Economy on minds of voters as they elect state, county representatives

Fear and frustration over jobs losses, foreclosures and a long sputtering economy has created a deeply unhappy and volatile electorate that will go to the polls Nov. 2.

Voter decisions Tuesday will determine who will be governor; who will serve as comptroller, the sole overseer of the state's $129-billion pension fund; and as attorney general enforcing the state's laws.

Voters will choose both senators who will represent the state in Congress as well as the five House members who will represent Nassau and Suffolk counties. There are seats for nine state senators and 21 assembly members, part of the 150 Assembly seats and 62 State Senate seats up for grabs. In addition, a variety of local judgeships, several Oyster Bay town posts and propositions in Shelter Island, Hempstead Village, Brookhaven and Glen Cove are also at stake.

The fear and loathing in the electorate has translated into often strident campaigns on all sides and the rise of tea party activists, angry at most incumbents and willing to stage in-your-face protests against them.

Crucial election

Turnout is expected to be key in races that will depend on which side is energized to come out or discouraged and stay home. But what makes this election crucial is that new elected officials on the national level will have to make decisions about whether to continue tax cuts that run out at year's end; whether to move forward with health care reforms enacted in the past year; how to pump up a still-mired economy and how to end the war in Afghanistan.

Those elected on the state level will have to close a looming $8-billion budget hole, which some say may climb to $13 billion. Despite diminished resources, Albany officials will deal with the growing demand for health and social services, while providing for education, mass transit and protecting the environment.

On purely a political basis, Republicans are hoping to tap public discontent to take back control of the House and Senate. The state GOP is pressing to recapture the State Senate, a body Republicans dominated for most of the past half century. The GOP lost control two years ago and Democrats now have a narrow 32-29 edge. What makes control of the Senate important this year is that the winner will control the redrawing of district lines that will last for a decade.

High-profile races

The state's most highly profiled race is for governor, where Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a former cabinet secretary and son of ex-Gov. Mario Cuomo, is facing Buffalo millionaire businessman Carl Paladino, who says he'd take a bat to Albany.

Locally, the most intense contest is the nearly $8-million battle for the seat in the East End's 1st Congressional District. Four-term Democratic incumbent Timothy Bishop is under attack from self-funded millionaire businessman Randy Altschuler for being too close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Barack Obama. Bishop in turn is returning fire at Altschuler, winner of a bruising GOP primary, as a carpetbagger who is using profits made by outsourcing thousands of jobs to Asia to buy a Congressional seat.

Elsewhere, Nassau Republicans believe that seven-term Rep. Carolyn McCarthy may be vulnerable to Nassau Legis. Francis X. Becker, saying the gun control issue that first got her elected in 1996, after her husband was killed in the Long Island Rail Road massacre in 1993, has faded from voters' minds in the bad economy.

Center stage for GOP hopes to retake the State Senate is the 3rd District race between freshman Democrat Brian X. Foley and Republican lawyer Lee Zeldin, who has hammered the former Brookhaven supervisor for supporting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority tax. Republicans also believe Mineola Mayor Jack Martins could mount a potential upset against Democrat Craig Johnson.

In the state Assembly contests, Democratic Assemb. Marc Alessi is facing a stiff challenge from Suffolk Legis. Minority Leader Dan Losquadro (R-Shoreham) in North Fork's Republican 1st District. Freshman Republican Assemb. Dean Murray, who won a special election earlier this year by just 170 votes, also is looking to win his first full term against Democrat Rob Calarco.

Meanwhile, Assemb. Ginny Fields, who lost the Democratic primary last month, is trying to hang on by running on the minor party Independence ballot line against Democratic primary winner Kenneth Mangan and Republican Al Graf.