GOP's way is the highway

Daily Point

A monster rally

A rally a few weeks before the midterm elections isn’t really news.

But a political rally at a private company’s headquarters, combined with a caravan of as many as 1,500 tractor-trailers and large trucks down the Long Island Expressway, is more than a bit unusual.

Ronkonkoma-based Empire Tractor and Equipment, a for-profit heavy equipment and tractor parts company, is hosting a Heavy Truckers Caravan & Rally planned for Sunday. Starting at the Ronkonkoma train station early Sunday morning, the caravan will steam down the Long Island Expressway through Nassau County and into Queens before winding its way back to Ronkonkoma, according to company founder Steve Long, whose twin sons, Anthony and Christopher, run the business on a day-to-day basis. Long said he expects upward of 7,000 people to attend a rally in front of Empire Tractor’s headquarters after the trip.

Long, who said he has known former President Donald Trump and the Trump family for decades thanks to construction and real estate industry connections, noted that he organized a similar caravan and rally before the 2020 election. Long told The Point he expects this year’s event to be larger, in part because the Long Island Loud Majority, a right-wing political group, and the Nassau and Suffolk Police Benevolent associations are all involved.

Long said he’s using his family-owned business’ headquarters for the rally and as a space for the candidates to get their message across. The building already is adorned with bunting, a Blue Lives Matter flag, and a sign for Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and his lieutenant governor running mate Alison Esposito.

“I tell the candidates, ‘I am not going to give money out of my pocket but I’m going to give you a platform and a place to speak to your constituents if you want it,’” Long said. “To me, this platform is a very important platform for probably the biggest event that happens on Long Island in a midterm election year.”

Flyers for the event advertise that Zeldin and Esposito will attend, along with Republican Joe Pinion, who is running for U.S. Senate, and Michael Henry, who is running for attorney general. Two Republican congressional candidates — George Santos, in the 3rd district, and Tina Forte, who is running against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 14th district in New York City — are also expected to attend. The only other candidate mentioned on the flyers is Republican 10th Assembly District candidate Aamir Sultan, who has made the culture wars in schools a key issue. Long said he’s particularly close with Santos, but added that LILM helped to bring in some of the other candidates.

Long said he doesn’t have government contracts and doesn’t expect anything in return for hosting the event.

But, he added, if Zeldin doesn’t win in November, he plans to unwind his business and move out of New York.

“It’s about what I think is best for the economy and the state and what I think I can sustain,” Long said.

— Randi F. Marshall @RandiMarshall

Talking Point

Do as I say

There are rules against coordination between candidates and certain kinds of outside spending groups, but also loopholes about as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.

Look no further than Long Island’s four congressional races to see those loopholes in action, with the microsites set up for each race by the national Democratic and Republican congressional campaign arms.

The directions on these sites can be very explicit.

“Voters, especially women and voters of color, need to see a digital program, especially on platforms like YouTube, starting 7 weeks before Election Day,” says the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee site for New York’s 4th Congressional District. The site goes on to lay out a script for just those voters.

The sites sometimes pinpoint locations and particular channels: The DCCC’s entry for CD2 where Jackie Gordon is taking on GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino suggests messaging on “morning TV shows, FOX news and digital ads — especially white women, and voters in Babylon.”

The hints are not always or sometimes ever taken up, but during New York’s primary season this summer, multiple super PACs did use material or messaging hidden faux-innocently on candidates’ websites.

The suite of Republican sites, paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee, has similar messaging suggestions, as for CD4: “Laura Gillen is backed by Joe Biden’s liberal Washington allies whose disastrous spending has caused the worst inflation in 40 years.” The pages include news clips relevant to the race and bio language for the Republican candidates.

There are also links to helpful multimedia files, showing candidates making key assertions or appearing with particular people. The NRCC cache for Gillen features pictures of her with former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and former President Bill Clinton, all ready to be framed for an ad in a usefully negative light.

Sometimes the images seem picked merely for their … embarrassment potential. Such as the one the NRCC is offering of CD1 Democrat Bridget Fleming, standing next to a smiling, bare-chested, sunglass- and (apparently) headdress-wearing man, with the label “Fleming generic (1).”

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

November pain

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Reference Point

Ridding LI of grade crossings

For decades, the attention of Newsday’s editorial board has drifted inexorably to elections at this time of year.

That was true in the second year of the newspaper’s existence, 1941, when the board asked several public officials to weigh in on an issue that still bedevils Long Islanders — grade crossings of the Long Island Rail Road.

In an Oct. 20, 1941 piece called “For and Against,” the board looked at a proposal on that November’s statewide ballot that called for the diversion of $60 million in previously approved bonding for the elimination of grade crossings to be spent instead on the “construction and reconstruction of state highways and parkways.”

Joseph Wackerman, the Democratic candidate for Nassau County presiding supervisor that year, was adamant: “If the diversion bill interferes in any way with the desperately needed Nassau grade crossing elimination I am very much against it … The present highways on Long Island are perfect; perfectly adequate and perfect in looks, but our crossings are horrible. I say eliminate all of the crossings and then worry about the roads.”

Alas, New Yorkers did not agree with Wackerman, and approved the proposal, 59.8% to 40.2%. That money is the equivalent of nearly $1.2 billion today. And even after the recent elimination of eight grade crossings via the Third Track project — the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says a single elimination costs about $50 million nowadays — there still are nearly 300 left, creating headaches and frustration just as they did in 1941.

Twenty-six years later, another transportation bonding proposal appeared on the ballot. Proposition No. 1 called for the state to issue $2.5 billion in bonds “for improvement of highways and mass transit.” The state highway network would get $1.25 billion, mass transit $1 billion, and general aviation airports $250 million.

In an Oct. 20, 1967 piece entitled “For Better Transportation,” the editorial board cast an enthusiastic “yes” vote, calling the proposal “of vital importance to Long Islanders.”

Specifically, the board argued that the money would “permit the speeding and modernizing of the Long Island Rail Road, as well as the swift completion of the Long Island Expressway, the Wantagh-Oyster Bay Expressway and Sunrise Highway.”

The board rooted its appeal in the everyday experience of Long Islanders.

“Long Island knows only too well the toll in time, temper and the movement of goods caused by inadequate highways,” the board wrote. “Long Island knows only too well how essential it is to transform the Long Island Rail Road into a fast, efficient carrier that will encourage commuting motorists to park their cars and to ride the train instead. A ‘yes’ vote is essential if Long Island is to continue to develop in an orderly fashion.”

This proposal, like the earlier one, passed easily, with 58.2% in favor and 41.8% opposed.

The generations of Long Islanders that followed undoubtedly would agree with the board’s 1967 assessment that “the economic well being of the entire state, and especially the metropolitan region, is heavily dependent on good transportation.”

But it’s also beyond doubt that there would be lively debate about whether that $2.5 billion produced adequate highways, a fast and efficient LIRR, or a region that developed in an orderly fashion.

— Michael Dobie @mwdobie and Amanda Fiscina-Wells @adfiscina