Monday, March 9, 2009
New York’sPolitical Mob Wars
By Gary Tilzer
The leaders of New York’s Political Mob are the City’s party leaders who exist with the Tammany Hall power control template, unchallenged and unaccountable to the voters in New York’s broken down election system. Their soldiers are campaign consultants who also operate as lobbyists and are as accountable to the voters as Bernie Madoff was to his investors. In this war the 4th estate has limited itself to covering only the horse race and simply reprinting the candidate’s press releases. The press coverage of politics is amazingly similar to the SEC reviews of Madoff’s records over the years.
Lately it seems that the live and let live compact between the party leaders and lobbyists (so similar to the Mob’s Appalachian agreement in the 50’s), has broken down. One of the most aggressive party leaders Brooklyn’s Vito Lopez, was the first to make a hit when he supported the redistricting of a council district in the Queens leader’s territory. Last year he sent in his lobbyist Michael Tobman to take advantage of a split in the Asian community to support Grace Ming. The Queens machine is seen as the Godfather of all the leaders mainly because its late leader Congressman Manton was able to put together deals to elect the last two council speakers. The original deal made in 2001 to elect Gifford Miller still continues to this day. Last month Speaker Quinn supported a Queens representative, Michael McSweeney, to the highly political position of City Clerk, infuriating Lopez and the new leader of the Bronx Hestie.
This year Lopez and Tobman are widening their war to a new borough: Manhattan. Tobman is a consultant in the campaign of Leslie Crocker Snyder, who is running to replace Robert Morgenthau. The Manhattan establishment has hired Bill Lynch and probably George Artz to defend their territory with Cyrus Vance. According to many, Tobman ran a very well funded, sleazy, Karl Rove style campaign on behalf of Roger Adler for a civil court seat and yet lost.
Yesterday Lynch with his candidate for comptroller John Liu, organized a St Valentine’s Day type hit against many of the Queens Godfather political leaders and many of the other families of county leaders and lobbyists that run New York, when he openly said that city residents vote by race and ethic alliances, not by territory. And he is right. County leaders have used smoke and mirrors and a wimpy press for years to pretend that they control the vote. In spite of their failure to control the vote, they still have Tammany Hall-like powers in critical areas shaping the city’s politics - ballot access, picking judges and a petitioning process that lets them knock off challengers. As a result, they stay in their party positions unchallenged and unanswerable to the public. Many party positions are now helped by elected officials, making those positions more like pawns in an insider game than representative of the people registered in the party. Lynch knows that the party leader’s position has more to do with controlling the office than delivering the vote to a candidate and he has moved in to take over.
“The Democratic Party is weak in New York City — and it has no way to control people” said H. Carl McCall, a former Democratic state comptroller who ran for governor in 2002. “There is no loyalty and there are no sanctions for being disloyal.”
The Godfather Queens machine reacts to the Liu and Lynch hit in it’s own home, showing that it is clueless and out of touch.
"I don't know why [Liu] would do this," is what Mike Reich, executive director of the Queens County organization, told my Daily News colleague Liz Benjamin. "The more people there are from Queens in the running, the less likely it is that someone from Queens will win." By Reich's logic, Liu's run for controller will end up helping Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn, the fourth candidate in the race. Seems Reich and his fellow Queens leaders have become fat on the millions they have made over the years in patronage and lobbying fees. What Lynch the young Turk knows is that with a generation of broken down political parties, race and ethnic background matter more than where someone lives when they vote.
Lynch is a lobbyist who has made a great living on his understanding of race and how people vote. He ran the successful Dinkins mayoral campaign. He has also been a leader in pay to play politics which destroy the neighborhoods and voters in New York.
Even Bloomberg tried and failed to weaken the control of campaign consultants who operate as lobbyists when he tried and failed to propose tougher limits on them. At that time the mayor criticized the overlapping interests of consultants who raise funds or dispense advice for public officials while lobbying them on behalf of special interests.
At yesterday’s announcement of the Liu candidacy not a single question was asked by the press about how Wall Street’s failing pension funds or the falling real estate market will affect city services. Not a word about the Cuomo investigation of the state controller’s office or how the city comptroller allowed fake non profits to exist in the City’s budget.
Even if the press and the Queens machine does not get it, there is a political mob war in New York and don’t be surprised if bodies all over town wind up buried in the mud. *** New York Needs A Sun Burn *** Organized Crime Politics Part 2 *** Organized Crime Politics Part 1 *** NY's Falling Voter Participation *** Tammany’s Ballot Control Again and Again *** The Real Campaign is to Suppress Challengers.
The leaders of New York’s Political Mob are the City’s party leaders who exist with the Tammany Hall power control template, unchallenged and unaccountable to the voters in New York’s broken down election system. Their soldiers are campaign consultants who also operate as lobbyists and are as accountable to the voters as Bernie Madoff was to his investors. In this war the 4th estate has limited itself to covering only the horse race and simply reprinting the candidate’s press releases. The press coverage of politics is amazingly similar to the SEC reviews of Madoff’s records over the years.
Lately it seems that the live and let live compact between the party leaders and lobbyists (so similar to the Mob’s Appalachian agreement in the 50’s), has broken down. One of the most aggressive party leaders Brooklyn’s Vito Lopez, was the first to make a hit when he supported the redistricting of a council district in the Queens leader’s territory. Last year he sent in his lobbyist Michael Tobman to take advantage of a split in the Asian community to support Grace Ming. The Queens machine is seen as the Godfather of all the leaders mainly because its late leader Congressman Manton was able to put together deals to elect the last two council speakers. The original deal made in 2001 to elect Gifford Miller still continues to this day. Last month Speaker Quinn supported a Queens representative, Michael McSweeney, to the highly political position of City Clerk, infuriating Lopez and the new leader of the Bronx Hestie.
This year Lopez and Tobman are widening their war to a new borough: Manhattan. Tobman is a consultant in the campaign of Leslie Crocker Snyder, who is running to replace Robert Morgenthau. The Manhattan establishment has hired Bill Lynch and probably George Artz to defend their territory with Cyrus Vance. According to many, Tobman ran a very well funded, sleazy, Karl Rove style campaign on behalf of Roger Adler for a civil court seat and yet lost.
Yesterday Lynch with his candidate for comptroller John Liu, organized a St Valentine’s Day type hit against many of the Queens Godfather political leaders and many of the other families of county leaders and lobbyists that run New York, when he openly said that city residents vote by race and ethic alliances, not by territory. And he is right. County leaders have used smoke and mirrors and a wimpy press for years to pretend that they control the vote. In spite of their failure to control the vote, they still have Tammany Hall-like powers in critical areas shaping the city’s politics - ballot access, picking judges and a petitioning process that lets them knock off challengers. As a result, they stay in their party positions unchallenged and unanswerable to the public. Many party positions are now helped by elected officials, making those positions more like pawns in an insider game than representative of the people registered in the party. Lynch knows that the party leader’s position has more to do with controlling the office than delivering the vote to a candidate and he has moved in to take over.
“The Democratic Party is weak in New York City — and it has no way to control people” said H. Carl McCall, a former Democratic state comptroller who ran for governor in 2002. “There is no loyalty and there are no sanctions for being disloyal.”
The Godfather Queens machine reacts to the Liu and Lynch hit in it’s own home, showing that it is clueless and out of touch.
"I don't know why [Liu] would do this," is what Mike Reich, executive director of the Queens County organization, told my Daily News colleague Liz Benjamin. "The more people there are from Queens in the running, the less likely it is that someone from Queens will win." By Reich's logic, Liu's run for controller will end up helping Councilman David Yassky of Brooklyn, the fourth candidate in the race. Seems Reich and his fellow Queens leaders have become fat on the millions they have made over the years in patronage and lobbying fees. What Lynch the young Turk knows is that with a generation of broken down political parties, race and ethnic background matter more than where someone lives when they vote.
Lynch is a lobbyist who has made a great living on his understanding of race and how people vote. He ran the successful Dinkins mayoral campaign. He has also been a leader in pay to play politics which destroy the neighborhoods and voters in New York.
Even Bloomberg tried and failed to weaken the control of campaign consultants who operate as lobbyists when he tried and failed to propose tougher limits on them. At that time the mayor criticized the overlapping interests of consultants who raise funds or dispense advice for public officials while lobbying them on behalf of special interests.
At yesterday’s announcement of the Liu candidacy not a single question was asked by the press about how Wall Street’s failing pension funds or the falling real estate market will affect city services. Not a word about the Cuomo investigation of the state controller’s office or how the city comptroller allowed fake non profits to exist in the City’s budget.
Even if the press and the Queens machine does not get it, there is a political mob war in New York and don’t be surprised if bodies all over town wind up buried in the mud. *** New York Needs A Sun Burn *** Organized Crime Politics Part 2 *** Organized Crime Politics Part 1 *** NY's Falling Voter Participation *** Tammany’s Ballot Control Again and Again *** The Real Campaign is to Suppress Challengers.
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