Spin Cycle

Two days before a hotly contested national and state election, the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce annual dinner was the scene of uncommon mutual expressions of admiration between Democrats and Republicans, Newsday's Sid Cassese informs us. He files this report:

Democratic Gov. David Paterson, a Hempstead High School graduate and the chamber’s Man of the Year, praised his former community neighbor Dean Skelos of Rockville Centre, the Republican State Senate Majority Leader, for his leadership in addressing — along with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) — the state’s budget crisis in an early session of the legislature.

Skelos, a re-election candidate sitting in the audience of about 1,000, simply nodded his head. But later, Republican Congressman Pete King of Seaford, also up for re-election, praised Paterson. “I’m proud to say that David Paterson is our Governor,” he said. “I’m proud to have him come before Congress and represent New York State, and I’m proud to stand with him.”

Former Republican U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato, who was part of a team that hosted a fundraiser Sunday for Paterson in Island Park at a minimum of $1,000 a plate, praised the governor for his decisive action in dealing with the state’s budget crisis.

“You are standing up for what is right,” he told Paterson. “We can’t continue to do business as usual.” Former Long Beach Democratic Chairman and current chamber chairman Larry Elovich told the audience to vote for Pete King.

Crisis is clouding the slogans.

John McCain’s “Country First” sounds like the name of a busted bank, and Barack Obama’s “Change We Need” suggests a search for coins behind the seat cushions.

Financial failure has eclipsed war and terrorism. So even an ordinary event like the Manhattan breakfast on Thursday of the Association for a Better New York brought buzz about a gloomy future.

Richard Kessel, new head of the state Power Authority, was on hand. As a former member of the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, and would-have-been deputy county executive, he predicts tight times locally. Bailout or none, Wall Street is losing jobs, so Nassau residents buy less, so sales-tax revenues drop. Saying cuts have a limit, Kessel defended County Executive Thomas Suozzi’s proposed property tax hike as heading off disaster.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re going to have to readjust their budget in the middle of next year if things get worse in this economy,” he said.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) last week was backing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s push for a fast bailout. King said opposition from other House Republicans arose both from “the grass roots” and members.

“The feeling is they’d be intervening to aid a bunch of rich New York City bankers,” King said from Washington as the weekend began. With his district affected, the challenge ahead was to persuade others that their farms, businesses and 401K’s are at stake, King said.

His Democratic opponent, Graham Long of Glen Cove, said: “From watching the reports on it, the bailout plan makes me as angry at the Democrats as the Republicans. I think it’s gambling with $700 billion in taxpayer dollars.” The funds would be justified, he said, if part of a systemic restructuring with improved oversight and regulation.

Dan Janison

Sen. Joe Lieberman (due to serve at the GOP convention as this year's Zell Miller) is relatively new to the partisan apostasy game. For decades, ex-Mayor Ed Koch has traded on his being an enrolled Democrat to help Republicans he liked. In 2004 he boosted George W. Bush at the GOP convention. This year, again, he touts Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) for re-election, against rookie Democrat Graham Long. Koch heads "Democrats for King."

Said Long on Thursday: "Quite frankly, Ed Koch endorsing Peter King doesn't surprise me because Ed Koch has a history of crossing party lines to defend the status quo."

Photo of Koch with former GOP Gov. George Pataki is from pataki.com Web site.

If Caesar Trunzo can draw election-year kudos in a press release from St. Joseph's College for funding a member item (posted last week), certainly it's okay for Rep. Peter King, ranking GOP member of the House homeland security committee, to appear as a kind of expert witness in a modest piece of P.R. from New York University.

New York University’s Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response (CCPR) and The Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI), a nonprofit research institute focused on risk management training and education, completed a study that found many organizations, including non-profits and businesses, lacking "effective preparedness programs to respond to and recover from a crisis, despite estimates that crises to come may be more frequent and complex."

“I commend NYU and Dr. Paul Light for recognizing the need to research ways to improve our nation’s disaster preparedness and crisis recovery abilities,” King is quoted in the release as saying. “This report demonstrates that disaster preparedness is not just a role for the federal government. This is an area in which the private and public sectors must become more engaged, so that we can work together to be as resilient as possible to any kind of catastrophe.”

King faces Democrat Graham Long at the polls in November.

From his unique perch as Long Island’s lone Republican congressman, Rep. Peter King sees a difference between the trouble his party faces in the region and the electoral peril it confronts across America.

“I think they’re two separate \[problems\] that came together at the same time,” King said yesterday. “There were local issues, going back to the late 1990s, in Nassau County with its budget problems. And Suffolk has had a disunited Republican party. Even just taking the congressional seats on Long Island, we didn’t lose any of them due to national issues,” he said, as some local losses came in otherwise flush GOP years.

King, a backer of President George W. Bush and the military effort in Iraq, acknowledged that the war has hurt the administration’s popularity, given “harsh” media coverage, and that gas prices haven’t helped.

Whatever the reasons, numbers published this week from 26 of the 29 states where voters register by party show GOP enrollment declining since 2005. Voter affiliation with Democrats or with no political party has risen overall. In Iowa and Nevada, Democratic registration surpassed Republican.

In Nassau, some Democrats follow the steady closing of the enrollment gap between their party and the once-mighty GOP with the zest of New Year’s Eve revelers counting down the seconds to midnight. Ten years ago, Republicans held an enrollment edge of 100,000. In November, that was down to about 22,000. This week the margin stands at 13,000 and shrinking, said Nassau Democratic election commissioner Bill Biamonte.

“Demographics” is often the explanation — more immigrants, more racial minorities, more young people, who often enroll as Democrats or unaffiliated, the waning of a previous generation. “For one,” Biamonte explains, “young people coming of age are simply not registering en masse as Republicans, in contrast to their parents. And second, the diverse migration of people from outside Nassau feel that the Democratic Party is more about economic empowerment and plurality as they move into a suburban lifestyle.”

But sociology explains only so much.

Dan Janison

For the moment, the biggest Long Island names in statewide politics belong to Thomas DiNapoli, the Democratic state comptroller, and Dean Skelos, the Senate’s GOP majority leader. Fast-forward to the 2010 governor’s race, and at least five regional names pop out of the rumor mill, on the Republican side.

Speculation surrounds former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. But despite a weekend burst of publicity, here and here, about his fundraising and new real-estate dealings, even close allies doubt he’ll run following his high-debt presidential implosion. “Go to Albany and have to deal with (Assembly Speaker) Sheldon Silver?,” a longtime ally puzzled at a GOP event. “Why does he want to do that?”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his name floated, but says when asked that he won’t run.

The Capitol newspaper in Albany notes that until four years ago, Barack Obama was just a state senator from Chicago — and set out to rate future prospects in New York’s upper house. Two names drew the highest marks from a team of political consultants: Eric Schneiderman (D-Manhattan) and John Flanagan (R-East Northport). “Possible governor material for 2014,” they say of Flanagan. The full evaluation is here.

Flanagan recently gained influence with appointment to the Legislature’s key review board for Metropolitan Transportation Authority projects. Some staffers, for better or worse, have been calling the six-foot-four Flanagan “mini-Dean.” No comment on the future from the Flanagan camp — where as in the rest of the Senate the instant concern is the GOP drive to retain control.

U.S. Rep. Peter King, who last year lost clout when Democrats took the House majority, has already suggested he could be in the mix for 2010. King owns creds as a loyal Republican: Last week, for example, he drew some conventional fire from longshot Democratic challenger Graham Long for backing President George W. Bush on offshore oil drilling.

Then there’s the talk that Suffolk Executive Steve Levy, with his flush campaign account, tight fiscal posture, and conservative props, could ditch the Democrats and run statewide as a Republican. Here is a fuller analysis by Rick Brand of Levy's political position..

Dan Janison

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), Long Island's sole GOP Congressman, who beat Legis. David Mejias for a new term in 2006, will face a political newcomer this time out -- Graham Long of Glen Cove, as determined last night when the Nassau Democrats convened. He works for Nassau County and party officials say Long hasn't run for office before. (No information on whether the island shown at left is named for him).

Dan Janison

Republican Rep. Peter King’s May newsletter features a photo alongside Sen. Clinton, trumpeting enactment of a law they sponsored requiring federal evaluation of safety devices that prevent cars from backing into young children. Would the photo be there had the presidential race turned out to be Clinton against King’s first choice Rudy Giuliani? King aide Kevin Fogarty said the answer is yes, and furthermore, she was in the April 2008 and June 2007 newsletters.

Dan Janison

So in Specualtion Land, where anything is possible, and where evidence and logic are only for extra credit, we've heard about Mike Bloomberg for vice-president, Hillary Clinton for vice-president, Hillary Clinton for New York City mayor, and Rep. Peter King for governor. So why not Peter King for vice-president? The prospect has already been passed along to the National Review in this post by a prominent House Republican. Judge for yourself. Might make for some buzz at this week's state GOP fundraiser.

Dan Janison

June O’Neill, the state Democratic chairwoman, was not impressed with talk of a race by Rep. Peter King for governor in two years.

“Peter King running for Governor is a little like global warming. It’s getting too hot for Republicans in Congress and on Long Island, so he’s looking north to Albany in search of a more hospitable climate,” she said. “Unfortunately, he will probably find his odds in taking the Governor’s mansion are about as good as the odds of Republicans staging a comeback in the House – which is to say non-existent.”

Rick Brand

Nice to see Long Island's own Rep. Peter King speaking with the New York Times (as earlier cited) about his GOP goals -- given that less than two years ago he'd condemned the paper and its editorial staff for nothing short of treason, which of course carries the death penalty.

On June 26, 2006, after the Times and the Wall Street Journal simultaneously published accounts of the Bush Administration's secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists -- once they had held the story for some time -- this dispatch was filed by the Associated Press:

"Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) cited the New York Times in particular for publishing a report last week saying that the Treasury Department is working with the CIA to examine an international database of money-transfer records.

'King said he will write Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, urging that the nation's chief law enforcer 'begin an investigation and prosecution of the New York Times -- the reporters, the editors and the publisher.''

"We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous," King said.

Did he declare the same with regard to that wantonly anti-Republican Wall Street Journal? We don't seem to have a record of that...

Anyway, we've all heard about Gonzales' own offenses against the Constitution since then -- he went south condemned by those in both parties in a political scandal -- but not about whatever happened to the Congressman's requested investigation. Will Michael Mukasey prosecute? More likely, the Times was quietly "cleared" -- otherwise, King surely wouldn't be so opportunistic as to interview with dangerous felons and smile in diners for their subversive cameras.

Aaah, then again, yes, people do like the guy -- we're not immune -- and we are kinda jealous that we didn't have the speculation out first. Still, you have to ask how many ways a pol can have it.

Dan Janison

A serious Democratic challenge to veteran Republican Rep. Peter King looks like an iffy prospect at best - despite the party's hopes in other races.

When discussing their New York congressional strategy for November, the party's national operatives steer your attention elsewhere. They are looking, for example, to replace Vito Fossella, New York City's lone Republican congressman, with Democratic City Councilman Domenic Recchia (and we are promptly urged this morning to take into account the move by local Democrats to run Stephen Harrison, who for example has backing from the Staten Island Democratic Association). The national Dems plan to defend rookie upstate Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand from a challenge by Sandy Treadwell, who served as state Republican chairman under Gov. George Pataki.

But so far, no contender has emerged to take on King, 63, of Seaford, first elected to the House in 1992, who is the Long Island delegation's sole Republican.

"If a strong candidate emerged the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee would put New York's Third District on its list of top-tier races," said a well-placed party source. "It's not that there's a lack of priority." Jay Jacobs, the Nassau Democratic chairman, said two potential candidates are being considered.

King, whose campaign committee last month reported $604,240 in cash on hand, quipped that he hopes the Democrats' uncertainty will keep up. But, he added, "It's a long way to go to November. I always expect a strong candidate and a tough race. I have no problem putting my record on the line." He noted that he won by 12 points in 2006, even as Congress turned from Republican to Democratic. King's last opponent, Nassau Legis. David Mejias, has been weighing a run this fall for State Senate against Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City).

Dan Janison

LITCHFIELD, N.H. -- Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), arrived today riding shotgun with Rudy Giuliani on the New Hampshire campaign trail.

King, who appeared with the former mayor at a house party here, said he'll be in the post-debate spin room tonight talking up Giuliani and to "advise and comfort" the candidate. Here's the advice King said he gave:

"I think for a while in the debates, when you're out in front you play it cautious. Now that the race is narrowed, be more aggressive, be assertive as to why you should be president. The American people expect it."

King wouldn't predict Giuliani's finish in the Tuesday vote, but said, "he'll do more than enough to keep himself in good shape heading into Florida and beyond."

Before unveiling new rules allowing undocumented immigrants to get drivers’ licenses, Gov. Eliot Spitzer last month put out feelers with Long Island elected officials on what proved to be an inevitable backlash.

“We talked about how he would handle the aftermath,” said Democratic Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who got a call from Democrat Spitzer on the issue last month. Levy added: “I don't think they thought that the fallout would be this intense outside New York City.”

Spitzer had a similar talk with Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) a few months ago, but the outreach doesn’t seem to have had much impact. County clerks — who dispense licenses outside New York City — blasted the idea, and many said they won’t enforce it. Republican state Senators who oppose the move plan a hearing on the issue today.

Spitzer shouldn’t be shocked by the reaction, said King, who added thataside from a few phone calls, “he didn’t seem to do much to prepare the battlefield for it.”

Michael Amon

Rep. Peter King, R-Seaford, sent off an angry missive yesterday to his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Bennie Thompson, now chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, complaining that the Democrats were playing politics with national security.

King accused the Mississippi lawmaker of excluding Republican committee members from a classified briefing last week given by top Homeland Security officials.

“Partisanship or even the perception of partisanship has no place in our dealings with intelligence matters that affect the security of our citizens,” King wrote. “. . . withholding sensitive intelligence information from one party is unacceptable.”

Rep. Peter King has said that he was taken out of context -- it looks more to us like he didn't quite say what he meant -- when he told Politico that "unfortunately there are too many mosques in this country, there's too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam."

But, you know, it's a presidential cycle suddenly, so who's gonna give him a break? Look how the AP leads its story -- "A homeland security adviser to Rudy Giuliani came under fire Thursday for claiming there were 'too many mosques' in the United States -- and says that both the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Democratic Party are calling on Rudy to sever ties with King.

Not very likely, we think.

Noted Islam expert Rep. Pete King says, "Unfortunately there's too many mosques in this country." Here's a link to the Politico item reporting his comments, and here's the video:

Rep. Peter King’s trip to Iraq and Afghanistan included meeting with diplomats, U.S. troops and senior military commander Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno. His assessment so far: “Progress continues to be made, and I think it would be irresponsible for us to pull away or pull the plug, and the consequences that would have on Iraq, on the Middle East and on the United States and the war against terrorism…would be extraordinary.” King (R-Seaford) checked in, along with fellow travelers House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), during a teleconference call with reporters Wednesday. Full transcript here.

Beth Murtagh

Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) are on the same page today as the governor touts a measure that is promoted as protecting those who tip off authorities about terrorists. King has won attention championing the federal version. (UPDATE: description is corrected)

Mayor Bloomberg has another go at what seems like his annual still-gotta-get-on-with-life message.

As you can see here, the prestigious role granted presidential aspirant Rudy Giuliani in the New York ceremony stirs debate from non-believers in his candidacy and image. (UPDATE: Some participants have protested by turning their backs on Giuliani as he took the podium.)

Not to be ignored, of course, Osama bin Laden urges, in the new video, jihad, death, martyrdom and Islamic supremacy -- as described here.

Then there is this op-ed worth seeing from a couple days ago. Former CIA official Michael Scheuer advocates fuller American military commitment to crushing jihadists. That said, consider his remarks in light of today's speeches from Giuliani, Bloomberg and the rest of them:

"The lies of U.S. political leaders do not help us face down our foe. They say Bin Laden, et. al are primarily motivated by their hatred of America's freedoms. Not so."

"The impact of our policy is the Islamists' core motivation and a glue of unity for that ethnically and linguistically diverse crowd."

"The second oft-heard lie is that America is safer than on 9/11. But our governing elite has knowingly failed to accomplish its two most vital post-9/11 tasks: controlling U.S. borders and fully securing the former Soviet Union's nuclear weapons."

In a rare coordinated attack, Rudy Giuliani and his supporter Rep. Pete King (R-Seaford) teamed up to beat up on Democrats today.

This morning, King went on Fox News to attack House Democrats for tying up his amendment to the Homeland Security bill to give legal immunity to anyone who in good faith reports “suspicious” people or events to anti-terrorism authorities.

The immunity legislation arose from lawsuits filed by six Muslim religious scholars against airlines and some of the passengers whose complaints the Imams were acting suspiciously led to their removal from the flight.

“What’s happening,” King told the Fox News host, “as best I can understand it, is that the hard-core liberal wing, the moveon.org, the CAIR wing of the Democratic Party is just putting extraordinary pressure on the House Democrats.”

Soon after King’s TV appearance, Giuliani’s GOP presidential campaign put out a rare statement on a specific piece of legislation.

“This morning, congressional Democrats are once again showing they just don’t get the Terrorists’ War on Us…Peter King is doing the right thing by putting our national security first and political correctness run amok second.”

Democrats say the language of King’s amendment is too broad, but said they supported the concept, AP reported. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said it would protect even those who knowingly and maliciously call in a false tip.

Tom Brune

Democratic NYC Councilman Hiram Monseratte and supermarket businessman John Catsimatidis, who is eyeing the GOP nomination for mayor of NYC in 2009, will call Wednesday at City Hall for a non-binding resolution in support of Rep. Peter King's bill intended to "protect the rights of Good Samaritan whistleblowers who report suspicious activities to the appropriate authorities."

Nassau Rep. Peter King gets a nice plug from 2009 NYC mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, a well-known supermarket businessman, in a city publication.

Rep. Peter King has just one gripe about being named for a "Muzzle Award" by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. He says he hasn’t actually received a trophy, medal or certificate he can proudly display.

King (R-Seaford) has no regrets about his call last summer for the New York Times to be criminally investigated for reporting the existence of a federal program monitoring international banking.

The Jefferson Center said the Times story "reflect[ed] the commitment to ‘freedom of the press’ which the Framers of our Constitution meant to safeguard through the First Amendment."

King said, "What they did was act totally irresponsibly, and undermine their country in a time of war."

"The New York Times is a left-wing rag but I would have thought they would have shown some restraint."

[Full disclosure: In case you missed it earlier, King isn’t the biggest fan of Newsday either.]

Louise Radnofsky

Rep. Peter King is pleased with himself after the latest round of House Committee musical chairs has ended without beleaguered Rep. William Jefferson taking a seat on Homeland Security.

King (R-Seaford) has been the most vocal opponent of Democratic plans announced last month to give Jefferson (D-Louisiana) a spot on the committee even as Jefferson remains the subject of a federal bribery investigation.

Jefferson was pushed off the Ways and Means committee last summer, after federal agents raided his office and it was revealed that $90,000 in cash had been found stuffed in a freezer in his home.

King, who chaired Homeland Security until the midterm elections and is now its ranking member, said, “I think I’m protecting the integrity of the committee.”

A North Massapeaqua business consultant has formed an exploratory committee to run against Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford).

Bill Corrigan, 36, has filed papers with the Federal Elections Commission. He's looking to run, not as a Republican or a Democrat, but as an independent candidate who would allow voters to decide how he should vote -- by computer referendum, on his Web site.

Corrigan describes himself as a moderate who was raised Democrat but now leans more Republican, saying, “It kind of puts me all over the map.” He said he computer program which will list pending bills to be public reaction “could be the beginning of a political renaissance.”

Rick Brand

All the precincts haven't been reported, but Peter King is leading David Mejias by about 17 or 18 points, looks like, so appears headed to an easy victory, although perhaps not as cushy a victory as some of his Long Island congressional colleagues.
Update: The margin is about 15 points.

Check out the video of Peter King campaigning against Mejias (and Newsday) in a clip on the Newsday home page somewhat ominously titled, "King's Last Day?" It is very interesting. For instance, we learned from Congressman King that Newsday editorial writers, editors and reporters are unpatriotic, by virtue of their coverage of this political campaign, having disgracefully crossed every imaginable line in passively acting as rubber stamps for Democrats.

There is also a big picture of King smiling and waving on the top of our home page right now.

Michael Rothfeld
Update: The link on the homepage to the King video is now titled, "King on the Stump," probably because someone thought the previous one was a little too ominous, but I'm just speculating. Also, we forgot to mention the video contains a nice cameo of Peter Schmitt.
This is a bit of a digression, but Schmitt (the Nassau legislature's GOP minority leader) would actually stand to gain if King loses, because it would put Mejias' county legislative seat -- and the Democrats' control of the Nassau legislature -- up for grabs in a Republican leaning district around Farmingdale and Massapequa. And with Nassau County Exec Tom Suozzi having warred with the Democratic legislators and lost some of his own political capital during his failed run for governor, it's far from clear what he would or could do to keep the seat Democratic in a special election.

Second Update: Here's another blog on the King v. Newsday front.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) repeatedly said in a television interview Sunday on WABC that his real opponent isn’t Nassau Legis. David Mejias (D-North Massapequa) but Newsday. King has made the same assertions for weeks in Newsday stories and his campaign literature.
But hold on a minute. King’s latest large postcard, titled “Pete King: Independent and Tough,” features a full-reprint of a column by Raymond J. Keating, titled “King is No White House Rubber Stamp,” published in Newsday on Oct. 30.
On the reverse side are glowing quotes from U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and Newsday, among others. The Newsday quote, taken from a June 25 editorial, describes King as “a stand up guy who isn’t shy about tangling with the powerful, even those in his own party.”
The editorial was part of the newspaper’s report card on the local congressional delegation. Below is the full text about King:

James T. Madore

The blogmaster of Peter King Watch has contacted me to say that he is John Rennhack of North Massapequa, and not anonymous as I mentioned in a previous post. Googling him, you can see that he has revealed himself in the past.

Rennhack, a diehard Dem, ran against Peter Schmitt for Nassau legislature in 2003 and lost, and also operates the Pete Schmitt Watch and Nassau GOP Watch.

Now, if the operators of the rival Dave Mejias Watch would like to reveal themselves, my e-mail address is below.

Not to be outdone, Rennhack has now launched a new blog: Mejias Watch Watch, so we are looking forward to King Watch Watch or Mejias Watch Watch Watch very soon.

WASHINGTON — It turns out that lobbying is the King family business.
Not only does Rep. Peter King’s son Sean work for former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato’s influential lobbying firm Park Strategies, but King’s daughter and sister also work in lobbying.
Daughter Erin King Sweeney manages government affairs, which oversees lobbying operations, for Swiss International Air Lines, in Uniondale, N.Y.
And his sister, Barbara King, is a registered lobbyist for Continuum Health Partners Inc., which operates Beth Israel Medical Center, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center and Long Island College Hospital.

According to Nassau Police, vandals took a large sign for congressional candidate David Mejias from his mother's lawn in Farmingdale last night and then plastered Elsa Mejias' car with bumper stickers for incumbent U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford.)

Mejias, a Nassau County Legislator from North Massapequa, said "I've been in some pretty brutal campaigns but this is ridiculous."

Errol A. Cockfield Jr.