In two days, Tom Suozzi will no longer be the Nassau County executive.
After a recount and falling short by some 200 votes, Suozzi conceded defeat last month to his little-known republican challenger, Ed Mangano. Despite polls that had him up by 15 points heading into election day, the anti-incumbent tide that among other things, swept Suozzi's Westchester counterpart, Andy Spano out of office by 20 points, was too much to overcome.
After Suozzi beat what was once called the most powerful Republican machine in the country in 2001, he saved Nassau from the brink of bankruptcy . He had the county achieve 11 bond rating upgrades and instituted nationally-recognized smart government reforms like No Wrong Door, a streamlining of county social services into a comprehensive approach that attacked social ills from all angles. In 2004, he waged a "Fix Albany" campaign to primary Democratic Assemblymen and take out Republican Senators in the general election. In knocking off one of each, he helped send a clear message to Albany that the status quo was unacceptable. In 2006, he unsuccessfully challenged Eliot Spitzer in the gubernatorial primary, and had the chutzpah in that campaign to say what many NY politicians felt but never had the cajones to: that Shelly Silver and Joe Bruno should resign their leadership posts for the good of the state. Although he lost that race, he found vindication of sorts when Spitzer co-opted many of his ideas and later appointed him to head the NY State Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness.
Suozzi was a rising star and many believed that he would run again for a statewide office in 2010. But instead the anti-incumbent tide swept this innovative reformer out of office and replaced him with a tax-cheating Republican hack who ran an essentially ideas-free campaign. I am completely certain that Nassau voters will eventually come to regret this huge mistake, but it doesn't change the fact that on the day after tomorrow, Ed Mangano will be the County Executive of Nassau. Suozzi might still have a future, but a dark cloud now hangs over Nassau in the form of Republican cronysim, mismanagement, and fiscal irresponsibility. Both Suozzi and Nassau County deserved much, much better than this.
Ed Mangano, the Republican candidate for Nassau County Executive, who is also running on the "Tax Revolt" party line hates taxes so much, he doesn't think he has to pay them- $900,000 worth of them, in fact:
The Republican candidate for Nassau's county executive, who is also running on a Tax Revolt Party line, had more than $900,000 in federal and state tax liens against his family business in Bethpage in recent years.
Edward Mangano, a member of the County Legislature from Bethpage since 1995, said Wednesday he no longer has an interest in the company, New Media Printing, although federal tax liens filed as recently as this year were addressed to him.
(snip)
Either he's lying on his financial disclosure forms when he says that he owns something that he doesn't, or he's lying now," [Democratic Chairman Jay] Jacobs said. "And who lists themselves on a disclosure form owning something when they don't?"
Aside from the irony that his company is called "New Media Printing," this is yet another example of the culture of corruption that pervades the Nassau Republican Party and its standard-bearer, Ed Mangano. I'm confident Nassau voters are smart enough to remember the cronyism, corruption, and patronage under Republican rule that nearly drove Nassau to bankruptcy until Suozzi saved it starting in 2002.
And on that note, the Nassau Dems just came out with 2 web ads reminging everybody about the differences between Republican rhetoric on property taxes and, ya know, the truth:
Suozzi is right to remind everyone how corrupt Nassau Republicans continue to be, and I don't think Nassau voters' memories are short enough to forget that or the excellent job Suozzi has done in the past 8 years.
Kudos to Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi for calling local GOP operatives exactly what they are- thugs:
Here's Suozzi's take on the day: "They're yelling like an angry mob, which is how Republicans have acted over the past 50 years. They don't have any ideas. They yell and scream, and the big thing they yell and scream is 'No. No. No.''" On his Twitter, he added: "GOP sent out the thugs."
Suozzi also expanded on his searingly accurate account of the GOP, extrapolating from the national to the local levels:
"This was a perfect symbol of what's wrong with the Republican Party from the national level to the state level to the local level," Suozzi said. "We don't need yelling and screaming. All I ever hear is no, no, no. All President Barack Obama hears on a national level is no, no, no. It's the same thing on the state level. Someone in that party has to have ideas and trying to scream and intimidate new candidates won't work."
What actions drew this response from Suozzi? Apparently it was another example of continuing exodus of all non-brain-dead individuals from the Christian Nationalist Republican Party; Nassau Democrats were announcing that the former chair of the Nassau Young Republicans, Nina Petraro Bastardi, is now running for the Nassau Legislature as a Democrat. This defection caused the adolescent, extreme right-wing base of what's left of the Nassau GOP to resort to outright thuggery, including pushing Bastardi's mother, challenging Dave Mejias to a fistfight, interrupting the press conference, shouting that Bastardi is "dumb as a rock," a "bitch," saying she "won't even get the minority vote" and threatening to bring their "friends" to Suozzi's next meeting.
If you don't believe me, just watch this shocking video of these sexist, racist blathering lunatics:
We all knew Tom Suozzi was running for re-election as Nassau County Executive, but he is having his formal announcement celebration at the EAB/RXR plaza tonight at 6:30:
Suozzi has been a transformational figure on Long Island over the past 8 years, being a major cause for the Democratic-enrollment edge achieved in Nassau County last year, which is a testament to the way he led Nassau out of its own local disaster that decades of Republican rule left it with in 2001. (Talk about leading a national trend.)
So if you can make it to the announcement tonight, I'm sure it will be worth your while.
