Richard Schaeffer
05-01-2006, 05:22 PM
Tommy, no hard feelings...just because you tried to screw my boy Levy out of the county executive job by running Cunningham and your family law firm hired republican Gaffney...no hard feelings..give me a call...I will give you the 25% percent you need at the convention......so you can talk and won't have to walk petitions...call me...don't be shy.......................your friend Rich
Suozzi to skip convention, petition to Democratic ballot
4/28/2006, 6:52 p.m. ET
By MICHAEL GORMLEY
The Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Democratic candidate for governor Tom Suozzi said Friday he will not seek his party's nomination at its state convention next month, but rather pursue petitions from Democrats statewide to force a September primary against state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
"This is supposed to be a competition for the position for the governor of the state of New York, not a coronation," said Suozzi, the Nassau County executive.
Suozzi said his staff was told by state Democratic Party officials recently that he wouldn't be allowed to speak at the convention if he didn't get the 25 percent of the delegates' weighted vote required to place him on the September primary ballot.
"Even the few people that would support me at the convention were worried about the fact that they'd be ostracized for doing so," he said.
Suozzi also criticized Spitzer, who has the personal endorsement of most party leaders: "Eliot says that he's a reformer. It's time that he starts proving it."
Spitzer led Suozzi, 69 percent to 14 percent, for the Democratic nomination according to a March poll from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"Party rules state that a candidate must get 51 percent of the weighted vote to be the designee of our party and 25 percent to get on the ballot and speak at the convention," said state Democratic Chairman Herman Farrell. "If they don't get 25 percent they can pursue the petition route to get on the ballot, just as Eliot Spitzer did in 1994 after he did not get the sufficient number of votes at the convention."
"He hasn't asked anybody and I would consider it, giving him the 25 percent and letting him speak," said Richard H. Schaffer, a member of the state party's executive committee and chairman of the Suffolk County Democratic Comittee. Schaffer said he's still open to giving Suozzi a voice at the convention. "He has my phone number."
Suozzi said he would be in Buffalo, the site of the May 30 to May 31 convention, and hold public events during the convention. The front-runner in the race is Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney general, who has a wide lead in the polls over Suozzi and Republicans John Faso and Bill Weld.
"If he wants to stay in and he wants to have a candidacy and he wants to look like a fighter, then he plays the outsider strategy, which is what he's doing," said independent pollster Lee Miringoff, head of Marist College's Institute of Public Opinion.
"It's the strategy he has to play in a sense because coming up short would have not been a great sendoff for his candidacy," he said.
"It's tactically smart," said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist who has worked for Spitzer in the past, but is not involved in this year's race for governor. "He knows he's not going to get on the ballot through the convention and he doesn't want to give it any credibility."
But Sheinkopf said the county executive still had a very uphill fight ahead.
"It'll be hard for Suozzi to position himself as the reformer-outsider because Spitzer is doing his best to grab the mantle of reform," Sheinkopf said.
At a speech Friday on the need to overhaul New York's redrawing of state legislative districts to create fair, competitive races, Suozzi said: "The leadership of my own party tried to convince me not to run. When that didn't work, they began plotting to keep me off the ballot," according to the text of his comments on his campaign Web site.
"Now they're telling me I will not even be permitted to speak at the state Democratic Convention if I don't receive 25 percent of votes from an establishment that has sworn to try and stop me from even running," Suozzi stated. "We complain about voter apathy, but we are making the voters apathetic by taking away their choices — by taking away the excitement and interest generated by competitive debate and elections."
"And everyone has become so cynical that that's perceived as acceptable behavior," Suozzi said. "Well, I'm not going away."
Spitzer's campaign declined comment.
The Suozzi move seemed reminiscent of the 2002 state Democratic Convention walkout by former federal Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo after it became evident that he lacked the 25 percent vote in his battle against then-state Comptroller H. Carl McCall for the party's gubernatorial nomination.
Cuomo, the elder son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, did make it onto the primary ballot through petitions, but then quit the race just days before the September showdown rather than face an embarrassing loss to McCall.
___
AP Political Writer Marc Humbert contributed to this report.
Suozzi to skip convention, petition to Democratic ballot
4/28/2006, 6:52 p.m. ET
By MICHAEL GORMLEY
The Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Democratic candidate for governor Tom Suozzi said Friday he will not seek his party's nomination at its state convention next month, but rather pursue petitions from Democrats statewide to force a September primary against state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
"This is supposed to be a competition for the position for the governor of the state of New York, not a coronation," said Suozzi, the Nassau County executive.
Suozzi said his staff was told by state Democratic Party officials recently that he wouldn't be allowed to speak at the convention if he didn't get the 25 percent of the delegates' weighted vote required to place him on the September primary ballot.
"Even the few people that would support me at the convention were worried about the fact that they'd be ostracized for doing so," he said.
Suozzi also criticized Spitzer, who has the personal endorsement of most party leaders: "Eliot says that he's a reformer. It's time that he starts proving it."
Spitzer led Suozzi, 69 percent to 14 percent, for the Democratic nomination according to a March poll from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"Party rules state that a candidate must get 51 percent of the weighted vote to be the designee of our party and 25 percent to get on the ballot and speak at the convention," said state Democratic Chairman Herman Farrell. "If they don't get 25 percent they can pursue the petition route to get on the ballot, just as Eliot Spitzer did in 1994 after he did not get the sufficient number of votes at the convention."
"He hasn't asked anybody and I would consider it, giving him the 25 percent and letting him speak," said Richard H. Schaffer, a member of the state party's executive committee and chairman of the Suffolk County Democratic Comittee. Schaffer said he's still open to giving Suozzi a voice at the convention. "He has my phone number."
Suozzi said he would be in Buffalo, the site of the May 30 to May 31 convention, and hold public events during the convention. The front-runner in the race is Eliot Spitzer, the state attorney general, who has a wide lead in the polls over Suozzi and Republicans John Faso and Bill Weld.
"If he wants to stay in and he wants to have a candidacy and he wants to look like a fighter, then he plays the outsider strategy, which is what he's doing," said independent pollster Lee Miringoff, head of Marist College's Institute of Public Opinion.
"It's the strategy he has to play in a sense because coming up short would have not been a great sendoff for his candidacy," he said.
"It's tactically smart," said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist who has worked for Spitzer in the past, but is not involved in this year's race for governor. "He knows he's not going to get on the ballot through the convention and he doesn't want to give it any credibility."
But Sheinkopf said the county executive still had a very uphill fight ahead.
"It'll be hard for Suozzi to position himself as the reformer-outsider because Spitzer is doing his best to grab the mantle of reform," Sheinkopf said.
At a speech Friday on the need to overhaul New York's redrawing of state legislative districts to create fair, competitive races, Suozzi said: "The leadership of my own party tried to convince me not to run. When that didn't work, they began plotting to keep me off the ballot," according to the text of his comments on his campaign Web site.
"Now they're telling me I will not even be permitted to speak at the state Democratic Convention if I don't receive 25 percent of votes from an establishment that has sworn to try and stop me from even running," Suozzi stated. "We complain about voter apathy, but we are making the voters apathetic by taking away their choices — by taking away the excitement and interest generated by competitive debate and elections."
"And everyone has become so cynical that that's perceived as acceptable behavior," Suozzi said. "Well, I'm not going away."
Spitzer's campaign declined comment.
The Suozzi move seemed reminiscent of the 2002 state Democratic Convention walkout by former federal Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo after it became evident that he lacked the 25 percent vote in his battle against then-state Comptroller H. Carl McCall for the party's gubernatorial nomination.
Cuomo, the elder son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, did make it onto the primary ballot through petitions, but then quit the race just days before the September showdown rather than face an embarrassing loss to McCall.
___
AP Political Writer Marc Humbert contributed to this report.