Al D’Amato’s famed gaffes: How do they measure up to Trump’s?
Former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato says Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump needs "to calm the rhetoric down." Credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara
Even the crassest moments of ex-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato’s career seem relatively normal during this season, 17 years after he left office.
Compare a 1998 D’Amato campaign gaffe with Donald Trump’s cruder antics. The three-term GOP senator merely used a vulgar Yiddish term in private to condemn his Democratic challenger, Rep. Chuck Schumer, and a storm followed.
Last week, D’Amato was asked on Fox TV’s “Good Day New York” to share a Trump anecdote. “I remember when I made some intemperate remarks,” he said. “Donald called me up and said, ‘Alfonse, you topped me ...’ ”
The 78-year-old lobbyist recalled his having mimicked O.J. Simpson trial judge Lance Ito.
This folly occurred in 1995 on the Don Imus show where D’Amato spoke in a burlesque Japanese accent to lampoon Ito. D’Amato later apologized on the Senate floor.
“That was terrible,” D’Amato recalled. “It was really terrible. I didn’t mean it to be — I was being a wiseguy.”
Despite endorsing Ohio Gov. John Kasich for the GOP nomination, D’Amato has been talking up front-runner Trump.
“You saw me express myself in rather unpolitical terms,” he said. “Donald does kind of the same thing . . . He’s got to calm the rhetoric down.”
Not that D’Amato has gone refined. Also on the Fox show, he attacked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as a “phony baloney.” When host Greg Kelly followed up by asking if he thought power went to Christie’s head, D’Amato replied: “No, it went to his stomach.”
GOP DISARRAY: Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) called Trump “morally and intellectually” unfit to be president. After backing Jeb Bush, then Sen. Marco Rubio, King is done with endorsing for the nomination.
Other New Yorkers for Rubio also have been slow to shift to a new candidate. Ex-Gov. George Pataki, who backed Rubio after dropping out, and Assemb. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), who headed Rubio’s defunct effort in the state, have yet to make a new preference known.
DONOR WATCH: Among contributions to Assemb. Todd Kaminsky in the special April 19 state Senate race: $11,000 from the state nurses’ association. Republican caniddate Chris McGrath, got $11,000 from a political committee of the state trial lawyers’ association.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
