[FURTHER UPDATE] Welcome, AoSHQ readers. Note the petition below.
[UPDATE]: Thanks to Randy Mastro and our own Francis Cianfrocca - who will have a lot more to say about these races - here’s the petition cataloging said skulduggery; and you will not find it dull reading. (If you’re having trouble reading it, try here.)
It’s not that our opponents are geniuses at skulduggery. It’s that they’re unaccustomed to being challenged on it. When they do, they make mistakes:
A City Council hopeful won’t cough up documents related to whether the Working Families Party is scamming the campaign finance system — because the case could involve “criminal liability,” according to documents released yesterday.
The bombshell development was revealed at a court hearing where lawyers for the WFP and the campaign of Staten Island candidate Debi Rose tried to get a suit against them tossed.
Former Giuliani administration Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, the lawyer opposing the Rose campaign, called it an “extraordinary development.”
The suit itself - I’m working to get a copy of it sent to me - alleges that WFP (which is, of course, a front for ACORN) is violating campaign finance laws by having WFP front group Data and Field Services provide “canvassing and other services for [City Council candidate Debi] Rose in her primary campaign against [current Conservative candidate* Ken] Mitchell for which the firm received far less than the market value.” In that context, trying to avoid financial disclosure on the grounds of possible self-incrimination is at the very least eyebrow-raising; which is why they tried to walk back on it before 24 hours had passed. It should also be noted that the Rose race in Staten Island is not the only one where this sort of thing went on; Queens City Council candidate James Van Bramer is likewise heavily involved with WFP/Data & Field Services, as this diary from the Daily Kos (of all places) makes clear. I’m sure that his campaign is watching this case unfold with great interest.
The moral here? Well, aside from the obvious one of “ACORN taints everything that it touches,” it’s this: one-party rule makes people stupid. And stupid people make mistakes. Keep that in mind the next time you’re trying to decide whether or not to fight City Hall.
Moe Lane
*Who is actually a Democrat. Welcome to New York fusion politics.
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
These people can only survive where there is no effective opposition.
Achance Sunday, November 1st at 12:51PM EST (link)ACORN, SEIU, all the interest group non-profits and Democrat fronts can only operate in the true Blue States and the doughnut cities where they never have any effective opposition. In the rare cases where there are Republicans, they have to be the nice sort of Republican who can grovel for scraps from the Democrat feast.
None of them really know how to deal with being attacked and, frankly, they don’t have much of a playbook for responding to effective attacks; whine to their media friends and name call, throw in a little guerilla theater sometimes. If you just ignore them and start picking off the activists, they fold rather quickly.
Every Republican governor and attorney general in the Country should be in a state of war with all the Democrat fronts, but the Republican establishment is still stuck on stupid and thinking if they’re just nice, they won’t get called names. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
In Vino Veritas
Watch this space, Achance
Francis Cianfrocca Sunday, November 1st at 1:41PM EST (link)There will be some interesting stories from the front lines in New York City, posted here after the election.
But we want to know now! :)
streetwise Sunday, November 1st at 2:01PM EST (link)Oh, I guess we can wait a couple of days.
Dare we hope for perpwalks? nt
Achance Sunday, November 1st at 2:04PM EST (link)In Vino Veritas
No, but the rest of your comment raises the pertinent questions
Francis Cianfrocca Sunday, November 1st at 2:18PM EST (link)n/t
That should be blood in the water
anotherindyfilmguy Sunday, November 1st at 3:57PM EST (link)to any prosecutors worth their fins…
Problem is that many of the prosecutors are WFP-backed
Francis Cianfrocca Sunday, November 1st at 4:32PM EST (link)Notably the DA in Brooklyn, which is where ACORN, the WFP, and DFS all have headquarters in the same space.
It’s hard to express just how disgusting it is to see democracy perverted like this.
...one party rule makes people stupid.
Jeff Weimer Sunday, November 1st at 9:58PM EST (link)That explains Nancy Pelosi quite well, actually.
“We stand at once the wonder and admiration of the whole world, and we must enquire what it is that has given us so much prosperity. This cause is that every man can make himself.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right?” - Martin Luther King, Jr.