By Dee Richard
On Monday evening, the city’s homeward-bound commuters on the Long Island Rail Road were treated to a meet-and-greet from one of the candidates for governor. Rick Lazio spent more than an hour at the Bayside station.
Rick, in this year’s political cycle, just may be lucky enough to find himself in the right place at the right time. Why now? Aside from his qualifications, he has the look. What do I mean by “the look”? It’s that decent, clean-cut, all-American boy-next-door look, examples of which are City Councilmen Eric Ulrich, Dan Halloran, Jimmy Van Bramer and Danny Dromm.
The electorate is clearly indicating its preference for that type of individual on both sides of the aisle, as Ulrich and Halloran are Republicans while Van Bramer and Dromm are Democrats. It would appear everyone is ready for a change and the change apparently is anti-professional career politician. I don’t have to update you on their antics, as anyone who reads the papers, watches TV or listens to the radio is well aware of what that group is all about.
There are, of course, always exceptions — a case in point being state Sen. Frank Padavan. His district office is always open and ready to serve any constituent regardless of party affiliation. As they say, there’s always an exception to prove the rule.
On Wednesday evening, Democrat Elio Forcina held a fund-raiser at Verdi’s in Whitestone. It was rather on the small side, I guess due primarily to it being in the middle of vacation season. Some of the attendees there were Peter Zuccarello, Phil Zerillo, Joe and Gina Bechtold, Chuck Apelian and Rob Speranza. Those were the only folks I knew. There are a number of good, qualified candidates running for Ann-Margaret Carrozza’s 26th state Assembly District seat. It would be rather foolish to try and make a prediction until after the primary when there is only one Democrat and one Republican left standing.
On Thursday night, Queens County Conservative Party Chairman Tom Long and the Kings County Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar jointly held their annual 2010 American Heritage Dinner. This year it was Brooklyn’s turn and they held it at a new place for them. It was the Dyker Beach Golf Course in Dyker Heights. What a lovely place it was.
Their honoree was Peter Murphy, director of policy and communications for the New York Charter Schools Association, which represents more than 180 approved charter schools. Peter is a dedicated advocate of the charter school system and helped develop the charter school law as well as the School Tax Relief Program.
They had quite an impressive turnout starting with Lazio, Michael Grimm (for U.S. House), Joe DioGuardi (for U.S. Senate), Anthony Como and Robert Schwartz (for state Senate), Robert Friedrich and Tony Nunziato (for state Assembly) and one of my all-time favorite nice guys, Dan Donovan (for state attorney general).
Donovan has been an extremely competent Staten Island district attorney, which should serve him well in his campaign. A sense of humor goes a long way to help ease the pain in running for political office, and such is the case with Donovan. He smiled as he noted former Gov. Eliot Spitzer used it as a stepping stone toward the governorship. He assured everyone that if elected, the attorney general position is the only one he desires.
Other notables were Mike Long, Connie and Serf Maltese, Sen. Martin Golden, Halloran, Ulrich, Bart Haggerty and numerous others.
I would like to thank DioGuardi for his autographed pre-publication copy of his new book, “Unaccountable Congress: It Doesn’t Add Up.” The front cover shows a Congressional credit card named “National Debt” and underneath it is,” Credit Line-UNLIMITED” and “Expiration Date-NEVER.”
Obviously, I haven’t had time to read the book yet, but skimming through it DioGuardi, who is a certified public accountant, did offer some positive and concrete solutions to our national debt problem. More to follow later.
That’s it for this week.
I look forward to hearing from you with information on people, parties and politics or gossip.
I like receiving your voice at 718-767-6484, faxes at 718-746-0066 and your e-mails at deerrichard@aol.com.
Don’t forget to check out the Focus on Queens page.
Till next week, Dee.
