The NYS Senate mess revisited: In "reform" GOP-style, 30 lockstep partisans + 1 jail-bound Dem = "bipartisanship"

Future Jailbirds of the New York State Senate (FJBNYSS) Pedro "El Presidente" Espada Jr. (left, under investigation for all manner of fiscal chicanery, not to mention not living in the Bronx district he represents, or in the Bronx at all) and freshman Hiram Monserrate, under indictment for slashing his girlfriend with a broken bottle, the Gang of Two who defected from the Senate Democratic conference on June 8, have parted company. Monserrate's return to the Democratic conference (explaining that he'd understood other Democrats would be joining the new "bipartisan coalition") has left the Senate deadlocked at 31-31.

"New Yorkers are running out of ways to describe Albany as a political version of clown school. Perhaps it is time, then, that they examine what the state of the state says about them. If one believes that people in a democracy get the government they deserve, then we in New York should be unable to look in the mirror without cringing."

-- Clyde Haberman, in his Monday NYT "NYC" column, "From Halls of Montezuma to Floors of Albany, Something Went Awry"

by Ken

I expect the last thing you want to hear about is the latest installment of the silly saga of the State Senate That Couldn't. Trust me, we here in the Empire State feel the same way. Except for the awkward matter of the session's worth of business left mostly unfinished when, with two weeks left in the current session, the toothless new Democratic majority was rudely overthrown, on June 8, as the Senate entered the final two weeks of the current session, by a self-styled "reform coalition" comprising the 30 GOP senators plus a Gang of Two turncoat Dems, who had been part of the original Gang of Four that in the aftermath of the historic 2008 election, which turned control of the Senate over to the Dems, threatened to vote with the Republicans.

Since we last peeked in, as noted above, one of the two renegade Dems whose defection set the stage for the Rs' putsch, Sen. Hiram Monserrate of Queens, has returned to the fold, and the Dems have discreetly dumped Malcolm Smith as their leader, even though he remains, quite awkwardly, their nominal claimant as majority leader, since of course the Dem conference has no way of electing a new majority leader, and Senator Smith is having to coexist with the de facto new conference leader, Sen. John Sampson of Brooklyn. Otherwise not much has changed since June 8, when such rudimentary work as the Senate had been doing ground to a halt.

A 31-31 DEADLOCK? GEE, THAT SEEMS UNUSUAL

It doesn't come up often, but the possibility of such a split is of course why virtually all legislative bodies have an odd number of members. And this isn't the only eventuality the state constitution fails to provide for. While in theory the state's lieutenant governor would be available to break a tie, we haven't had one of them since Lieut. Gov. David Paterson replaced departed Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

One thing we do have, in deference to the ambitions of Senator Espada, generally considered one of the least accomplished members of a body known to contain more than its fair share of human sludge, during the one rump session that the Republican-plus-Pedro "majority" managed to hold in the hours following its coup (since then, with the deposed Democrats boycotting, the Republicans have been unable to muster the 32 warm bodies needed for a quorum), it installed him as president pro tempore. Espada, nothing if not a creative constitutionalist, has advanced the novel theory that in his capacity as "El Presidente" (as his "coalition" partner, Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos called him) the state constitution entitles him to a second vote, thereby making him available both to provide the 32-member quorum and to break the 31-31 deadlock.

With the courts understandably reluctant to get involved, and the June 22 adjournment date looming, the parties are left to find a way out of the mess. The Republicans, however, so far show no inclination to compromise -- their attitude apparently being, "We stole the Senate fair and square, and we'll be damned if we're going to give it up." (Howie's had some notes yesterday on some of the sleazy machinators, notably right-wing moneybags Tom "The Golem" Golisano and sleaze-merchant GOP consultant Roger Stone, who engineered the putsch.)

Basically, the two sides' view of compromise is, as longtime Albany watcher Phillip Anderson (just recently snatched away from hisstate-politics blog TheAlbanyProject.com by the Senate Democratic leadership to spearhead an ambitious new-media operation) explained in a DailyKos post yesterday:

• The Democrats are proposing that there be a Presiding Officer and a Floor Leader, of opposite parties, alternating daily, and an evenly split six-member Conference Committee would "determine which bills and resolutions will reach the floor," with a majority vote required.

* The Republicans are offering, well, nothing. The Senate is to be controlled by the now-familiar "bipartisan" team of Dem turncoat Espada, who was installed as president pro tempore in the GOP putsch, and the GOP Senate leader, or rather majority leader, Dean Skelos. The only visible concession to either the Democratic half of the Senate or to reality is the omission of any mention of a second vote for Senator "El Presidente" Espada.

To compound the hilarity, while the Dems' proposal is designed to get the Senate functioning again on a power-sharing basis for the rest of 2009, the Republicans see their "plan" as solving the problem of Senate operations for the rest of this legislative term, through 2010. (Not much discussed in this is the traditionally huge disparity in financial and other perks between those in the majority and those in the minority in the NYS Senate. One presumes that under the GOP proposal, "coalition" members stand ready to shoulder the burden of all that extra loot.)

Of course the first impulse is to laugh at the children at play. But my favorite curmudgeon, Times metro columnist Clyde Haberman, happens to have returned to this nonsense from a visit to the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, and as you'll notice from the start of the column reproduced above, he's not so amused. It is, not surprisingly, a fine outing from Clyde, enthusiastically commended to your attention.

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After 9/11, as we know, everything changed. Unless you count those 200 pieces of mail a day that are still being sent to the World Trade Center

"Citing privacy concerns, [USPS spokeswoman Pat McGovern] did not identify the companies that send letters and packages to the towers' exclusive ZIP code, 10048, or the recipients. Postal Service higher-ups were also not interested in our request to talk with workers who sort the 10048 mail."
--NYT "NYC" columnist Clyde Haberman, in his column today

One of the things we like best about our favorite curmudgeon, New York Times metro columnist Clyde Haberman, is that he's drawn to stories no one else seems to bother about.

It may or may not have occurred to you that the World Trade Center had its own zip code, 10048. In its heyday, we learn in today's Haberman column, the WTC post office handled 85,000 pieces of mail on a typical day. That dropped to 7,000 by early 2003, and a mere 300 last year. But even now "maybe 200 pieces a day" come into 10048, according to U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Pat McGovern.

You figure a certain amount of it must be junk mail, but one thing we know is that a certain number of companies continue to pay to have mail held and come pick it up at the Church Street Station, zip code 10007, the foster home of 10048, "the majestic post office a few steps north of the World Trade Center site."

The terrorist attack damaged the station and left it contaminated by asbestos and other pollutants. But it bounced back to life three summers ago in all its marble and Art Deco splendor. On a wall near the entrance, neatly folded and packed in a triangular glass case, is the American flag that flew at the station on Sept. 11, 2001.

The 10048 zip code had another distinction, but let's let our curmudgeon tell his tale:

September 7, 2007

Towers Gone; ZIP Code Carries On

By CLYDE HABERMAN

It's pretty amazing, when you think about it. That was the feeling of a clerk at the Church Street Station, the majestic post office a few steps north of the World Trade Center site. He got no argument from us.

Six years have passed since that monstrous day when death filled the sky. It is time enough to get a simple detail straight, the clerk felt. "You would think they'd learn the new address," he said the other day.

You would think. But for some reason, probably mundane, a fair number of companies and organizations keep sending mail to the twin towers, phantoms since that day in 2001.

At the post office at 90 Church Street, that mail arrives now in a trickle. "It's down to maybe 200 pieces a day," said Pat McGovern, a spokeswoman for the United States Postal Service.

That is piddling compared with the 85,000 pieces that poured in on a typical business day before 9/11. The number has steadily shrunk. There were roughly 7,000 pieces a day in early 2003. By the end of that year, there were 3,600. A year ago the figure was 300. Now it's down to 200.

Still, you would think. Did some people not hear the news about the trade center?

More likely, Ms. McGovern said, "companies haven't updated their mailing lists."

Citing privacy concerns, she did not identify the companies that send letters and packages to the towers' exclusive ZIP code, 10048, or the recipients. Postal Service higher-ups were also not interested in our request to talk with workers who sort the 10048 mail.

But generally speaking, "this mail is bundled up, and then the carriers send it back," Ms. McGovern said. "We do have some caller service, where some companies come and pick it up," even though it was sent to their old, ghostly address. For this service, they pay a fee. "It's like having a post office box," she said.

The sorting is done at the Church Street Station, home of the 10007 ZIP code. It is a survivor, somewhat akin to the World Trade Center companies that picked themselves up and moved elsewhere.

The terrorist attack damaged the station and left it contaminated by asbestos and other pollutants. But it bounced back to life three summers ago in all its marble and Art Deco splendor. On a wall near the entrance, neatly folded and packed in a triangular glass case, is the American flag that flew at the station on Sept. 11, 2001.

IN its time, 10048 was special for a bunch of reasons. Not the least of them was that in terms of income per worker, no other ZIP code in the city performed better.

After the attack, Andrew A. Beveridge, a Queens College sociologist and demographer, analyzed census data from 2000, the trade center's last full year. He learned that 31,149 people worked in 10048, that they were paid an average of $101,006 (compared with a citywide average of $59,448) and that the $3.15 billion earned by trade center employees amounted to more than 1 percent of the New York metropolitan area's entire payroll.

Some people, however, didn't want to hear any of that.

They didn't want to be reminded that the place was called the World Trade Center and that its spirit was commerce and finance. Four years ago, we quoted Professor Beveridge about the twin towers as a money machine. That led to some angry letters and e-mail messages, he recalled the other day. One woman who had lost a close relative was especially upset.

"I guess she felt it was demeaning to say that someone was trying to make a lot of money," he said. He found the reaction to be "a little peculiar." Reality is what it is.

And perhaps will be again. Final designs for new towers at ground zero were unveiled yesterday. Financial companies may yet flourish anew at the site.

If so, a tried-and-true ZIP code awaits them. At the Postal Service, 10048 remains very much alive. "There are no immediate plans for retiring it," Ms. McGovern said.

E-mail:haberman@nytimes.com

Is it any wonder there was no one in the streets of NYC in 2004 to tell Rudy G, Zell Miller and all the other zany GOP conventioneers, "You're nuts"?

"The spied-upon included many groups that, agree with their views or not, engaged purely in political activity; they had no history of violence and no agenda other than a constitutional right to oppose the government. The Billionaires are a good example. The only bomb that they've been known to throw is a joke that falls flat."
--Clyde Haberman, in his NYT column today, "How to Tell a Billionaire From a Bomber"

I imagine everyone has heard by now about the massive campaign of spying the New York Police Department undertook in advance of the 2004 Republican National Convention here, as a tool for keeping the sensitive GOP-ers safe from, well, anyone who might utter an unkind word about them, or otherwise intrude on the festivities planned for the repeat coronation of their Tiny King George.

Among the citizens rousted by the NYPD, NYT metro columnist Clyde Haberman notes in his "NYC" column today, was the Bush-bashing band of satirists Billionaires for Bush, described by Wikipedia as "a culture jamming political street theater organization that satirically purports to support George W. Bush for those activities which are perceived to benefit corporations and the super-wealthy." Our favorite curmudgeon wasn't about to let this pass without comment:

March 30, 2007
NYC

How to Tell a Billionaire From a Bomber
By CLYDE HABERMAN

The Billionaires, with a capital B, were delighted to hear that there are more superrich New Yorkers than they had thought.

Several Billionaires were sitting in Union Square Park the other day, and one of them remarked to us that 45 billionaires, small B, call New York home. Actually, we said, there are 50, judging from the latest Forbes magazine list.

Well, that touched off so many high-fives and shouts of "All right!" that you'd have thought the incredible had happened, like world peace or the Knicks making the playoffs.

"Ka-ching," said an exultant Andrew Boyd, also known as Phil T. Rich. Marco Ceglie, who at times calls himself Monet Oliver DePlace, had something of an "It's a Wonderful Life" moment. "Every time there's a new billionaire," he said, "a devil gets a new pitchfork."

All in all, they had to concede, these are not bad times for the rich and mighty, normally as unappreciated a minority as we have.

Speaking up for that put-upon class is a mission of the Billionaires, whose full name is Billionaires for Bush. You may have seen them in the streets, decked out in tuxes and gowns, praising Big Oil, proclaiming à la Leona Helmsley that only little people pay taxes and organizing events like Dick Cheney Is Innocent Day. In New York, they have circulated petitions demanding limousine lanes, freed "from the clutches of bicycles."

They are, as should be obvious, a band of satirists who don't think much of President Bush (or, for that matter, the never-met-an-unwelcome-developer climate of the Bloomberg City Hall).

They are also one of the many political groups that the New York Police Department spied on in advance of the Republican National Convention held here in 2004.

That the authorities have conducted covert operations in the wake of Sept. 11 is neither a surprise nor, many would say, a problem. These are dangerous times. Most New Yorkers probably accept that it would be derelict of the police not to keep tabs on potential threats, be they rampaging anarchists or — worse — terrorists. Courts have thus far agreed.

The only goal of the pre-convention surveillance was to keep the city safe, the mayor insisted this week. "We were not keeping track of political activities," he said. "We have no interest in doing that."

But as a report in The New York Times has disclosed, the spied-upon included many groups that, agree with their views or not, engaged purely in political activity; they had no history of violence and no agenda other than a constitutional right to oppose the government. The Billionaires are a good example. The only bomb that they've been known to throw is a joke that falls flat.

"Not only did we not do violence," Mr. Boyd said, "we did not profess doing violence or even pretend to profess doing violence. We see ourselves as a calming presence in demonstrations, getting out of that normal confrontational protest/police mode."

Melody Bates, a member whose nom de rire is Ivy League-Legacy, called humor one of the more effective ways to make a point. "A good joke is in essence a gift," she said, "and when you open with a gift, people are more receptive."

The question is whether City Hall and the police have struck a reasonable balance between security needs and the imperatives of free expression, or whether the authorities, in Mr. Ceglie's words, suffer from a post-9/11 case of "not knowing when to stop."

It isn't as if New York hasn't rethought other policies that were deemed absolutely essential in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks. With municipal blessing, hideous concrete barriers rose in front of one building after another across town. In recent months, most have finally been torn down — recognition that Fortress New York doesn't cut it.

Similar questions have been raised about the refusal of the National Park Service, in the name of security, to allow tourists to climb to the crown of the Statue of Liberty. Such a restriction at this potent symbol of American freedom has been strongly criticized by the likes of Senator Charles E. Schumer and Representative Anthony D. Weiner, who hardly see themselves as soft-on-terror types.

When the police spy on law-abiding groups, "it's hard not to feel that it is an attempt to discourage free speech," said Elissa Jiji, a k a Meg A. Bucks.

And Mr. Boyd drew lessons from the past. "It's like that famous quote," he said. "First, they came for the billionaires, and nobody said anything. . . . "

Quote of the day, II: If you could become a U.S. citizen by naming the Three Stooges, shouldn't you have to name at least, say, five of them?

"You don't sit and talk about the nine Supreme Court justices every day at lunch."
--Fritz Wenzel, a spokesman for the polling firm Zogby International, commenting on his firm's finding that "a mere 24 percent of Americans could name two United States Supreme Court justices, while 77 percent could name two of Snow White's seven dwarfs"

"In that respect, the results were somewhat predictable," Mr. Wenzel told NYT metro columnist Clyde Haberman in his column today, "Good Thing We Citizens Aren't Tested." Haberman reports that Wenzel "paused before adding, 'but alarming nonetheless.'" (Actually, Mr. Wenzel, not many of us chat about the Seven Dwarfs around the water cooler either.)

What's really got Haberman (whom I usually seem to describe as something like "one of my favorite curmudgeons") going, though, is:

Now, for the first time in 20 years, the government is tweaking the questions it will ask of immigrants who want to become citizens. A new test will be given a dry run starting next month, with volunteers quizzed in 10 cities across the country. . . .

In the new exam, the emphasis will shift somewhat from raw facts to broad concepts. People will be asked, for example, not only what the three branches of government are but also why we have three branches. The idea is to see whether budding Americans understand underlying principles of our democracy.

In other words, we expect them to be better than the rest of us.

And the rest of us, he notes--

are far more able to name the Three Stooges than to identify the three branches of government.

That's not a joke. A Zogby International poll several months ago showed that 74 percent of Americans (and 62 percent of New Yorkers) knew Larry, Curly and Moe, but only 42 percent (39 percent in New York) could list the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Not surprisingly, the curmudgeonly Mr. Haberman has problems with some of the questions:

As we said, perhaps the new Americans will be better than the rest of us. Still, some of the revised test's 144 questions, ultimately pared to 100, could give them problems.

Question No. 125 on the citizenship agency's Web site (www.uscis.gov) seems off the mark. What is the longest river in the United States? The Web site's suggested answer is the Mississippi. But by some reckonings, the Missouri River is longer.

Question No. 61 could prove tricky. It asks which political party--as of next month, remember--holds the Senate majority. The approved answer is the Democrats. That is correct--that is, unless the Senate's new independent member, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, pivots to his right and waves the Democrats goodbye.

On a more philosophical note, Question No. 71 asks, "What is self-government?" Two possible answers are provided: "Powers come from the people" and "government responds to the people." Hmm. Under those definitions, would you say that Iraq truly has self-governance?

Question No. 82 calls on would-be citizens to "name two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy." Ten possibilities are offered, among them voting, joining a political party and running for office. Ignored is one of the most fruitful ways used by some Americans: call the likes of Jack Abramoff.

Plenty of time remains, though, to work out the kinks.

By the way, you test takers in Albany [the only city in New York State included among the ten cities selected for the test], make all of us in New York proud. If asked next month for the three branches of government, remember that this is a national exam. Don't tell them an essential New York truth, that the three branches of government are Spitzer, Bruno and Silver.*

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
*For the benefit of non-New Yorkers: (Eliot) Spitzer, (Joseph) Bruno and (Sheldon) Silver are, respectively, the (Democratic) governor-elect, the (Republican) majority leader of the State Senate and the (Democratic) speaker of the Assembly. In recent decades a tradition has developed whereby the state budget--and when necesssary other delicate issues--is hammered out in closed session by the governor, Senate majority leader and Assembly speaker, and then passed on to the legislature for what amounts to "ratification."

Note: As usual with hostage-held NYT columnists, the full text of the Haberman column is appended in a comment.


STOOGE-RELATED AFTERTHOUGHTS

The one thing in the above report that continues to trouble me is what we might call the "New York Stooge gap": the Zogby poll finding that "74 percent of Americans (and 62 percent of New Yorkers) knew Larry, Curly and Moe." How are we to account for New Yorkers' relatively deficient Stooge-awareness? (I realize there's also a branches-of-government awareness gap, but first, it's realtively small--at 42 percent aware nationally to 39 percent in New York--and second, how many branches of government does a person really need to know about?

Also on my mind is the possibly excessive Stooge standard I've proposed. Perhaps requiring would-be citizens to name at least five of the Three Stooges is going too far. I settled on five as a realistic number that would lighten the burden of knowledge of the Later, Lesser Stooges (known in some circles as the False Stooges). Perhaps four would constitute a sufficient standard.

Quotes of the day, II: Yeah, sure, sports is business, we all know that--but then, Enron was a business (of sorts) too when "Enron Field" got its name

"The real world is that you have to have a naming opportunity and sell it for a lot of money if you can afford a stadium in this day and age."
--New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (right), at a ceremonial groundbreaking for "Citi Field," the future home of the New York Mets

"All that most fans want is a winning team. But it does not mean they can’t tell the difference between an honor and a billboard."
--NYT metro columnist Clyde Haberman, in his column today, "Field of Honor Becomes Field of Dollars"

"Citi Field"???

It sounds "like an abandoned dump site out by the airport," F. Scott Shea suggested to NYT metro columnist Clyde Haberman by phone from Los Angeles. (That's an artist's rendering of "Citi Field" at right.) Shea is a grandson of lawyer William Shea, who in his time was a force to be reckoned with in New York municipal affairs ("power broker" is the apt term used by Haberman) and played a huge role in securing a new National League franchise for the city after the flight-in-the-night of the wicked, ungrateful Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. The stadium the Mets moved into in 1964 (after playing their first three seasons in the Giants' old Polo Grounds) was named in Bill Shea's honor.

"It was an honor," writes Haberman (right), "in the dictionary definition of the word: high regard or great respect. It is an honor that has now become a casualty of modern business."

The name Citi Field, notes Haberman (as I've written here before, one of my very favorite curmudgeons), comes "in obeisance to Citigroup, the banking titan":

Citigroup has entered into a 20-year partnership with the ball club and, news reports have it, will give the team $20 million a year. That is a fair-size chunk of change (even if it would not fully cover the annual salary of New York’s highest-paid ballplayer, Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees, who proves every October that he could not hit water if he fell off a pier).

In exchange for its millions, Citigroup receives naming rights. Naming rights are not to be confused with honor. Honor is something bestowed upon you. It is not something that you can insist is your due. A company name spread above the front door on demand is a billboard.

To appreciate the concept of honor, you need look no farther than across the elevated tracks of the No. 7 train running alongside Shea Stadium. On the other side of the tracks lie a tennis center named for Billie Jean King and stadiums bearing the names of Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong. In that way, those giants of sports and music are honored. They did not pay for the privilege.

Putting up money without receiving a billboard in return is an alien concept in corporate America today. You don’t like it? Well, get real, said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who used to run an information services company that he named for himself.

"It could have been worse," suggests NYT sports columnist George Vecsey. "The new Mets ballpark could have been named for some company overcharging in Iraq or a scandalized corporation or a geeky-sounding electronics firm that may or may not still exist when the gates open in 2009."

Point taken, George.

"All that most fans want is a winning team," Haberman concludes. "But it does not mean they can’t tell the difference between an honor and a billboard.

Oh, by the way, when Mets principal owner Fred Wilpon was asked pointblank, he did allow that "we will honor Bill Shea somewhere in this stadium.” (He's seen here at Shea Stadium as it was readied for opening in 1964.) There should be plenty of wall space for a plaque--not to mention countless refreshment counters, souvenir stands and rest rooms, each of which represents a prime "naming opportunity." Maybe Hizzoner the Mayor would care to stick his name on a coupla toilets?

[Note: Just to be safe--I never know whether NYT links will get you to the destination--I've posted the full texts of the Haberman and Vecsey columns in a comment.]

Quote of the day: A Supreme Court justice voices "outrage and despair" at government "inhumanity" (and no, it wasn't "Sweet Lips" Sammy Alito)

A couple of things you should know off the bat about the above head:

(1) Did you think I meant the U.S. Supreme Court? Oops, sorry, it's actually New York State Supreme Court. And despite the lofty-sounding name, New York's Supreme Court isn't a fancy high-level court at all. It isn't even "a" court. It's essentially the whole of the state's basic trial-level courts. But since supreme courts have "justices" rather than "judges," the judge in question, Louis B. York, is indeed a "justice."

(2) And you should know that, sadly but not terribly surprisingly, Justice York was expressing his "outrage and despair" over something that circumstances made him powerless to do anything about. However, I give him credit for expressing that outrage and despair. I'm sure he hoped his message might be heard.

I was aware that poor Marc La Cloche had died, undoubtedly from one of the columns written about him by the New York Times's curmudgeonly metro columnist, Clyde Haberman. Mr. Haberman, a liberal of a decidedly non-bleeding-heart bent, is one of the more thoughtful writers in the public prints.

I hadn't heard about Justice York's ruling, though. Here's how Mr. Haberman, in today's "NYC" column, "A Fresh Start Needs Hands Willing to Help," tells the story of Marc La Cloche:

"He appeared in this column more than once. Mr. La Cloche was a Bronx man who, during an 11-year stretch in New York prisons for first-degree robbery, learned to be a barber. He loved cutting hair. After he was freed in 2001, he sought the state license required to pursue his new craft.

"Time and again, the office of New York's secretary of state, Randy A. Daniels, made sure that he didn't succeed. His criminal past, state officials said, proved that he lacked the 'good moral character' to be a barber. Ultimately, Mr. La Cloche was beaten down. He died last October at 40, a lonely man not given a shot.

"In his attempt to get a license, he had taken Mr. Daniels to court. When Mr. La Cloche died, so did his case. Justice Louis B. York of State Supreme Court in Manhattan signed a formal dismissal order on June 1. But in his ruling the judge did not hide his 'outrage and despair' over what the state officials had done, over 'the inhumanity exhibited by human beings with power over one person without power.'"


For the record, Mr. Haberman resurrected Marc La Cloche's story in the course of telling the story of a former drug addict named Gregory Pereira and a number of other ex-inmates:

"All belonged to a program called College and Community Fellowship, created six years ago to help former inmates pursue college studies, in most cases while they also hold full-time jobs. More than 100 people have taken part so far. At some point along the way, all had been written off as hopeless lowlifes, even no-lifes. Now they are graduating from college, some with advanced degrees."

It's worth a read—you'll find the full text appended in a comment.

More on the new breed of "outsider" candidates

Since I referred to Clyde Haberman's column on the new political realities, I thought I might as well pass it on as well.


The New York Times, November 8, 2005
NYC
New Leaders? Outsiders Are In

By CLYDE HABERMAN

ANYTHING can happen, but unless every pollster is deranged or on a crack high, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will be re-elected today and Fernando Ferrer will head toward wherever it is that three-time losers go.

By now, it has been amply noted that this will be the fourth straight Republican triumph in a city that is overwhelmingly Democratic. But arguably more important, it will be the fourth victory in a row for someone not constrained by the usual straitjackets of New York politics.

Rudolph W. Giuliani was first. Mr. Bloomberg is even more of an outsider, having spent most of his life doing something other than run for office or collect a government paycheck. Clearly, unconventional résumés are in. New Yorkers are not frightened by either a large bankroll or a party label. Polls say that Mr. Ferrer has struck out trying to sell Mr. Bloomberg as nothing but a clueless tycoon joined at the hip with President Bush.

So here are some questions as we look beyond Election 2005:

Can still more talented outsiders be encouraged to seek high office? And can it be done without their having to be mega-rich? We asked a bunch of political scientists and other experts (whose thoughtful responses, regrettably, must be squeezed, along with their titles, to fit this space).

A consensus felt that, yes, "we need to increase the gene pool of our elected officials beyond the professional pols," to quote Douglas Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College. It will not be easy, he said. Unfortunately, any outsider probably has to be "a gazillionaire." Modern campaigns are just too expensive.

Money, however, "can't totally hide a bad record or a poor message," said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union. The last two mayors, he said, have shown that candidates "who can appeal to a broader common interest over a compilation of special interests will dominate future elections."

Some see the Republican Party, a perennial outsider in New York politics, as a good vehicle for newcomers. "Historically, out-parties often turn to nontraditional candidacies," said Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

Steven Malanga, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, said the Democrats' problem was that they have "largely put forward a series of candidates who spent years waiting their turns." The local party has failed, he said, to tap the energies of Wall Street types who are active in national Democratic politics.

Jonathan Bowles, research director for the more liberal Center for an Urban Future, tends to agree. Local Democrats, he said, would be "wise to either look beyond their usual farm system or choose a pol who's not afraid to buck the party line on some issues."

Not that New York Republicans want for problems of their own.

THEY could "make the system more competitive from the bottom up" by fielding candidates at all levels, said John H. Mollenkopf, a political scientist at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Instead, the Republicans often throw in the towel. This year, they did not even bother to compete for two of the three citywide offices: comptroller and public advocate.

William B. Eimicke, a professor of public administration at Columbia University, suggests that colleges, civic groups, newspapers and television stations could do more to give "potential new leaders a forum to show what they know and what they can do."

For Fred Siegel, a history professor at Cooper Union, the key is to "enlarge the electorate by appealing to those who see city government as a kind of private business," one such group being "the disaffected middle class."

As for that eternal gremlin, money, its importance may become less crucial in time, said Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of public policy at New York University and an unpaid adviser to Mr. Bloomberg. The Internet "will eventually emerge as the principal way in which candidates communicate with voters," he predicted, and that "should lower the cost of running for office."

But until that day, candidates and voters will remain prisoners of expensive television advertising. Mr. Bloomberg has suggested that television stations level the playing field on their own by charging a good deal less for political commercials.

An interesting thought. For now, though, it is probably best filed under the heading of Fat Chance.

E-mail: Haberman@nytimes.com

I voted for Freddy Ferrer, but it was easy knowing he doesn't have a chance in hell

Well, I voted for Freddy. It probably helped knowing that he won't finish close enough to qualify as having been "creamed." He's a decent enough guy, though not much of a candidate--and I wonder how effective a mayor he might have been. Which is not to say that I'm crazy in love with Mike Bloomberg, but there is at least some sense that Bloomberg has some vision of city governance and development, though the vision for development inevitably leans heavily toward the "corporatist."

Whereas Ferrer's candidacy seems more a matter--as a conservative think-tanker put it to New York Times metro columnist Clyde Haberman today--of "spending years waiting their turns." During the campaign I let myself be sucked into a telephone survey that I eventually figured out was on behalf of the Ferrer people, fishing for some usable issues, somehow, somewhere. There wasn't any sense of vision or conviction, just "where might Bloomberg be vulnerable and how can we exploit it?"

At the same time, this model of rich folks stepping into the political arena to Show Us the Way depresses me. It's too horrible to think that this year's abominable New Jersey gubernatorial race is the wave of the future. And I don't have a problem with Sen. Jon Corzine, the Democratic candidate. Am I crazy, or are Corzine and Bloomberg vastly more benevolent versions of these Richie Rich candidates than we have any reason to hope for, or are likely to get in the future. Aren't, say, Michael Huffington and Sen. Doctor Bill and Austria's gift to Kah-lee-fornia likelier models?

I guess I'm still in a funk from another metro column, which appeared in yesterday's paper. I suppose it still rankles partly because Joyce Purnick doesn't seem to know what a lousy mayor Rudy Giuliani was in some important ways, like his passion for dividing the city between his kind of people and the rest of us. (That man feeds on viciousness and hate, and everything about his administration reflected it.) But I suspect the piece bothers me mostly because, while I have severely limited optimism that these new out-of-the-box candidates are really such a source of exciting new ideas, for the most part I CAN'T pick the piece apart. Can anyone out there help?


The New York Times, November 7, 2005
Metro Matters
City Democrats Fell Asleep in Clubhouse

By JOYCE PURNICK

THE teeth-gnashing has begun among Democrats as they anticipate losing the fourth consecutive mayoral election to a Republican and fear that the city's entrenched party has lost its shine.

Where have they been?

The party of clubs, patronage and power hasn't been what it used to be for decades. The reasons range from the city's changing population to the legacy of the New Deal, which usurped the party's erstwhile roles of serving up jobs and aiding the poor.

But the main reason the old-line Democratic Party has lost its gloss is the changing role of money in politics. Candidates no longer climb the party ladder, trading loyalty and service for money and troops.

Today a potential candidate pulls together a mini-organization and raises money. The wealthy, like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and New Jersey's political pugilists, Senator Jon S. Corzine and Douglas R. Forrester, tap their own assets. Others troll for contributions.

No clubhouse needed. And that did not start today.

"It was gone when I ran in 1965," recalled Herman Badillo, a former member of Congress who won a borough presidency as a Democrat by beating the organization headed by the Bronx's tough old-line party leader, Charles A. Buckley.

"When I was elected borough president, one of Buckley's captains said: 'I don't understand how you carried my district. You never even came to the district,' " Mr. Badillo recalled. "I said, 'Oh yes I did - I was on the television set.' The power of television eliminated the need for district leaders and captains."

The typical Democratic club was a center of influence. It arranged school transfers for teachers and students, expedited birth and death certificates, smoothed out civil service problems. No more.

The iconoclastic Mr. Badillo represents another change in the fortunes of the city's Democratic Party. A Puerto Rican, he changed from Democrat to Republican. Most Puerto Rican New Yorkers are still Democrats, and most will probably vote for Fernando Ferrer.

But today's Hispanic population is more diverse, more conservative, less likely to be automatically Democratic. The same for other voters, many of whom might find hollow Mr. Ferrer's assertion that he wanted tomorrow's vote to "remind New York that Democratic values in City Hall are the things that made this city great."

What values might those be? Tammany Hall corruption? Clubhouse cronyism? The past, of course, produced Democratic icons: Alfred E. Smith, Herbert H. Lehman, Senator Robert F. Wagner, Franklin D. Roosevelt. They gave Democrats a good name in urban America as they brought New Deal values and resources home.

But that was a long time ago. As the tax base shriveled and the city went into debt, the differences between Democrats and Republicans shrank. Even unions now endorse Republicans, and they cannot guarantee the votes of members anyway.

Indeed, unions have struggled (but have usually won out) under mayors of both parties, real estate barons have fared well under Democrats and Republicans, and it was Mr. Bloomberg who created a way for regular citizens to reach City Hall, 311.

FIORELLO H. LA GUARDIA, a fusion mayor, famously said there was no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. Today it's not only garbage, but also crime prevention, education, city security, housing, transit. They rarely have Republican or Democratic solutions.

When an approach succeeds - like the "broken windows" crime strategies of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's administration - it goes mainstream.

This campaign, like any, has its own character. Mr. Ferrer has not waged an effective race, and his chance of doing so was complicated by Mr. Bloomberg's overwhelming spending. Nor did it help that incumbents always have an edge, that Mr. Bloomberg is but a nominal, Rockefeller-like Republican, or that polls show that many New Yorkers think the city is in relatively good shape.

That suggests that the mayor might not have needed his millions to win, despite his Republican label. Many Democrats would not have tolerated seeing the mayor campaign with the president - or even with Mr. Giuliani, notably absent from the Bloomberg campaign trail.

But there is little doubt that the city is developing a pronounced nonpartisan streak. Charlie Buckley, late of the Bronx, wouldn't recognize the place. The problem for his party is that some of its leaders today think they do.

E-mail: purnick@nytimes.com