| Tonight there were more than a few surprises at the ballot box. The Senate's longest-serving incumbent, Martin Connor was beaten by progressive newcomer, Dan Squadron. Alice Kyrzan took atvantage of the Davis-Powers mudfight to pull a Kerry in Iowa. Incubents Ed Towns and Sheldon Silver won their re-election bids by roughly 2-1. And happily, Bronx Senator Efrain Gonzalez, who is facing federal corruption charges, was defeated by fomer Councilman Pedro Espada Jr.
As I have been covering the AD-64 race with the most interest, here are a few observations. First off, Shelly does have a Republican opponent, and let me say that I wholehartedly endorse him against his Republican opponent. While we Democrats have the privilege of being picky in our primaries, even the worst Democrats are better than even the best Republicans any day. Vote Sheldon Silver in November.
Secondly, I am hoping Shelly can learn from this primary fight. Shelly had a roughly 30-1 cash advantage against his opponents, and more importantly, he had the backing of the WFP and every union that decided to endorse in that race. He also had almost every member of the Assembly and their staffs pounding the payment, taxpayer-funded constituent mailers, and $7 million worth of pork to slather his district with. Newell had 40 volunteers, zero endorsements by any elected officials, and an office rented in a dance studio. Shelly also had the downtown Democratic clubs and there were people handing out pro-Shelly literature on virtually every corner of that district today. And still 1/3 of the Democrats in his district cast votes against him. Shelly did about 10 points better than Martin Connor did in 2006 (who was facing a much better financed opponent), and we know what happened to Connor tonight.
To his credit, after Shelly's leadership was challenged from within his caucus in 2002, he got the message and changed his behavior afterwards. Let's hope he draws the same lessons from today. If he actually starts passing rules reform in his house and works with out soon-to-be Democratic Senate to pass campaign finance reform and redistricting reform, it will be because of this courageous primary challenge by Paul Newell. And let me say also, that if Shelly does these things, I will stop railing against him on a daily basis on this blog. But he has to do those things first.
On another note, the real winner tonight was the WFP. I don't think they lost a single race where they endorsed. Very impressive.
And finally, I am looking forward to having a real reformer going to Albany in January by the name of Dan Squadron. For a challenger to beat the former minority leader by almost 10 points is almost hard to describe in its impressiveness. With a victory like this, Albany will have to take notice of Squadron's 11-point plan for reform, which includes Clean Money Clean Elections, redistricting reform, and rules reform. I'm looking forward to Squadron taking this plan forward with the same force as did in his enormously successful campaign.
So celebrate tonight everyone, because we live in a democracy where we can have these discussions in public without fear of government retribiution. Even if your candidate lost, you can't argue with the voters having their say. |
