|
|
|
| Lt. Gov.-elect David Paterson takes the stage at the Democratic celebration in Midtown.
|
Hevesi supporters were outnumbered by press, many of whom were waiting to see if the Comptroller would lose his position. Some wondered openly if his resignation would be a portion of his victory speech, if one was made, though there was every reason to believe a re-election would give him the mandate he required to cling more fervently to his position.
“I’d give him 15 to 20 points, when it’s over,” said one Hevesi supporter, and the prediction held, with gusto. Hevesi’s campaign effectively knocked challenger J. Christopher Callaghan out of the park, from a political standpoint. The pack of reporters waiting to see if Hevesi would fall, and how far, watched him drop gingerly into the safety net that incumbency provides.
Despite his double-digit win, the Comptroller was not part of a raucous celebration. There was no DJ, no band, no stomping, rowdy, hoot-hollering half-drunk constituency cheering for every number in his favor. There was a reserved and aging gallery of supporters, rubbing elbows with an ever declining media contingency, diligently watching the only state-wide race that wasn’t called minutes after the close of polls.
At The Sheraton
Meanwhile, Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Attorney General-elect Andrew Cuomo and Lt. Gov.-elect David Paterson gave impassioned speeches from a massive stage in front of thousands of press, guests and supporters. News from all corners of the country was matching the shift in New York – the Democrats were coming back into power.
A disc jockey barked Grand Funk Railroad’s “Some Kind of Wonderful” over loudspeakers as the throng trampled signs and pretzels and beer bottles underfoot. People left wine glasses wherever they had emptied them.
“They didn’t even mention Hevesi here tonight,” said one attendee as David Paterson took the stage.
Addressing the crowd, the Lieutenant Governor-elect led cheers of “Day One” and promised once again the immediate reform that has been an earmark of the Spitzer-Paterson campaign.
“I cannot see this New York with my eyes,” said Paterson, who is legally blind, “but I can feel it in my heart.”
By the tail end of the proceedings, when Spitzer took the stage, the crowd had worked itself into a frenzy.
“I shook Bill [Clinton]’s hand,” screamed one attendee. “I just turned and he was there, so I said something.”
Spitzer, who called the night a victory for optimists, made a promise to run a bi-partisan government as the engine of the reform his campaign has valued.
“I fully intend to serve this state as a people’s Governor,” Spitzer said, to cheers cascading like the crystal bulbs on the ceiling of the ballroom. “We will make New York once more the greatest state in the nation.”
By the time he had finished, and the disc jockey spun the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” the crowd had already finished, and was meandering towards the exits.
As Eliot Spitzer took the stage, the Hevesi campaign 14 blocks downtown abandoned the Madison Towers Hotel. All that was left were a few news crews waiting to broadcast official sign-offs and a handful of Hevesi faithful, following the national elections.
As quiet and empty as the room was, it reverberated with a mentality that Hevesi himself had expressed leaving the polls Tuesday morning.
“I look forward to winning,” he said. “It’s better than the alternative.”
Queens Had Races, Too
Though every incumbent won their races in Queens, some were surprisingly close while others steamrolled as predicted.
Sen. Serphin Maltese (R-Glendale) came within 783 votes (out of 33,461 cast) of losing out to Democratic challenger Albert Baldeo, who spent the last two weeks of his campaign sending near-daily mailers to the district, referring to Maltese as a crony who doesn’t care about education. Maltese’s response mailers showed the gun charges brought against Baldeo, who was accused last year of threatening his political rival’s wife with a handgun.
The Maltese Baldeo race was the closest in Queens. The other Republican Senator from Queens, Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) stood up to the challenge set forth by attorney Nora Marino, who ended up losing by less than 10,000 votes, but who garnered just about 40 percent of the ballots cast.
At the campaign party held at Il Bacco on Northern Boulevard, the buzz even before Marino arrived was that she had fought well, and that “it takes the first attempt to get your name out there,” one member of the Assembly said. Marino was encouraged by the response and was giddy the first time her name came up on the election night ticker on TV, despite the numbers.
In other contested Queens races, Democrat Shirley Huntley, who beat Sen. Ada Smith in the September primary, overcame Republican Jereline Hunter; Democrat Ellen Young beat Republican Christopher Migiliaccio for the Assembly seat vacated by Jimmy Meng (D-Flushing); Democrat Rory Lancman beat Republican Morshed Alam (whom he also beat in the Democratic primary) for the seat vacated by Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin (D-Flushing); Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer (D-Ozone Park) beat Republican challenger Stuart Mirsky by a 3-1 margin; Conservative Walter Lamp took 716 of the more than 12,000 votes cast in Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn’s (D-Flushing) race; Democrat Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) beat Republican challenger Dolores Maddis by a 2-1 margin; and Assemblywoman Michelle Titus (D-Rockaway) soundly defeated Independence party challenger Michael Duvalle with more than 92 percent of the vote.
Early Predictions
At around Noon on Election Day, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Astoria) had been campaigning since early in the morning, and was ready to lunch with some contemporaries and members of the media.
“I think people are fed up with the president,” Maloney said, “and I think they’re fed up with the war.” Maloney gestured at some buttons on the table that read, ‘It’s Time to Talk About Iraq.’ “This is going to be a Democratic year.”
Maloney spent the lunch, which was also attended by State Sen. George Onorato (D-Astoria), Assemblyman Mike Gianaris (D-Astoria), and Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Astoria), strategizing for the upcoming year, and getting a sense of the concerns of the local politicians. By the end of the night, Maloney herself was on the top of a 70 point win in New York’s U.S. House District 14 – and Congress had, indeed, shifted from Red to Blue. |
