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McCain, Obama could learn from local politicians

October 10, 2008

C ome on, candidates. Your thinking is stuck in the box.

The names tossed out for Treasury secretary this week by This One McCain and That One Obama were investor Warren Buffett, proclaimed world's richest man by Forbes this year, and Meg Whitman, former chief of eBay.

Sure, these sounded like rational choices when uttered during Tuesday's debate. But a money crisis like no other in a generation calls for fresh measures.

So while in Nassau County next week for their final debate, both out-of-town senators might want to look outside the box - and around this region - at some of the local talent.

Right over in southeast Queens, you've got Assemb. Anthony Seminerio, a longtime fixture in Albany and an experienced incumbent known to meet informally with people who drop in to his storefront district office.

If federal wiretaps of Seminerio revealed last month were correctly recorded and interpreted, the indicted Democrat shows a clarity about finances that could prove refreshing to Wall Street.

Prosecutors suggest he started charging certain people for his actions as an elected official. "I was doing favors for these --- there, you know, they were, they were making thousands," he's quoted as telling a cooperating witness. "From now on, you know, I'm a consultant."

This stuff is lucid, at least, compared to the opaque deals that have Wall Street reeling: Mortgages bought and sold and diced up and down and sideways into pieces of paper nobody even knows the value of.

How much more could the Dow drop if you put a local pol in charge?

So far, Seminerio's alleged approach seems to have had nothing on the serial larcenies of former Queens assemblyman and admitted felon Brian McLaughlin, who would dine with Seminerio at a popular Albany restaurant - and who, sources say, rolled on his colleague in a bid to reduce his own sentence.

McLaughlin's court date was delayed to December just after Seminerio was charged. The story fell off the radar when global economic turmoil began dwarfing everything else. But in his combined roles as labor leader, legislator, and union officer, McLaughlin stole millions from multiple sources, the feds say. Like the mortgage mess, this ended up hurting a number of other people.

So, has the private sector been learning from the public sector - or vice-versa? In another time, McLaughlin, who outfitted a very fancy house in Nissequogue, might have been one of the wizards at AIG who spent $440,000 for a spa vacation at the St. Regis resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. - after the company got an $85-billion taxpayer bailout.

Elected officials who get in trouble offer us public lessons about more than just money.

Before being jailed on corruption charges, Peter McGowan, as Islip supervisor, ran into a political jam trying to extend his time in office. Just like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg - but without his billions - McGowan looked to have the town legislature change the term limit law to keep him in office longer. But the voters of Islip, like those in the city, had voted on two occasions for the law as it stood.

McGowan's effort failed. Islip Councilman Chris Bodkin, who opposed the term-limits move, said yesterday of Bloomberg's bid thus far: "It's really amazing - almost a mirror of the McGowan thing. In both cases it's perfectly legal. . . . But a referendum is the absolute core of democracy, and we dare not ever undo what people say they want done."

No matter who's watching the till, the lessons are there to be learned.