A Dream Deferred-- Will Mikey Suits Grimm Have To Resign While He's In Prison Or Can He Continue Serving?

When Federal Judge Pamela Chen set Staten Island Mafia thug Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-NY) for December 1, she shattered one of my fondest hopes for the 2014 cycle. I had hoped against hope that the angry, low-info, Foxified voters of Staten Island and Bay Ridge would do themselves proud by reelecting a crooked congressman who was residing in a federal penitentiary. Instead, it looks like they'll be electing one on his way to a federal penitentiary. Yes, Grimm, under indictment on 20 counts (so far) is leading Steve Israel's weak-- even pathetic-- recruit, Domenic Recchia. Why replace one crooked pol with another?

The GOP has given up on Grimm-- and so have their big money donors. The only substantial money he's still getting is from Mob-controlled building trades unions. They've given him $199,000 so far-- $10,000 each, for example, from the Plumbers/Pipefitters Union, the Painters & Allied Trades Union, the Operating Engineers Union, the Carpenters & Joiners Union. Normal, non-Mafia affiliated unions have only given Democrat Domenic Recchia $59,500.

Grimm is holding on to a razor-thin lead in his battle to defend his Staten Island seat against challenger Domenic Recchia, according to a new poll released Tuesday evening… Grimm, a second-term Republican, is leading Mr. Recchia, a Democrat and former city councilman, by four percentage points ahead of the November election-- 44% to 40%, according to a Siena College/NY1/Capital New York poll released Tuesday.

This week the National Journal suggested if you want to know why Grimm is still a viable candidate-- let alone leading Recchia-- you need to know who lives in the district. I have a brother-in-law on Staten Island who spends his life listening to Hate Talk Radio, regurgitating whatever his favorite psychopaths say that day, while existing on the benefits of Medicare and Social Security that his beloved conservatives have always opposed and still oppose. Originally, though, he's from the Brooklyn part of the district. The Almanac of American Politics gives this background on the district: "Culturally, Staten Islanders are more conservative than people from the boroughs, particularly the Manhattanites who live a 20-minutres ferry ride away. Not many people here read the New York Times; the local paper is the Staten Island Advance. Fed up with the city's high income taxes and social programs, Staten Island residents voted in 1993 for secession, but the legislature never acted to carry out their wish. In that same election, Staten Islanders provided the margin of victory for Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani-- the only other borough he carried that year was Queens… Staten Island overall remains New York's whitest borough with the fewest immigrants. It was only 12% black and 18% Hispanic in 2011. John McCain carried the district in 2008, the only urban district he carried that year, while Barack Obama narrowly carried it four years later." Actually, it wasn't that narrow. Obama beat Romney 110,088 (52%) to 100,811 (47%). This is how Alex Roarty's post at the National Journal depicted Grimm's constituents:

It's amid hundreds of vintage Corvettes and Cadillacs that I find the people who want to vote for a congressman under federal indictment. Take Joe, for example, a mostly bald older man who declined to shake my hand or tell me anything other than his first name.

Right now, he's patting Michael Grimm on the back and telling the House Republican he thinks he's innocent. "My theory is, if they don't want you around, there's a reason," Joe says. He's talking about the 20 charges filed against Grimm in April for tax evasion and perjury, allegations that could eventually land the lawmaker in jail. For now, the congressman is more worried they could put him out of a job if he loses reelection this November.

...It turns out a Staten Island car show is a great place for an embattled Republican to find support. But what's more important for Grimm's reelection campaign is that his supporters apparently aren't confined to a few isolated pockets. The entire 11th Congressional District, which includes all of Staten Island and a slice of Brooklyn, is giving the congressman greater-than-expected backing. Democratic and Republican operatives alike say Grimm can still win a third term in office and might even be a favorite to do so. And it's largely because his base (and possibly more than just his base) simply does not care about the charges of abuse and corruption.

…"Everyone's allowed to be human," John Picciano tells me. The 55-year-old retired firefighter had just shaken hands with Grimm at the car show. He, like a lot of Grimm supporters I talked with, alternated between proclaiming Grimm's innocence and arguing that even if he technically wasn't innocent, the charges were still unfair.

"I'm sure if you dig deep into everyone's past, you'd find something," Picciano said.

The federal investigation and temper, in a strange way, seem to endear Grimm even more to some of his constituents. The congressman's entire campaign is built on the premise that he, the lone GOP congressman from New York, is the only one with the moxie to fight for Staten Island. It's a tailor-made message for the so-called "Forgotten Borough," where the island's religious, culturally conservative electorate feels forgotten and maligned by city officials. "Staten Island, in particular, is always pushing uphill," Grimm told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto in one of the congressman's few one-on-one television interviews since the charges were announced. "And if you don't fight, in my district, you're going to get nothing."

It's how John Colombo sees the incumbent-- as an advocate for his district whose only sin was taking on the powers-that-be. "He speaks his mind," says Colombo, whom I meet later on Sunday at a motorcycle rally in honor of a slain police officer. "And there are people who don't like that. They feel intimidated by him."