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Ballot dispute hits New York again

Dan Janison | dan.janison@newsday.com

January 28, 2008

Eight years ago, when state Republican officials were working to defeat Sen. John McCain in a presidential primary, the rules were different. For one thing, delegate selections involved petition filings, and a court battle was fought by McCain just to win ballot access.

That was also the last time the GOP held a presidential primary here, because George W. Bush got an incumbent's free ride in 2004.

After the bitter internal wars of 2000, however, state Republicans changed their selection system. Today, with "Super Duper Tuesday" approaching, a new dispute has sprung from the new method. The legal question is whether GOP election officials - newly empowered to place presidential candidates on the ballot on their own - may also remove them. Democratic officials insist they cannot.

If the names Alan Keyes, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson are removed from the ballots - as GOP chairman Joseph Mondello seems to wish - favorite-son candidate Rudy Giuliani will become second on the ballot behind Rep. Ron Paul, and McCain will appear last of the remaining five.

Will ballot display matter in the primary a week from tomorrow? That's a different discussion. Separately, Democrats should expect to see dropouts Bill Richardson, Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich on the ballot.

ONE FOR THE MONEY: Sources close to Nassau Comptroller Howard Weitzman wanted it known he's NOT preparing to oppose fellow Democrat, County Executive Thomas Suozzi, if Suozzi runs again for the post. This, after filings showed Weitzman's political committee had $533,362 on hand as of mid-January; Suozzi's? $495,764.

ETHNIC EDGES: In the Bronx, a traditional center of Latino electoral life in the city, Councilman Joel Rivera, son of county Democratic chairman and Assemb. Jose Rivera, is hosting a presidential "debate watch" party Thursday for Hillary Rodham Clinton delegates. Assemb. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan), a strident critic of Suffolk Executive Steve Levy on illegal immigration issues, is also on the Feb. 5 ballot to become a Clinton delegate. In Suffolk, Dominican-born Legis. Vivian Viloria-Fisher appears on Democratic ballots to be a delegate for Sen. Barack Obama ... .

In Brooklyn's Borough Park, a center of Orthodox Judaism, veteran Assemb. Dov Hikind has not endorsed. He urges Clinton to support releasing convicted spy Jonathan Pollard and questions Obama's Chicago pastor's praise of Louis Farrakhan. Hikind doesn't expound on the candidacy of Giuliani, who's popular in Hikind's community, but whose aides once pushed what a jury ultimately saw as an unfounded criminal case against the onetime Jewish Defense Leaguer ... Irish Voice writer Niall O'Dowd warns on immigration: "Every Republican candidate with the exception of McCain has demagogued this issue to death hoping to milk votes from it. In the end, though, it may come back to haunt them." ... Interestingly, the Amsterdam News endorses Clinton; the New York Observer, Obama.