Putin invades, Giuliani grovels
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Daily Point
Rudy panhandles off Ukraine war
Even with Russia under President Vladimir Putin conducting an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani apparently still sees money to be mined in trying to portray American President Joe Biden as the region’s bad guy.
Giuliani has been circulating yet another fundraising appeal in recent days as he faces lawsuits and criminal investigations stemming from his intrigues and claims on behalf of a Putin admirer, former President Donald Trump. Quoted free of the extensive fact-checking it merits, this one says:
"Everyday we are trying to feed our families and live in a safe world. Unfortunately, Biden makes our country less safe. Listen to my podcast about Ukraine and the mistakes the Biden administration continues to make.
"I have vast foreign policy expertise and I know Ukraine well. Remember I went to the Ukraine (sic) because sources told me that the fake Russian Collusion actually started in Ukraine. It was in Ukraine when the Ukrainian people told me about the corruption with former Vice President Biden. When I was told this information it was prior to Biden announcing his candidacy for President.
"Please tell your friends to subscribe to my Rumble Channel. I am still fighting the radical left who lie about me, took my law license without a hearing and have photoshopped photos to make me look odd. I need your support for the incredible legal bills."
Tasteless and misleading as this may seem to the unaligned, it overlaps with the Republican messaging of the day that ducks difficult foreign policy choices in favor of Biden-bashing.
State GOP chairman Nick Langworthy, for example, declared in a statement Thursday acknowledging Putin’s aggression: "Biden’s weakness and ineptitude have led us to this moment, and the results will be felt far beyond the borders of Ukraine."
Whether this kind of talk shakes the political money tree or backfires is just one question for a fractious moment.
— Dan Janison @Danjanison
Talking Point
Signed, sealed, delivered
We are about to enter one of the most frenzied times of year in New York politics: the weeks from March 1 to early April when candidates hustle to collect enough signatures to get on the primary ballot.
Some candidates have a shortcut — like Gov. Kathy Hochul, who won enough of the weighted vote at her party’s convention and can skip petitioning — but the road is more uphill for challengers, or contenders in open races where party leaders are holding off support.
Such is the case for Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls Tom Suozzi and Jumaane Williams, who will need to collect 15,000 signatures, or 5% of the active enrolled members of the party, whichever is less, according to the state Board of Elections. Furthermore, their hauls must include at least 100 signatures or 5% of enrolled voters from each of one-half of all the state’s congressional districts. And you always need to collect a lot more than the minimum, to protect against mistakes and petition challenges.
It’s not an easy task, and it takes time, effort, and — often — money. The Suozzi campaign estimates an outlay of a few hundred thousand dollars for the process, including the printing of petitions, legal vetting and presentation, and payment for canvassers across the state.
Williams’ campaign spokesman William Gerlich called the New York City public advocate’s petitioning "a grassroots volunteer-based effort" supported by volunteers from endorsers like the Working Families Party — plus the usual cost of election lawyers.
Campaigns often like to highlight the volunteer or nonpaid parts of their operation when they can, as it signals a base of support and a way to avoid the cost of paying, supervising, and perhaps even housing or transporting professional canvassers.
Things are a little simpler on the congressional level, where hopefuls need to gather the lesser of 1,250 signatures or 5% of the active enrolled members of the party in the district.
One consultant experienced in LI petitioning estimated that the rough cost of petition-gathering shakes out to around $4 a signature, plus money for legal work.
For a sampling of the situation in the hot, open race for Suozzi’s soon-to-be-vacated congressional seat: Nassau County Legis. Josh Lafazan’s campaign expects to pay in the tens of thousands of dollars for the effort, which includes legal work plus a volunteer operation complemented by paid canvassing, according to campaign spokesman Max Kramer.
Fellow CD3 opponent Robert Zimmerman’s campaign told The Point that the petitioning effort would be heavily volunteer-driven and estimated that a lawyer retained for petitioning would cost in the few thousand dollars range.
All this work is necessary in an open race like the Democratic one for CD3 because the county party hasn’t jumped in behind a single candidate. Ordinarily, parties can offer help with petition-gathering and submission.
"If you are the Party’s choice, the Party gets it done for you," emailed state and Nassau County Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs, incidentally a big supporter of incumbent Hochul. "If not … "
— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano
Pencil Point
Putin's best friend
Credit: San Diego Union-Tribune/Steve Breen
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Final Point
What kind of blue?
Two Suffolk Democrats have come to a similar conclusion about the new 1st Congressional District: What was once a blue-collar, somewhat-tossup seat is now more deeply blue and less blue-collar.
That’s the general analysis from Nick Antonucci, who was seeking the Democratic nomination this cycle but suspended his campaign in February, and from Perry Gershon, the 2018 CD1 Democratic standard-bearer who lost to Rep. Lee Zeldin and ran unsuccessfully for the nomination in 2020.
Antonucci, a social studies teacher in the Sachem Central School District, described himself to The Point as a "centrist-moderate" who had planned to run a "populist" campaign focused on education, making up for what would have been his relatively modest digital advertising and fundraising by walking the district and knocking on doors.
But the newly drawn post-Census maps took out some places that he thought would be his best areas of support. "I’m talking areas like Sachem school district (where I grew up & where I work)," Antonucci said in an email, "and the largely blue-collar south shore zip codes."
He decried gerrymandering even for Democratic ends: "The real victims here are everybody in the middle."
Gershon, who is not running this time but has endorsed Suffolk County Legis. Kara Hahn, crunched recent results by election district and applied the numbers to the new map.
His estimates show how much more Democratic the map seems to have turned: The portions of Brookhaven, Smithtown, and Islip towns removed from CD1, for example, went for Donald Trump by 10, 22, and 15 percentage points, respectively, in the 2020 election. And CD1’s new parts of Babylon, Islip, and Huntington went for Joe Biden by a whopping 20, 43, and 11 percentage points.
That’s a particular shift due to how much of CD1 is new. Gershon’s estimates suggest approximately 44% of the new CD1 (by turnout) was not in the old one.
There’s plenty of time for Long Island to defy the prognosticators as usual, and — hopefully — for further analysis of the economic and political profiles of the new district’s voters.
But in Gershon’s view, the new district is not an AOC-style one, nor does it remain as much of a blue-collar seat liable to move back and forth between parties. Instead, he sees it as a "more mainstream Democratic district."
— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano
