South Brooklyn

Last night the venerable Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club of Brooklyn held their holiday party at the Hudson River Yacht Club.

The club has long been a behemoth in South Brooklyn politics, with its ability to turn out the vote and connections to elected officials. Judging by the turnout, the club also seems to have recovered from the unwanted attention it received from the 2001 mayor's race.

Among the attendees were Democratic county leader Vito Lopez, Rep. Jerry Nadler, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and two candidates for Yvette Clarke's City Council seat: Wellington Sharpe and Harry Schiffman.

And walking in just as the introductions were finished, but before the Electric Slide began, was State Senator Marty Golden, a Republican.

-- Azi Paybarah

John Flansburgh, of the band They Might Be Giants, was on the phone.  read more »

The Brooklyn Democratic leader has been found guilty on all three counts.

Which, among other things, opens a frantic scramble to replace him at the head of his badly damaged organization.  read more »

Two names that come up: Darryl Towns and Joe Bova.

UPDATE:Just reached Bova, the chief of South Brooklyn's Stars and Stripes club, who hadn't yet heard the news. After a long pause, he pronounced himself "shocked." Then he said, "I would be interested - we'll have to see what the party rules call for now."

The Observer's Jess Bruder, finally back from farthest South Brooklyn, reports:

At the Caraville diner on Avenue M in Brooklyn, some seniors were finishing their midday nosh when Anthony trotted in at two o'clock. "What's cookin'?" he asked loudly.

A grey-haired Democrat named Sandy Litman, who wore a shirt with a picture of Tinkerbell and the slogan "Little Miss Attitude," smiled as she sidled up to the candidate. "Have you voted yet?" he demanded. Ms. Litman hadn't. "I'm going to vote for you!" she enthused.

"Don't forget: it's Weiner," said Anthony. Behind him, sign-bearers held "Weiner for Mayor" posters. Anthony wore a matching sticker over the breast pocket of his blue, rumpled shirt. Ms. Litman raised her eyebrows. "I know, it's Weiner," she replied.

In the rear corner of the restaurant, a pair of women stopped picking at their coleslaw and promised to support Anthony. "If this comes down to two votes, I'll buy lunch tomorrow," he exclaimed. Like most people in the diner, they hadn't voted yet, either.

Towards the end of the campaign stop, he was accosted by some hecklers. The first was angry about rising rent, and she didn't want to hear about Anthony's proposed tax cut. "I'm selfish. I don't care about the younger generation," she said, and made a reference to her "golden years." "I care about me!" Anthony told her to cheer up.

Then came a guy on the street. He was angry that Anthony had supported a smoking ban exception for the city's owner-operated bars, a point made moot after the ban became state law.

"I'm not going to vote for you," the man said combatively. Television cameras rolled. Finally, he walked away.

Under his breath, Anthony let some sarcasm slip. "I'm glad you got that off your chest," he said.

Anthony's final stop this afternoon was Edward R. Murrow High School, a few blocks away in the 76th election district, where Weiner plied poll workers with boxes of kosher cookies.  read more »

As of 3 p.m., they said, just 22 people had showed up to vote.

State Senator Carl Kruger took exception to our recent revisiting of the end of the 2001 mayor's race and in particular to the point -- which we did not make -- that he played a role in the Sharpton-Ferrer flyer.

What we reported, and stand by, is that he played a key role in Green's South Brooklyn operation. His complaint, it seems to us, is with the Bloomberg campaign, as quoted in New York Magazine.

Anyway, here's what he wrote, minus an obligatory Mark Twain quote.

"Today a Politicker 'blog' repeated the lie that I was involved in the 'racist' Green campaign flyer. These are the facts. I attended a lunch of Mark Green supporters and campaign staff where the idea of such a flyer surfaced. I told them in the strongest terms that it was wrong. After leaving the lunch I contacted Fernando Ferrer. I then notified the Green campaign that I could not support Green and would endorse Ferrer for Mayor. The day after the lunch I campaigned with Fernando Ferrer with Assemblyman Peter Abbate at the AMICO senior center in Brooklyn. I sincerely hope that this finally ends the travels of this baseless lie."  read more »

Perhaps somebody else who knows his or her way around Nick's Lobster House can straighten the whole thing out for us.

UPDATE: Hmm. We've just been sent a November 2, 2001 Daily News story in which one Brooklyn politician defends the decision to use that flyer: "My perception was, prejudice is in the eyes of the beholder. If someone is supporting someone's campaign, there's no reason on Earth why someone else can't point that out," Senator Kruger said.

What amazes us most about this New York Magazine item, which revisits those notorious "racist" flyers from the 2001 campaign, is how Freddy has evidently forgiven what once appeared to be a rather personal wound; while Mike Bloomberg, the sole beneficiary of the Democrats' racial meltdown, is now keeping the grievance alive.

To explain: Freddy, as the New York piece points out, essentially launched this year's campaign by embracing Carl Kruger, a South Brooklyn pol who played a central role in Mark Green's much-criticized appeal to white Brooklyn voters.

Mike, meanwhile, seems to have pursued rather extreme means of distancing himself from the affair. The kid who did the mechanical work of designing the flyer, Micah Lasher, is now a political consultant. (When we say "kid," we mean that, as we recall, he was 19, and an undergrad at NYU, in 2001.) His partner is doing work for Bloomberg. And Team Bloomberg is petrified of the flyer's taint:

"Bloomberg's advisors were so worried about flyer blowback that, after some debate, they had Lasher sign a notarized paper saying he'd recused himself from working with them."  read more »

Notarized?! This strikes us as quite a precedent. What better way to validate the charge that the flyer was racist, toxic, a page from Der Sturmer? And what better way to signal that you'll be an easy target for similar accusations in October?

This is a confession, of sorts. When my fiancé, Edward, and I moved to South Brooklyn a few months  read more »

Everybody seems to want Gifford Miller's job.

A couple of the contenders for City Council Speaker, Lew Fidler and Bill de Blasio, turned up at the Highway Democratic Club in deep South Brooklyn last night. Just a bit before de Blasio's entrance, one of their colleagues, Dominic Recchia, introduced Fidler as "the next speaker," engendering a bit of muttering among de Blasio partisans. (For the record, the other two names we keep hearing are Comrie and Quinn.)  read more »

Hank Sheinkopf, who was honored at the Brooklyn event, had this to say:

"Anybody who says they can predict the outcome of the next speaker's race is just an idiot."