Re: Reprint from the Tris M cCall report

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Re: Reprint from the Tris M cCall report

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Posted by More from the report.... on May 12, 2005 at 00:23:28:

In Reply to: Reprint from the Tris M cCall report posted by Will Downtown go Downhill? on May 12, 2005 at 00:05:33:

9:25 AM. I wake up to reports of the usual shenanigans. Somebody has put Krazy Glue in the locks at the Maldonado HQ. Healy's opponents tried this tactic in late October, and forced the then-candidate to do some creative scheduling on the fly. More troublingly, two people write in to tell me they've seen Steve Fulop campaigning in the polling place at Grace Church, which is, of course, illegal. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was true: Fulop has already shown himself (to me, at least) as a guy with questionable judgement.

It's regrettable that this contest has gotten so ugly, and so exhausting, and it is certainly worth pointing out that it's the so-called reformer -- the guy who's supposed to be against politics as usual -- whose camp has been acting like something out of Gerry McCann's back pages. But if the Maldonando can't withstand these kinds of kindergarten moves, chances are he wasn't going to get re-elected anyway.

It's a beautiful day. Nice weather is supposed to help turnout -- but what if people just decide to go play frisbee or something? Downtowners are interested in this contest, but I'm not catching that electricty in the air. Then again, I broke ten thousand hits for the first time yesterday, and I doubt all of those people were reading Scu mbaguette.

Okay, time to go vote. I wonder if anybody will catch the reference in today's headline. You San Francisco transplants, holla at me.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

11:15 AM. Out by my polling place (the apartment building on Marin and Montgomery) the Fulop folks have tucked postcards under the windshield wipers of parked cars. Where is he getting the money to print up all of these inane fliers? This one is particularly insulting: it tries to affiliate the challenger with the sitting Mayor. It's a reproduction of a sample ballot, on which the names of Jerramiah Healy, the Organization at-large slate, and Steven Fulop have been marked out in yellow hi-lighter. So there you have it -- after months of calling the HCDO agents of Satan, Fulop now wants to associate himself with its candidates. He hasn't even been elected yet, and he's already knocking on the door of the boys' club.

Maldonado's name has been blacked out, as has the "Team Healy 2005" designation at the bottom of his box. For good measure, or perhaps driven by polling-day mania, he's also blacked out poor Omar Barbour, the only independent candidate in the at-large race. Here, Fulop really tips his hand -- far from showing solidarity with other indies, he's more than happy to use the authority of the Organization to plow them over. Steven Fulop doesn't want to tear down the machine. He wants to join the machine.

I sign in and go straight into the booth. There's hardly anybody in the polling place. Hey, if you're looking for a good, anonymous time to vote, a quarter to eleven in the morning will usually do the trick. I vote for Melissa Holloway first, and then find Junior Maldonado at the top of column C. Mere hours after I posted my intention to write in (or in this case, electronically type in) Paul Sullivan's name for at-large Councilman, I got a mass e-mail from Henry Sanchez, asking people to write in his. Ah, well, I suppose Mariano Vega can take care of himself. I enter both Paul and Henry into the voting machine, and I'm impishly tempted to balance the ticket by adding Elizabeth Onorato or Kelly Darr. But then I remember Fulop's disrespect for Omar Barbour, and I stay the course.

So there you have it: one of the weirdest slates of votes I've ever cast. Two veteran battlers on behalf of a part of a part of the city I rarely visit, two evictees, and one incumbent who has been campaigning like a man who doesn't care to win. It was a twisted path that brought me to these conclusions -- but I somehow doubt I will have occasion to regret any of them. At any rate, it's been an dispiriting, unpleasant season. Tomorrow night I've got Consultants practice, and it's going to feel really good to forget about all the ugliness, recrimination, and failed hopes, and plug in and play.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

2:15 PM. Outside on Grand Street, every other brownstone has hung a yellow Healy Team sign on the stoop. Closer to the waterfront, supporters of the challenger have hacked off the bottom of the poster, advertising support for everybody on the Ward E slate except for the incumbent Councilman. Here, across from the Flintkote property and the two light rail stations, residents are flying the full flag. But if signs voted, Louis Manzo would now be mayor of Jersey City.

Nonetheless, I'm saddened to report that I haven't seen a single piece of Melissa Holloway literature anywhere today. Even Ward F aspirant Barshay Muhammad had his truck out on Marin for a little while -- where's the mayoral challenger's Downtown presence? Those who believe that she isn't interested in this part of the city are having their suspicions corroborated. I don't buy that; not exactly, anyway -- I just think she got a late jump, and she chose to concentrate her financial resources in places where she believed she could make a litte hay. Still, when her cousin beat Tom DeGise in the 2001 election, he had the passionate assistance of the Downtown anti-abatement movement. Four years later, many of those same activists seem more interested in unseating Maldonado than replacing Healy.

A black-suited Mariano Vega walks on Bright Street, surrounded by aides, smiling and shaking hands with well-wishers. Vega looks composed, confident. There is almost no chance that he'll lose today's vote, so he can afford to play the patrician. What I don't understand is how he can stay looking so crisp; I've barely been out for five minutes, and I'm already sweating in the sun. Now I don't know if you've ever seen Councilman Vega, but he is not an insubstantial-looking person: he might not be quite as spherical as Jerrold Nadler, but he's still profoundly rotund. The cosmetic secrets of pro politicians continue to mystify me.

Up on Brunswick, on the other side of the Pathmark, the Healy stringers are out in force. This is Maldonado territory: most of the residents here are poor, Spanish-speakers, and long-time HCDO supporters. Here in the low, squat housing projects, senior citizens with placards and square Team Healy fliers congregate in groups, looking askance at passersby. The fence outside the Ferris School is festooned with yellow signs. Campaign workers squat by the gate, squinting in the sun, fingering the postcards, waiting for action.

What I don't see is very many voters. The afternoon might be the dead-time of election day, but shouldn't retirees and night-shift workers be hitting the polls all day long? Perhaps they've all voted already. More likely, this election is going to be settled after that five o' clock whistle blows.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

6:00 PM. The mood at Maldonado HQ could not be characterized as ebullient. Folks are nervous: shuffling campaign lit, lettering signs, whispering. Robin Pinkowitz, Maldonado's chief aide, isn't the sort of person anybody would characterize as laid-back -- but today, she's particularly wired. She shows me where the door was Krazy Glued. Sure enough, it's just like the old Healy HQ last November.

Come back at 8, she tells me. That's when the action really happens. Well, okay, I will. Outside, the streets are loaded with stringers - camp followers of both candidates on opposite corners of Sussex, Montgomery, Christopher Columbus. County Clerk Javier Inclan is out on the street, too. We chat for awhile, and he makes a crack about not putting a picture of him on my website. Jeez, infamy travels fast around here. Inclan confirms that turnout has indeed been light. He declines to speculate about what that means. Gulp.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

8:05 PM. About seven thousand boxes of pizza have been delivered to the Maldonado HQ on Sussex and Washington. Inside, hungry campaign workers slurp it down, and wait for results to be written on the cardboard poster on the wall. The polls have closed, and the chatter in here has become predictably deafening. I feel like a bit of an intruder -- I didn't work on the campaign or anything. Still, I can't believe how nervous I am feeling. I have a terrible predilection that a decent man is about to get duked out of his public position by a well-oiled smear campaign.

I'm trying to read Inclan's face, but he's impassive; ear glued to a cellphone. The Councilman himself seems to have a case of the jitters, too. Numbers are coming in, and they sure don't look good: while the rest of the organization slate is rolling toward victory, Fulop is scoring substantial pluralities in districts that he is not supposed to be carrying. I've read The Last Hurrah enough times to recognize what that means -- it's going to be a long night for the Maldonado backers in Ward E.

Sure enough, there's very little good news. Fulop has crushed Maldonado in the waterfront districts: Paulus Hook, Newport, my own little in-between neighborhood. He's also made a surprisingly strong showing in the projects. I'm upset, but entirely unsurprised -- I've seen this coming for months. All of the constituencies that the incumbent was counting on have shrunk over the past four years, replaced by an entirely different group of voters. Nothing to do now but to go home, write the story, and make my own feelings of disappointment and dread clear for those people who read my site. I don't run for office, folks, so I can't be voted down. Stay with me.

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: 9:25 AM. I wake up to reports of the usual shenanigans. Somebody has put Krazy Glue in the locks at the Maldonado HQ. Healy's opponents tried this tactic in late October, and forced the then-candidate to do some creative scheduling on the fly. More troublingly, two people write in to tell me they've seen Steve Fulop campaigning in the polling place at Grace Church, which is, of course, illegal. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this was true: Fulop has already shown himself (to me, at least) as a guy with questionable judgement.

: It's regrettable that this contest has gotten so ugly, and so exhausting, and it is certainly worth pointing out that it's the so-called reformer -- the guy who's supposed to be against politics as usual -- whose camp has been acting like something out of Gerry McCann's back pages. But if the Maldonando can't withstand these kinds of kindergarten moves, chances are he wasn't going to get re-elected anyway.

: It's a beautiful day. Nice weather is supposed to help turnout -- but what if people just decide to go play frisbee or something? Downtowners are interested in this contest, but I'm not catching that electricty in the air. Then again, I broke ten thousand hits for the first time yesterday, and I doubt all of those people were reading Scu mbaguette.

: Okay, time to go vote. I wonder if anybody will catch the reference in today's headline. You San Francisco transplants, holla at me.

: * * * * * * * * * * * *

: 11:15 AM. Out by my polling place (the apartment building on Marin and Montgomery) the Fulop folks have tucked postcards under the windshield wipers of parked cars. Where is he getting the money to print up all of these inane fliers? This one is particularly insulting: it tries to affiliate the challenger with the sitting Mayor. It's a reproduction of a sample ballot, on which the names of Jerramiah Healy, the Organization at-large slate, and Steven Fulop have been marked out in yellow hi-lighter. So there you have it -- after months of calling the HCDO agents of Satan, Fulop now wants to associate himself with its candidates. He hasn't even been elected yet, and he's already knocking on the door of the boys' club.

: Maldonado's name has been blacked out, as has the "Team Healy 2005" designation at the bottom of his box. For good measure, or perhaps driven by polling-day mania, he's also blacked out poor Omar Barbour, the only independent candidate in the at-large race. Here, Fulop really tips his hand -- far from showing solidarity with other indies, he's more than happy to use the authority of the Organization to plow them over. Steven Fulop doesn't want to tear down the machine. He wants to join the machine.

: I sign in and go straight into the booth. There's hardly anybody in the polling place. Hey, if you're looking for a good, anonymous time to vote, a quarter to eleven in the morning will usually do the trick. I vote for Melissa Holloway first, and then find Junior Maldonado at the top of column C. Mere hours after I posted my intention to write in (or in this case, electronically type in) Paul Sullivan's name for at-large Councilman, I got a mass e-mail from Henry Sanchez, asking people to write in his. Ah, well, I suppose Mariano Vega can take care of himself. I enter both Paul and Henry into the voting machine, and I'm impishly tempted to balance the ticket by adding Elizabeth Onorato or Kelly Darr. But then I remember Fulop's disrespect for Omar Barbour, and I stay the course.

: So there you have it: one of the weirdest slates of votes I've ever cast. Two veteran battlers on behalf of a part of a part of the city I rarely visit, two evictees, and one incumbent who has been campaigning like a man who doesn't care to win. It was a twisted path that brought me to these conclusions -- but I somehow doubt I will have occasion to regret any of them. At any rate, it's been an dispiriting, unpleasant season. Tomorrow night I've got Consultants practice, and it's going to feel really good to forget about all the ugliness, recrimination, and failed hopes, and plug in and play.

: * * * * * * * * * * * *

: 2:15 PM. Outside on Grand Street, every other brownstone has hung a yellow Healy Team sign on the stoop. Closer to the waterfront, supporters of the challenger have hacked off the bottom of the poster, advertising support for everybody on the Ward E slate except for the incumbent Councilman. Here, across from the Flintkote property and the two light rail stations, residents are flying the full flag. But if signs voted, Louis Manzo would now be mayor of Jersey City.

: Nonetheless, I'm saddened to report that I haven't seen a single piece of Melissa Holloway literature anywhere today. Even Ward F aspirant Barshay Muhammad had his truck out on Marin for a little while -- where's the mayoral challenger's Downtown presence? Those who believe that she isn't interested in this part of the city are having their suspicions corroborated. I don't buy that; not exactly, anyway -- I just think she got a late jump, and she chose to concentrate her financial resources in places where she believed she could make a litte hay. Still, when her cousin beat Tom DeGise in the 2001 election, he had the passionate assistance of the Downtown anti-abatement movement. Four years later, many of those same activists seem more interested in unseating Maldonado than replacing Healy.

: A black-suited Mariano Vega walks on Bright Street, surrounded by aides, smiling and shaking hands with well-wishers. Vega looks composed, confident. There is almost no chance that he'll lose today's vote, so he can afford to play the patrician. What I don't understand is how he can stay looking so crisp; I've barely been out for five minutes, and I'm already sweating in the sun. Now I don't know if you've ever seen Councilman Vega, but he is not an insubstantial-looking person: he might not be quite as spherical as Jerrold Nadler, but he's still profoundly rotund. The cosmetic secrets of pro politicians continue to mystify me.

: Up on Brunswick, on the other side of the Pathmark, the Healy stringers are out in force. This is Maldonado territory: most of the residents here are poor, Spanish-speakers, and long-time HCDO supporters. Here in the low, squat housing projects, senior citizens with placards and square Team Healy fliers congregate in groups, looking askance at passersby. The fence outside the Ferris School is festooned with yellow signs. Campaign workers squat by the gate, squinting in the sun, fingering the postcards, waiting for action.

: What I don't see is very many voters. The afternoon might be the dead-time of election day, but shouldn't retirees and night-shift workers be hitting the polls all day long? Perhaps they've all voted already. More likely, this election is going to be settled after that five o' clock whistle blows.

: * * * * * * * * * * * *

: 6:00 PM. The mood at Maldonado HQ could not be characterized as ebullient. Folks are nervous: shuffling campaign lit, lettering signs, whispering. Robin Pinkowitz, Maldonado's chief aide, isn't the sort of person anybody would characterize as laid-back -- but today, she's particularly wired. She shows me where the door was Krazy Glued. Sure enough, it's just like the old Healy HQ last November.

: Come back at 8, she tells me. That's when the action really happens. Well, okay, I will. Outside, the streets are loaded with stringers - camp followers of both candidates on opposite corners of Sussex, Montgomery, Christopher Columbus. County Clerk Javier Inclan is out on the street, too. We chat for awhile, and he makes a crack about not putting a picture of him on my website. Jeez, infamy travels fast around here. Inclan confirms that turnout has indeed been light. He declines to speculate about what that means. Gulp.

: * * * * * * * * * * * *

: 8:05 PM. About seven thousand boxes of pizza have been delivered to the Maldonado HQ on Sussex and Washington. Inside, hungry campaign workers slurp it down, and wait for results to be written on the cardboard poster on the wall. The polls have closed, and the chatter in here has become predictably deafening. I feel like a bit of an intruder -- I didn't work on the campaign or anything. Still, I can't believe how nervous I am feeling. I have a terrible predilection that a decent man is about to get duked out of his public position by a well-oiled smear campaign.

: I'm trying to read Inclan's face, but he's impassive; ear glued to a cellphone. The Councilman himself seems to have a case of the jitters, too. Numbers are coming in, and they sure don't look good: while the rest of the organization slate is rolling toward victory, Fulop is scoring substantial pluralities in districts that he is not supposed to be carrying. I've read The Last Hurrah enough times to recognize what that means -- it's going to be a long night for the Maldonado backers in Ward E.

: Sure enough, there's very little good news. Fulop has crushed Maldonado in the waterfront districts: Paulus Hook, Newport, my own little in-between neighborhood. He's also made a surprisingly strong showing in the projects. I'm upset, but entirely unsurprised -- I've seen this coming for months. All of the constituencies that the incumbent was counting on have shrunk over the past four years, replaced by an entirely different group of voters. Nothing to do now but to go home, write the story, and make my own feelings of disappointment and dread clear for those people who read my site. I don't run for office, folks, so I can't be voted down. Stay with me.

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