Posted on 07/31/2010 2:28:32 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, today endorsed Michael Grimm in his quest to unseat Rep. Michael McMahon in the House of Representatives.
Said Palin in a press release:
"Michael Grimm, a former Deputy U.S. Marshall and FBI Special Agent, is running in New York's 13th Congressional District. This decorated Marine and Persian Gulf War veteran took on organized crime and Wall Street corruption as an undercover agent. As a current small business owner, Michael understands that real economic growth comes from the private sector, not government. He'll represent New Yorkers with just as much integrity and courage as he defended them in the FBI and the Marine Corps. Please join me in supporting Michael by visiting his website at www.grimmforcongress.com and following him on Facebook and Twitter."
(Excerpt) Read more at silive.com ...
This appears to be the only winnable district in New York City. Grimm has an impressive resume, as Sarah Palin points out.
She also endorsed Hannity’s friend Gomez for the 2nd.
McMahon recently got into hot water, and justifiably so, when his office released a list of "Jewish contributors" to Grimm. McMahon blamed it on one particular staffer (a white non-Jewish female) whom he fired. He also claims that he was trying to differentiate Grimm's mostly out-of-district contributors from McMahon's close-to-home buddies, and "out-of-district" somehow morphed into "Jewish." Meanwhile the staffer who was fired is saying that a Jewish staffer approved the release of the "Jewish contributor" list.
Local Jewish 'Rat politicians are circling the wagons for McMahon, but just about every one else thinks that McMahon had to have approved the Grimm "Jewish contributor" list and is himself culpable.
In MY Book a “List of Jewish Contributors” would be a Positive and GOOD Thing!
But then, I am NOT a RAT, Liberal, Commie, Pinko Anti-Israel, Antisemite!
I am REALLY glad though, that a Rat Ploy backfired!
Whosoever diggeth the pit
Shall fall into it himself!
ha ha ha
hee hee hee
ho ho ho!
Not when you are disparaging a political opponent by pointing out the opponent's Jewish contributors. It all depends on the context.
No surprises here. We Joos are simply conspiring against each other to keep in shape for when we take over the world./sarc
Hopefully this "Jewish contributors list" thing will hurt the rat. The last GOP seat in the city besides the Staten Island one was the silk stocking seat, lost by the incumbent Bill Green after redistricting in 1992 to Carolyn Maloney. The leftward movement in the area plus the fact that it now has a rat chunk of Queens in it renders it unwinnable (or at least all but unwinnable, it would take an ideal scenario to maybe elect a liberal RINO to the seat). For GOP seats in the city besides those two you have to go back to the 50's I think. DJ would know.
Currently the second most GOP seat in the city at least going by POTUS voting is A. Weiner's 9th district. Weiner hasn't had a GOP foe since 2004. It gave Bush 30% in 2000 but 44% in 2004, which McCain matched. You could probably draw a seat Bush/McCain won from white areas of Brooklyn and Queens. But capturing that hypothetical seat wouldn't be a slam dunk.
If Weiner had been elected Mayor I would have liked to have seen what effort if any would have been put into the special election for the seat. Weiner has an opponent this time, we'll see if he can make it a race, I would hope so but definitely wouldn't bet on it.
It was 1981-1983 when we last had three. Bill Green in the Silk Stocking district (now Maloney’s seat) and the two Reagan landslide freshmen, Guy Molinari from Staten Island and John LeBoutillier from Eastern Queens/West Nassau. We almost had a 4th member when our candidate nearly beat Leo Zeferetti in SW Brooklyn (Molinari was redistricted in with Zeferetti in 1982 and to the Dems chagrin, beat Zeferetti). When LeBoutillier’s 6th was combined with the Nassau-based 3rd, he ran in it instead and lost to Dem Bob Mrazek (which is technically Peter King’s seat now).
Essentially goes like this, the last Republican to represent each borough:
Manhattan — Bill Green (defeated 1992)
Brooklyn — Vito Fossella (retired 2009)
Staten Island — Fossella (””””””” “”””)
Queens — John LeBoutillier (1981-1983)
Bronx — Paul Fino (resigned in 1968)
And as an aside, the last time the GOP won a majority of the NYC delegation was in 1920.
Ah I had no idea part of LeBoutillier’s seat was in the city.
The Fino seat that would be Elliot Engel’s now right? We still had a State Senator in that area, Guy Velella, until he had some kind of corruption issue.
I had forgotten LeBoutillier had won within it, too, presuming it was entirely the north shore of Nassau (”The Great Gatsby” district), but a quick check on my part revealed that when he won, it was also in Queens. LeBoutillier had even persuaded fellow freshman Republican Congressman Greg Carman to step aside (since the Dem redistrictors merged the 6th and 3rd together, eliminating the Queens part - mainly with an eye to eliminating the confrontational LeBoutillier) so he could have a better shot, but LeBoutillier still lost in a GOP-leaning area. Carman ended up with the better deal — he got Pres. Reagan to appoint him to a federal judgeship. The less controversial Carman might’ve been a better bet to hold the seat against challenger Bob Mrazek.
Anyway, yes, Engel is in the Fino seat. Fino was really the last major successful Republican in that area. He had been a State Senator in the ‘40s, got swept into Congress in the Ike landslide of ‘52 (though he still dabbled in city politics, running for City Controller the following year and City Council President in 1961, either of which would’ve put him in the catbird’s seat to the Mayor’s office). He outright resigned in ‘68 to take a Supreme Court posting (which is a lesser court in NY, not the top court, often confusing to out-of-staters, and probably natives, too), but I don’t know if it was because he was tired of Congress after 16 years or whether he feared strong competition in the form of the then “heroic” Conservative Democrat Mario Biaggi (Biaggi, of course, would later go on in the course of just a few years from being on a trajectory with the Mayor’s office in 1973 to a sad burnout after it was revealed that he was a liar, moving ever more so to the left the longer he remained in Congress (he had a 50% rating from the ACU in 1971, getting a 10% in 1987 and 0% in ‘88 (though he was absent and resigned that year), eventually being done in by a separate corruption issue in 1988 that paved the way for Engel’s defeat of him that year).
The Brooklyn portion of Nadler’s ultraliberal NY-08, which casts 29% of the CD’s votes, has a huge Orthodox Jewish amd Russian Jewish population and it gave McCain 55% in 2008 (it had also voted for Bush in 2004). The Brooklyn portion of Weiner’s NY-09 also has many Orthodox Jews and it gave McCain 57% in 2008 (and a similar percentage to Bush in 2004). Combining Orthodox Jewish parts of Brooklyn into a single district (one would have to append Williamsburg to those areas in the south through a fairly narrow land bridge) would yield a conservative-voting district that would be highly competitive between a Jewish conservative Republican and a Jewish conservative Democrat.
There are plenty of GOP neighbirhoods in Weiner’s Queens portion, andit may be possible to create a GOP CD in Queens (think Serphin Maltese’s old state senate district).
I would combine white parts of Manhattan—basically the Nanhattan portions of Nadler’s and Maloney’s CDs—into a single district. Had that been done in 1992 Green would have probably survived (especially following Weiss’s death), although nowadays I don’t think even a RINO could win it.
And forget about the Bronx. It ain’t happening. We could take parts of Engel’s CD in Westchester and Rockland and combine it with areas to the northto form a GOP CD, but the Bronx is unwinnable for the GOP for the foreseeable future.
Of course, this is all academic, since we haven’t been in firm control of redistricting in NY since the 1972 elections.
I go by CQ politics which shows 44% for each Bush and McCain (Auh2oRepublican has more precise data.
I’d prefer data to the .01 but they round it off ;d). It also shows 56% for Kerry and 55% for Obama. Meaning if accurate that Obama did at least a few tenths of a % worse than Kerry did in the district! In any case, there was no swing to Berry 0. Dave Leip’s Atlas shows the city trended Republican in 2008. Meaning that the rat vote did not increase as much as it did nationally.
Auh2: “Bronx is unwinnable for the GOP for the foreseeable future.”
What about Riverdale? And aren’t there a couple other white ‘hoods there? Those people voted for Velella not that long ago didn’t they. And I presume “GOP” for Mayor as well.
Though I wouldn’t consider that little slice of the Borough favorable enough to try to stick in any suburban GOP congressional district.
“Brooklyn — Vito Fossella (retired 2009)”
Hey, how about for a Brooklyn CD that did not include Staten Island?
Staten Island doesn’t have enough population to have its own exclusive CD, it has to include a chunk of Brooklyn (albeit the Conservative section). When Guy Molinari beat the Dem incumbent in 1980, the district did not include Brooklyn but did include a sliver of Lower Manhattan !
So when was the last Brooklyn only or Brooklyn/Queens (or Brooklyn/Manhattan) seat we had? There seems to have been 1 in the 80th Congress. Robert Nodar in 6th. Any more recent?
The last “fully in Brooklyn” Republican Congressman was Francis Dorn (1953-1961). He was beaten in 1960 by Democrat Hugh Carey by just 383 votes. The district was still competitive for us for the remainder of its existence. When Carey vacated it in 1974 when he was elected Governor, that was the one won by Leo Zeferetti (and as I mentioned earlier, he almost was beaten in 1980, winning by only 3,000 votes, 50-47%). It was effectively dismantled in 1982 and adjoined to the Molinari Staten Island seat (though the Dems hoped it would reelect Zeferetti, but it didn’t).
Riverdale is heavily Jewish and Democrat (and has a high turnout). It would be a fool’s errand to try to add it to a suburban district and hope it votes GOP.
There may be some Irish/Italian neighborhoods in the eastern Bronx that could be added to a GOP-leaning Westchester/Nassau CD with water boundaries, but it likely wouldn’t be worth the trouble.
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