DiNapoli reaches out to blacks at church services

As Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli sat in the pews of Faith Baptist Church in Hempstead Sunday, waiting for his three minutes to address the congregation, the choir could have been channeling his political future as it belted out the hymn "I Need You to Survive."

DiNapoli this weekend lost three key endorsements - the editorial pages of The New York Times and the Daily News and the nonpartisan good-government group Citizens Union - to his Republican opponent, Harry Wilson.

Now seeking his first full elected term as comptroller, DiNapoli took a subdued tone when it was his turn at the microphone.

"I would just ask you for your consideration of keeping me in your prayers," he said. "It's still a very tough time. I just want to assure you that I am working hard to have our office move this state in the right direction."

The stop was one of four DiNapoli made Sunday at African-American churches in Roosevelt and Hempstead, a hearty home-county schedule for the longtime assemblyman from Great Neck.

He was appointed to the statewide post by his legislative colleagues in 2007 but maintains a low statewide profile. And his visit comes after he made campaign stops last weekend in Nassau.

"As you head toward the end of the campaign," he said during an interview at the Carle Place Diner, "you don't want the people who do know you the best to believe you're taking them for granted."

Wilson, a former hedge fund executive who in 2009 served on President Barack Obama's auto manufacturers' task force, campaigned Sunday in upstate Johnstown, where he was born and raised.

DiNapoli's brief church speeches had the feel of a houseguest introducing himself more than a candidate in a dogfight.

DiNapoli made no allusions to Wilson when speaking to church audiences. His toughest talk came 29 minutes into lunch at the diner, when he said the race is "a clash of values, middle class values and the public service, that I've been involved with for a long term, versus someone who comes out of the hedge fund world, made a lot of money, often investing in businesses and opportunities that made him a lot of money and people got hurt."

Wilson spokesman Bill O'Reilly, who has worked to paint DiNapoli as a consummate Albany politician, said: "It's a little insulting when Tom DiNapoli talks about values, when you see what Albany legislators have done to New York State in the last 25 years."

In other campaign news Sunday, Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, the GOP candidate for attorney general, met with Orthodox rabbis in Brooklyn.

James Milano, the Republican challenging Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Roslyn Heights) for Ackerman's seat, attacked him for not being sufficiently pro-Israel, a tactic past Ackerman opponents have tried to little effect.