.”

For now, she and Gunderson insist they are still very much in the planning stages, meeting with groups in various regions to develop the plans they will be implementing. They said that no matter what, the turnaround of upstate will necessarily be gradual.

“I am under no illusion that this is an easy solution,” Wall Spitzer said. “It will be ongoing, but over time I believe the changes we make will have a real impact.” johncelock@aol.com Direct letters to the editor to cityhall@manhattanmedia.com.

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few months, as Cahill reworked the similar bill he introduced for New York in April, he considered various legal objections to anti-data mining legislation. His bill contains an expanded legislative intent section, a signal that courts are not allowed to substitute judicial policy beliefs for those of an elected body. The finished bill is expected to be in front of the Assembly early next year.

Cahill argues that data mining diminishes the role of doctors in prescribing medication, and that strongarmed marketing tactics have not advanced the cause of patient health and safety.

He believes that data mining is a contributing factor to the rising cost of health care. According to Cahill, with prescription drugs already the most expensive component of health care spending, the higher prices caused by data mining put more pressure on consumers. “To contain those costs, we have an obligation to deal with health care, and we can’t do that without getting prescription drugs under control,” he said.

Fundamentally, Cahill understands that pharmaceutical companies will market their products through every available avenue, and that the cost of the marketing is passed on to consumers.

“When people paying prescription drug prices are picking up the tab,” said Cahill “that’s the problem.” emystal@manhattanmedia.com

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OCTOB ER 2007

On Sept. 26, elected officials, staffers and others from across the political community gathered at Commerce Bank’s City Hall branch to celebrate the 2007 Rising Stars, profiled in the September issue of City Hall.

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OCTOB ER 2007

On Sept. 26, elected officials, staffers and others from across the political community gathered at Commerce Bank’s City Hall branch to celebrate the 2007 Rising Stars, profiled in the September issue of City Hall.

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OCTOBER 2007

EDITORIAL

Saying Too Little—And Too Much www.cityhallnews.com President/CEO: Tom Allon tallon@manhattanmedia.com

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art of being an elected official is being open and transparent. Part of being a responsible elected official is having a sense of what to talk about, and when.

Sometimes Mayor Michael Bloomberg needs to be reminded about the value of transparency, as when he took off to France and England in September and initially declined to say whom he was leaving in charge of the city. With First Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris going along for the trip, the chain of command they left behind them in New York City was far from apparent, and, at first, Bloomberg made no attempt to make it clear.

Though the mayor is absolutely right to point out that were something to happen, no ocean he crossed would be too wide for a cell phone signal to bridge, he seemed all too sure that he will be available on the other end of the phone to give directions. But in this day and age, we can imagine how there might simultaneously be a crisis in New York which needed his attention and one in London which

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ODDS&Ends

prevented him from being able to get on the phone and give that attention.

But while often frustrating and occasionally disheartening, the mayor’s reticence can be a refreshing contrast to the many government officials who feel the need to make statements on anything and everything.

Few New Yorkers are fans of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a significant number of them were disqui-

penal system in small town Louisiana do not have anything to do with the responsibilities of the City Council, Assembly or State Senate. Every minute that elected officials devote to considering issues beyond their jurisdiction is a minute they are not spending trying to work out solutions to the city’s still troubled schools or the five borough affordable housing crisis or the basics of repaving potholes.

Elected officials certainly have the

Should employees receiving government salaries send out such statements using government computers to email lists compiled on government time? eted by the platform Columbia University gave him to speak. There are not many New Yorkers who support the apparently tilted justice that led to the jailing of six teenagers in Jena, La. But does that mean that local elected officials should be sharing their thoughts about either of these topics? Or worse, should employees receiving government salaries send out such statements using government computers to email lists compiled on government time?

Probably not.

We look to our local elected officials to stay focused on the ample issues facing local government. Speaking engagements at a private university and the

right to opinions about things that fall beyond the scope of their job portfolios.

But when they take advantage of the added attention their titles bring and use staffs and resources funded by taxpayers to promote these views, they have wasted time and money and abused the public trust. Plus, these publicity grabs distract the rightful attention from the many elected officials doing commendable and substantive work at the local level.

Those in the state government are rightfully rethinking the appropriate use of government aircraft. While they are at it, New York’s elected officials at every level should reevaluate their use of government airtime, too.

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Who will win the 2008 presidential election?

Who will lose?

Who will drop out by the end of the month?

*** PRESIDENTIAL*** ***ODDS *** -------------------LAST MONTH----------CURRENTLY CURRENTLY LAST MONTH----PRICE ON ODDS ON PRICE ON ODDS ON DECLARED REPUBLICANS INTRADE LADBROKES INTRADE PRICE ON ODDS ON PRICE ON LADBROKES ODDS ON DECLARED ----------------------------------------------------------INTRADE LADBROKES INTRADE LADBROKES REPUBLICANS

JOHN MCCAIN 15.7 7 TO 1 4.9 12 TO 1 SamRUDOLPH Brownback 0.125.0 1257to 0.1 662to 1 GIULIANI TO12 38.0 9 TO TOMMYGiuliani THOMPSON39.80.4 7 toN/A 0.3 N/A Rudolph 2 37.9 4 to 1 DUNCAN HUNTER 4 0.2 50 66to TO11 0.3 66 TO 1 Mike Huckabee 3.2 50 MITT ROMNEY 23.3 10 TO 1 16.0 10 TO 1to 1 Duncan Hunter 0.1 0.8 150 0.2 33 TO 661to 1 SAM BROWNBACK 33to TO11 0.5 RON PAUL 40to TO11 2.9 50 TO John McCain 5.9 3.0 33 5 331to 1 33to TO11 1.4 RonMIKE PaulHUCKABEE 6.7 2.0 20 4.1 33 TO 401to 1 JIM GILMORE 0.1 N/A 0.1 N/A Mitt Romney 24.6 9 to 1 24.7 9 to 1 TOM TANCREDO 0.4 N/A 0.6 N/A Tom---------------------------------------------------------Tancredo 0.1 250to 1 0.1 N/A *** DATA Fred Thompson 18.5 AS OF9JULY to 2 10, 2007*** 23 100 to 30

----------------------------------------------------------

**DATA AS OF OCTOBER 9, 2007**

CURRENTLY LAST MONTH --------------------LAST MONTH----------CURRENTLY ----PRICE ON ODDS ON PRICE ON ODDS ON DECLARED PRICE ON ODDS ON PRICE ON ODDS ON DECLARED DEMOCRATS INTRADE INTRADE LADBROKES LADBROKES INTRADE INTRADELADBROKES LADBROKES DEMOCRATS ----------------------------------------------------------HILLARYBiden CLINTON Joseph BARACK OBAMA Hillary Clinton JOHN EDWARDS Chris Dodd BILL RICHARDSON CHRISEdwards DODD John JOSEPH BIDEN Mike Gravel DENNIS KUCINICH Dennis Kucinich MIKE GRAVEL Barack Obama Bill Richardson

52.0 533 TOto 4 1 43.60.6 5 TO 433 to 1 0.4 27.8 4 TO 1 39.4 4 TO 1 67.8 4 to 68.910 TO 1 5 to 6 7.3 7 TO 17 5.3 0.2 100 to 1 2.6 28 TO 1 1.90.328 TO 1 N/A N/A 0.57.2 N/A12 to 1 4 0.3 33 to 1 0.6 33150 TO 1to 1 0.60.133 TO 1 N/A 0.1 0.1 N/A 0.1 N/A 0.1 125 0.1 N/Ato 1 0.20.1 N/A N/A 11.4 14 to 1 16.8 5 to 1 0.8 50 to 1 1.2 28 to 1 --------------------LAST MONTH----------CURRENTLY-----

PRICE ON ODDS ON PRICE ON ODDS ON POTENTIAL ENTRIES INTRADE PRICE ON LADBROKES ODDS ON INTRADE PRICE ONLADBROKES ODDS ON POTENTIAL ----------------------------------------------------------INTRADE LADBROKES INTRADE LADBROKES ENTRIES

Michael Bloomberg 12.7 Newt Gingrich 5 Al Gore 40

N/A N/A 6to 1

14.9 3.1 7.1

18 to 1 N/A 12 to 1

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

OCTOB ER 2007

31

OP-ED

Chancellor Klein Continues to Say No to Smaller Class Size

BY ASSEMBLY MEMBER IVAN LAFAYETTE espite all of the rhetoric coming from City Hall and Chancellor Joel Klein, they have made it clear that there are no plans in the immediate future to utilize any of the additional state funding to reduce class size. As of this writing, the city has still yet to come up with a plan on how to reduce class size.

Did I mention that the contracts for excellence were supposed to be concluded by mid-August? Because of the irresponsible stubbornness of the city’s Department of Education, we have

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already started the new school year and there are many more children who are being forced to try achieve more, but under even worse conditions. The budget was enacted on April 1 of this year, with New York City schools receiving $714 million more than last year. Six months later, Chancellor Klein is still giving the State Education Department the runaround.

The current school year has already started and a plan is still not in place. It is an absolute slap in the face to the students and teachers who are still working and trying to teach in overcrowded classrooms.

But the Chancellor’s refusal to put a class-size reduction plan into place is not surprising. He has told me personally that he does not believe reducing class size is possible because he would have to build new schools. By the way the state would pay for 50 percent of the cost of these new schools. This means he would then have to hire 500 additional teachers over five years. Chancellor Klein also said that he did not believe any teachers would even want to be placed in “those” new schools because they would be built in the most overcrowded areas, which is code for saying minority areas. Mayor

Pre-School Funding Must be Utilized by New York City

BY NEAL TEPEL umerous studies demonstrate that investing in quality early childhood education provides large benefits to children and communities. Those youngsters who participate in pre-school education are more likely to achieve success in life. Adults that have not had the opportunity to begin schooling at an early age are more likely to commit crimes later on. With funding for pre-kindergarten programs allocated by New York State and space available in day care and head start centers as well as other nonprofit programs, many more 3and 4-year-old children can be provided with early schooling.

Data from the long-term study conducted by the High/Scope Educational Foundation on the Perry Preschool in Ypsilanti, Mich, shows benefits of early childhood education last long into adulthood. More than 35 years after they received the enriched pre-K program, research has documented major gains for Perry Preschool participants versus comparable children who did not participate in the program in three areas—crime, education and economics. Specifically, the High Scope/Perry Preschool study documented a return to society of more than $17 for every tax dollar invested in high-quality early childhood care and education. * Crime prevention gains: children denied high quality pre-K were four times more likely to be arrested for drug felonies in their lifetime; more than twice as likely to become “career criminals” with 10 or more arrests by age 40; twice as likely to be arrested three or more times for a violent crime; and almost seven times more likely to be arrested for possession of dangerous drugs. * Educational gains: children participat-

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ing in the program were less likely to repeat a grade (21 percent versus 41 percent); more likely to graduate from high school (65 percent versus 45 percent); and more likely to score higher on various intellectual and language tests during their early childhood years, on school achievement tests between ages 9 and 14 and on literacy tests at ages 19 and 27. * Economic gains: as adults, children who participated in the program were more likely to be employed (76 percent versus 62 percent); more likely to earn higher wages

should be re-appropriated and continue to be available so program implementation at centers can take place throughout the year as needed.

To Mayor Bloomberg’s credit, he has set up an Early Education Policy Steering Committee to ensure that there is greater coordination among City agencies, including the Department of Education (DOE), the Administration for Children’s Services, the Human Resources Association and the Department of Health. The mayor appears committed to maximize UPK funding so as many four-year-olds as possible can be enrolled. Since space is limited in public schools, community-based organizations become an essential vehicle for program delivery. But the City DOE must simplify the process for the city budget office, offering technical support and more flexible funding guidelines. Day care and head start centers should have the ability to start programs as needed. In order for the budget office to operate successfully, funding must continue to supplement and not supplant other sources revenue.

While there are great challenges in utilizing the millions of dollars allocated to New York City for universal pre-kindergarten programs, day care centers and other early childhood operations must be provided the necessary assistance in completing applications and modifying facilities. Not one dollar should be wasted or returned of the $60 million allocated to New York City. Community leaders and public officials need to do whatever it takes so every young child in our great city is provided with a quality education in preparation for life.

The New York State Education Department, which administers the pre-K funds, needs to do a better job assisting the localities in utilizing the dollars. ($20,800 versus $15,300); and more likely to own their own home and have a savings account (75 percent versus 50 percent).

Gov. Spitzer and the Legislature added a total of $146 million for preschool in this year’s budget in the first year of an intended multiyear expansion. Spitzer has made providing preschool to all 4-year-olds a priority.

The money has already been allocated on a district-by-district basis throughout the state but communities have had difficulties accessing the funds.

The New York State Education Department, which administers the pre-K funds, needs to do a better job assisting the localities in utilizing the dollars.

Funding discretion is necessary so districts can plan for a mix of full and partday programming. Start-up and infrastructure expenses need to be included in the funding formula. Unspent dollars

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Neal Tepel is president of the Civil Service Merit Council.

Assembly Member Ivan Lafayette Bloomberg has subsequently stated that in this years’ quest for new teachers they were overwhelmed by the response from quality teachers who want to work in New York City.

It is apparent that many experienced teachers would, in fact, want to work in these new schools. These new schools would have the most modern technology and security, and they would be ideal places for quality teachers to educate our children.

The creation of new seats is the best way to reduce class size. However, immediately one can almost get the same benefit by placing an additional teacher in an overcrowded classroom.

Figures provided to me from the State Department of Education show just how few new schools have actually been constructed over the last five years in New York City, with a majority of these schools being initiated by the previous administration.

The law passed this year authorizes that state to provide New York City with an additional $283 million to carry out the goal of smaller class size.

Chancellor Klein’s foot-dragging will not only cost the city money, but it will cheat the children out of a quality learning experience.

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Ivan Lafayette is a Democrat representing parts of Queens in the Assembly and deputy speaker of the Assembly.

welcomes submissions to the op-ed page. A piece should be maximum 650 words long, accompanied by the name and address of the author, and submitted via email to cityhall@manhattanmedia.com to be considered.

32

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

OCTOBER 2007

“In a building like this, you had 60 families and all of them cooking,” he explained. “So you can imagine the different flavors. Each floor had a different scent.”

2 Growing up, work and home were synonymous for Golden. His father was the building’s superintendent (he also worked as a mason to support the family), and Golden spent his childhood helping with the building’s constant upkeep.

At a young age, he was shoveling coal out of the boilers to keep the apartments heated in winter. He worked the incinerators to burn garbage, which three days a week he would haul out to the corner in 30 to 40 heavy steel garbage cans. In the fall, he would remove the window screens from every window in the building, label them and store them in the basement. In April, they would be cleaned and painstakingly replaced.

The hard work and responsibility made a strong impression on Golden.

still rattle off the names of some families who lived in his building—the Balls, the Redpaths, the Cohens.

“You always remember the ones that tipped well, too,” he said. “If you went in and put the screens on the window, they’d take care of you, or if you went in and the sink was leaking, you’d change it for them. People were very, very kind to us. With eight kids, Dad had no problem in keeping us keeping the place clean.”

In addition to working in his building, Golden had a range of jobs around the neighborhood, including a paper route and an entrepreneurial stint selling soda and popcorn to people waiting in their cars to board the 69th Street ferry. At 15, he went to work at the A&P a few blocks away, earning 75 cents an hour and working 40 hours a week while attending high school at the New York School of Printing.

“Life was different,” Golden said. “You had to do what you had to do. At the end of the week you made some dollars, which

THE STREETS

A trip back to the old block with Marty Golden

2 Before representing his childhood neighborhood in City Council, and later the State Senate, where he is serving his third term, Golden spent 10 years in the NYPD. His work with the Brooklyn South Task Force occasionally brought him back into his old neighborhood. Active in combating gang violence, Golden retired in 1983 after being seriously injured making a narcotics arrest.

“I loved being a cop, and if I didn’t get hurt I’d still be a cop,” Golden said.

“Growing up here, I wanted to continue to give back.”

Despite all the changes his old neighborhood has undergone—all bound up in the loss of family homes to development—Golden said much about the area remained unchanged. Many of the original families from his building still live in the area, he said.

Golden does, too, with he and his wife and two sons still calling Bay Ridge home. They are not far from his childhood street. When he walks his old block now, he is greeted with honking from passing cars and drivers waving to him, calling out, “Hey Marty!”

PHOTOS BY EMILY BERL

WHERE THEY LIVED

be 40 or 50 guys in the streets. If you were playing football down here, you’d be playing stickball up at the other end of the street. There was always some game you could get into.”

With so much time spent working, “there wasn’t too much time to get into trouble, thank God,” Golden said.

Eventually though, he remembers the innocence of street games and hanging out in sweet shops giving way to the beginnings of gang conflict in the neighborhood— albeit with the weapon of choice being a car antennae rather than a gun or a knife.

“It was a different world,” he said.

BY JAMES CALDWELL SEN. MARTIN GOLDEN (R-Brooklyn) grew up from the age of six in apartment 1A at 6623 Ridge Blvd., a six-story brick apartment building with 60 units at the corner of 67th Street in Bay Ridge.

The eldest of eight children born within 10 years to Irish immigrant parents, Golden shared two bedrooms with his seven siblings—four to a room.

“And all sharing one bathroom,” Golden, now 57, said. “Who ever heard of two bathrooms?”

Golden said he remembered the unique skills he learned growing up in a large Irish family in a small apartment.

“The first one up was the best dressed, and the first one to the dinner table was the best fed,” he said. “Not that we ever went without food, but if you got there, you got ample portions.

Mom was a great cook.”

Cooking defined the building, Golden said.

S

State Sen. Martin Golden in front of 6623 Ridge Blvd., where he spent his formative years.

“You had to be a jack of all trades and a master of none at a very, very early age,” he said.

Those were lessons he keeps with him.

“You saw the best of people and the worst of people, and the best of times and the worst of times,” he said. “It was definitely a learning experience. You couldn’t learn that with all the books and all the classes.”

2 The building and neighborhood were filled mostly with Jewish, Irish and Italian families, Golden said. Standing outside on a recent afternoon, he could

in those days was good.

And you brought home some of it, and some of it you got to keep.”

2

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARTY GOLDEN

TATE

When there was time to play, the street outside Golden, age 9. was filled with games of Golden said his days growing up on football and sewer-to-sewer stickball.

Even though his building was only a Ridge Boulevard do not seem so long ago.

“I’m thinking how many years ago it block from Owls Head Park, the street was the preferred playing field, Golden was,” he said. “It seems like yesterday.” said.

Jamespcaldwell@gmail.com “We were street guys,” he said. “We Direct letters to the editor to weren’t in organized sports. There would cityhall@manhattanmedia.com.

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CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

OCTOB ER 2007

33

Halloween Fun with Rudy and Hillary (Masks) Dressing up like politicians is a timehonored Halloween tradition. With that in mind, and the senator and former mayor likely set to battle each other for the presidency next year, City Hall decided to use the masks to imagine a little pre-election bipartisan cooperation with a Big Apple backdrop.

In the Central Park carousel horse race.

Photographs by Emily Rosenberg.

Masqueraders: Josh Blank and Anastasia Leopold

Celebrating their day together with a kiss in Times Square.

Facing off over chess in Washington Square Park.

On the Brooklyn Bridge.

Checking in on the news while riding the 6 train.

34

OCTOBER 2007

CITY HALL

www.cityhallnews.com

EDWARD -ISAAC DOVERE

Stone for Mayor?

Former Sen. Mike Gravel, a Democratic candidate for president, visited Ecofest at Lincoln Center and met Baby and Merlin, the parrots for peace.

Polly Want a Nomination?

Former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, a Democratic candidate for president, stopped at the 19th annual Ecofest held at Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park Sept.

30. Gravel, whose campaign is based on the theme of taking governing power away from elected officials and giving it to the general populace, told the crowd that he believes he could, if elected president, get America off oil dependence in five years and off carbon entirely in 10.

Gravel said he believes if he can raise $10 million and be on the primary ballot in a few states, he will win. “My message is so unusual,” he said.

Referring to Hillary Clinton, the New York senator and frontrunner for

the Democratic nomination in national polls, he added “If I can get on the ballot in New York, Hillary aside, I stand a chance of winning.”

Gravel’s first experience with New York came while he was an undergraduate at Columbia University. While in school, he worked as a clerk on Wall Street and drove a taxi to help pay bills.

Those years forever endeared him to New York, said Gravel.

Moreover, the experiences he has had with what he called the city’s eclectic community convinced him that an outsider campaign like his, with a noticeably different platform, will have resonance among city voters.

“I’ll be coming to Manhattan often,” he said. “New York is very important to us.

Very important.”

Gravel added that if he wins the White House next year, he would only serve one term.

“If my wife lets me, I’ll retire after my presidency to New York,” he said. Asked if he has someplace particular in mind, he said, “Riverside Drive.”

Hard-nosed GOP consultant Roger Stone is running for mayor of Ft. Lauderdale!

Wait--no, he isn’t.

Stone, better known for his alleged involvement in this summer’s expletivelaced phone call to Bernard Spitzer, father of Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), recently told a political blogger that he wanted to move to Ft. Lauderdale—he currently lives in Miami-Dade county—to run against incumbent-Mayor Jim Naugle (D).

“That was just a joke,” Stone said. “Who would vote for me? I’m too controversial.”

Stone characterizes himself as a “libertarian conservative” and a “free spirit” who “sees things my own way.”

Stone jokingly told Ron Gunzburger, the Ft. Lauderdale-based journalist who runs Politics1.com, that he thought Naugle was “too liberal.”

Naugle came under fire recently for making homophobic remarks and railing against the American Civil Liberties Union.

Stone said he feels he came out unscathed from the dust-up over the phone call to the elder Spitzer.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I continue to be an activist in the efforts to expose the Spitzer administration.”

Stringer’s Ghostwriters Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s (D) Manhattan Monthly newsletter was released to the press for the first time in October, though the first edition came out in February.

Written in the first person, the newsletter offers Stringer’s take on the Columbia University expansion, his negotiations with Con Edison and allows him to wax nostalgic about throwing out the first pitch for a Little League game.

“I was thrilled to be able to step up to the plate,” Stringer writes.

Actually, Manhattan Monthly is written

by Stringer’s communications office.

“Just like speechwriters write in the first person,” explained Stringer press secretary Carmen Boon.

Klein, Consumer Champion State Sen. Jeff Klein (D-Bronx) is angling for a reputation for sticking up

for the consumers of New York.

In just one week, Klein released a stinging report monitoring unsanitary conditions in some of the city’s hottest restaurants, and held a press conference blasting a Bronx sofa bed chain for defrauding and bullying customers.

“The senator definitely has the desire to build a reputation for being pro-consumer,” said Klein spokesman Vic Mallison. “He wants to bring these issues to light.”

Hoping for an NYC GOP Revival Jennifer Saul Yaffa, who was just reelected as chair of the Manhattan Republican Party, acknowledges the uphill battle Republicans face in blue Manhattan, but she also appears to be excited about it.

“We have enough money to work with and some really great candidates,” Yaffa said, declining to reveal the exact amount in her party’s war chest.

Yaffa, who took over as chair nine months ago, will now serve two more years. She said fundraising is her number one priority. She just started a group called the New York County Club, where for $1,000 a year members can get involved in grassroots fundraising and campaigning.

Between raising money and bolstering the party’s ranks, Yaffa is also involved in Rudy Giuliani’s (R) presidential campaign. She also has an interest in a congressional race for next year just north of New York, where her father, Andrew Saul, is planning a challenge to freshman Rep. John Hall (D-Orange/Westchester).

But she admits that Republicans have a ways to go to gain a foothold in New York.

“Right now,” Yaffa said, “we’re one of the few counties that if you call our office, someone actually answers the phone.”

—Edward-Isaac Dovere and Andrew J. Hawkins

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CITY HALL

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OCTOB ER 2007

35

: Stern Presence H

City Hall: You have been running New York Civic for five-and-a-half years. What is it that you feel New York Civic provides which other good government groups do not?

Henry Stern: Everyone in the city has ties to city government or state government. Even, what used to be a great source of independence, the non-profit community … a century ago they were the architects of change. Now, all their agencies receive substantial government contracts.

And that’s good in a way, because it means that the programs are administrated by the social worker in place of government bureaucrats. It’s good for quality of service.

But it does make social workers, or agency people or nonprofits very reluctant to take on public officials. And that’s maybe inevitable when you have broad-based groups like that. Now the courts won’t let you really deprive a group of its contracts over political opposition. There was a case, Housing Works against Mayor Giuliani, but who wants to go to court for two years to make that point?

CH: What are the origins of StarQuest?

HS: Well StarQuest, we started giving out nicknames--it was ’96, so 11 years ago. And the first instance, there was a girl who just graduated from Columbia. … Her name was Nina. But I didn’t want to call her Nina. We called her Ninja. By simply adding a letter, she had a real fierce name. Nina became Ninja, and that was on. Then there was a guy who graduated from Yale, and his name was Frank Raphael, and he was a little guy, and we called him Turtle. So we had a Ninja and a Turtle. And it went on from there, and people wanted to be named. I had to think of names. It had to be relevant, describe the person. And it just went on and on, and now we have over 10,000 kept in a book.

CH: So where did StarQuest come from?

HS: Well StarQuest is from my last name Stern. Stern is the German word for star. Star’s too short to be my nickname, you need a second syllable. So, actually, it was a Puerto Rican fellow who was my driver at the time, it just popped out of his head—“StarQuest.” And I said, “that’s it, that’s a keeper.” Because you’re on a quest, in the sense of a vision quest, journeying towards your goal. And you’re also asking questions. So it fit perfectly.

CH: Is there any sort of schedule you try to follow with writing your emails?

HS: It’s an advantage not to have a schedule, because some of these columnists, they have to think of something by Tuesday afternoon, can’t think of anything, and just get something to get it out. Whereas I say, “I’ll write Wednesday.”

CH: How long does it take to write each one?

HS: It depends on how inspired I feel. I could do one in an hour. But then it takes many hours to correct it. And what you find out is all the things that you thought were so, you have to fact check. …

I can call people and ask what’s going on, and get honest answers. So a lot of it, I sort of combine three relatively rare qualities – one is that I know a lot about government, I’ve been in it for 40 years, in six different agencies. Second, I know people. A lot of the people there I’ve worked with in different capacities, and I’ve developed relationships. Third, is that thank god I can write. Fourth, I’m willing to do it.

CH: Aside from the columns, what does New York Civic do?

HS: We’ve cosponsored forums in the past, on our own, with the Museum of the City of New-York. But there are dozens of people in the forum business. And I testify occasionally, at public hearings. But the problem is that nobody wants to hear what the public has to say at these hearings. Public hearings are largely a sham so they can eventually approve whatever they want to approve.

CH: Do you miss running the Parks Department?

HS: I’m in touch with a lot of people. I think it’s being well-run.

CH: What do you think of Adrian Benepe?

HS: He’s good. He’s one of the administration’s stars.

CH: How is the Liberal Party these days?

HS: Oh, the Liberal Party. Well, the Liberal Party is a great party with great ideas and great principles.

Unfortunately, a bad decision was made by Ray Harding when he rejected Michael Bloomberg and chose Alan Hevesi [in 2001]. That was a suicidal decision.

ANDREW SCHWARTZ

enry Stern’s position as Manhattan City Council member-at-large was abolished by the courts more than two decades ago and his last day as Parks Commissioner was nearly six years ago. But he has hardly disappeared from the public eye. Between taking over as chair of the collapsed Liberal Party, penning frequent and lengthy email commentaries and occasional columns and appearing as the guest star critic known as HS in former Mayor Ed Koch’s movie reviews, Stern’s opinions are still very much in front of New Yorkers’ eyes.

He runs the good government organization New York Civic with one assistant. He does not take a salary himself, instead relying on his city pension, and says New York Civic’s annual operating costs are in the high five figures, all raised from reader donations. Sitting in New York Civic’s one-room office, Stern discussed what he spends his days doing, the white binder where he keeps his famed list of nicknames and why he thinks people think what they do of him.

What follows is an edited transcript.

Henry Stern, standing with a campaign poster from 1965, likes to cite Rule 26-I-2—“I was not always as you see me now.” president that’s something the Liberal party would consider. We supported John Anderson for President in 1980.

CH: Many of your recent emails have taken Eliot Spitzer to task. Why have you written so much about him?

HS: All the time he’s saying he did nothing criminal. The fact is, his behavior in interpersonal relations have been sub-standard for an ordinary person. An ordinary person couldn’t run around like that, and it’s unethical for a public figure. You can’t call a senator a senile, sad sack of s__t. I mean it’s ridiculous. There’s a lot of inappropriate behavior.

CH: Do you have a nickname for him?

HS: Well, he had a nickname. His nickname originally was Moderate, years ago as attorney general. Then I asked him, years later when he started running for governor if he wanted to change it from Moderate. He picked Liberal.

CH: Is that where he is now?

HS: Yeah. We don’t just change names. A nickname is a bilateral agreement.

CH: Will the party ever rise again?

HS: We need a candidate. There aren’t people, there aren’t 50,000 people who vote for X just because he’s a Liberal Party candidate. You have to get 50,000 people who will vote on the Liberal Party line. I was urged to run as the Liberal Party candidate for governor in 2006.

And I said there’s no point in me running for governor, no rationale for such a candidacy. ...

Being an established party means that you have to have candidates for every election. Now a lot of people in office are pretty crummy. So you support them or oppose them. A lot of people aren’t worthy of support but you support them, because it works like a business: you support them and you know you have a line and they’re the best choice at the time.

CH: Is it better to have the freedom to speak as a government observer rather than government employee?

HS: I never knew what it was like to say what you wanted.

Unless you’re an elected official, you have a master. And I don’t say that in a bad way. You work for someone, you’re someone’s commissioner, you owe it to that person to support him in every way, and say what he wants you to say.

CH: So can we expect that in 2009 and 2010 there will be a resurgence of the party?

HS: Well it depends. It depends on events. If there’s a candidate in 2008, if there is an independent candidacy for

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CH: What do you make of the people who do not like you?

HS: They resent me because I’m there, speaking out.

Because, though I’m out of office, I can still be heard, influence people. … I’m not the only one who knows what I know—it’s rare, but not unique—but I can talk about it. … I think the main reason is that I’m there. It’s just like Koch: “We thought we had killed him. We thought we had killed the monster. And he’s out there saying more than he ever did before.”

—Edward-Isaac Dovere eidovere@manhattanmedia.com

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