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Simon says he has shot at winning Skelos' Senate seat

Dan Janison | dan.janison@newsday.com

July 14, 2008

The jackpot prize for the political lottery in which Roy D. Simon Jr. holds a ticket surged three weeks ago when his electoral opponent Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) became Senate majority leader.

As huge an event as it would be for Democrat Simon - who's never run for office - to defeat one of Albany's three most powerful men, the odds against him are, of course, widely seen as enormous.

With a relatively modest $25,000 raised so far for a race that's on few radar screens, Simon, 59, of West Hempstead, isn't preparing to quit his day job as professor of legal ethics at Hofstra Law School.

Still, Simon, who says he believes schools can be improved even as property taxes are reduced, pitches his long- shot scenario this way: Democrats hold a modest enrollment edge in the district, Skelos faces harder scrutiny in his new post, and a national tide might lift local Democrats.

"We've never had a presidential race like this before," he said Friday.

Skelos today holds a golf fundraiser at the Woodmere Country Club.

ILLEGALS' EXODUS?: The focus of debate could be shifting on illegal immigration. Some of the undocumented are said to be leaving the United States as a sagging economy offers fewer jobs. Reports from Florida attribute that state's exodus to downturns in agriculture, construction, food processing, and the service industry.

Numbers are elusive. But if the population of illegals shrinks significantly, some politicians would tout the success of their enforcement drives. Caution: When crime plunged nationally in the 1990s, elected officials congratulated their police strategies, but some experts saw bottom-up social changes, like a decline in crack use, as also key.

LONG ISLAND'S $$ ROLE: Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama voted opposite ways Wednesday on the milestone government surveillance bill - then flew together to New York for fundraising. Clinton told a $31,300-per-head room in a Manhattan hotel how tough it is for Democrats to win the White House, having done so just three times in the past 10 elections. "I happen to know very well the person who won two of those elections," she said. To this, Clinton fundraiser Robert Zimmerman, the Democratic National Committee member from Nassau, adds: "Long Island has emerged as the largest swing suburban region in the city, its fundraising prowess a critical factor in recent presidential elections." Zimmerman was in on a smaller, closed-door conference between Obama and top fundraisers earlier in the day.

ON WHOSE SIDE?: One pro-Hillary blogger argues Democrats need not fear a John McCain presidency. "He's liberal on campaign finance reform, immigration, climate control, [has] an F minus rating with the Gun Association of America ... voted against the Bush tax cuts several times, invoking class warfare."

Imagine McCain trying that pitch at the GOP convention.