Briefing Book: ‘Jersey Shore’ on the Hudson

Written by J. D. Piro
Thursday, 04 February 2010 01:00

If you thought that special elections were limited to the good folks in Massachusetts, think again. Thanks to the political ambitions of the former Democratic assemblyman from the 89th Assembly District (that’s your district, gentle reader), Lewisboro voters get the dubious honor of hooking up the dog sleds and heading out to the polls next Tuesday.

Why do we have to do this again, you ask? Why is it that, just three months after an election in which we tossed out the incumbent Westchester County executive and booted yet another Lewisboro town supervisor to the curb, we have to head out to the voting booth and send another message to another group of politicians?

It started, as most things do these days, with White Plains, which found itself in need of a new mayor. Adam Bradley, the gentleman whose job it was to represent this district in Albany, realized after a couple of terms that Albany was, well, pretty much a lost cause — high taxes, reckless spending, corruption, indictments, and tawdry tabloid scandals involving a governor and his (ahem) friend, the specifics of which are not fit for inclusion in a family column.

Suffice it to say that if politics is show business for ugly people, then Albany is the Hollywood of politics. Think of Albany as “Dallas,” with Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi taking over from Victoria Principal and Linda Gray. Or if you’d prefer a 21st Century example, think “Jersey Shore on the Hudson,” only starring Eliot Spitzer and Dwight from “The Office.” In Albany’s version of “Jersey Shore,” the money that Pauly D is spending isn’t his, it’s yours. And he’s spending lots of it.

Mr. Bradley, tired of the Taconic tussle, got himself elected mayor of White Plains. That left a vacancy in the Albany job that two candidates from different sides of the aisle want to fill next week — Peter Harckham, currently our county legislator in White Plains, and Bob Castelli, formerly Lewisboro’s Town Board member.

Now in a sensible world, the fact that someone even wants to go to Albany would immediately disqualify him from holding office. But a week is a lifetime in politics and our politicians have lived several lifetimes since Election Day 2009. The results from New Jersey, Virginia, Westchester County, and Massachusetts have liberal Democrats like Mr. Harckham morphing into Sarah Palin wannabes. Just consider a recent mailing from Mr. Harckham’s campaign, which announced that “Pete Harckham is fed up.” Seriously.

“Everybody talks about cutting taxes and reducing spending,” the mailer fairly screams. “One candidate has done it.” Curiously, the mailer fails to articulate with any specificity anything this liberal Democrat has done on either subject. Was he talking about somebody else?

If it’s his stint down in White Plains, Mr. Harckham’s record is decidedly mixed and hardly a harbinger of Obama-style “hopeychange” for the overburdened Westchester taxpayer. Last year, the Democratic-controlled Westchester County Board of Legislators, on which Mr. Harckham sits, imposed a 2.9% tax increase on Westchester taxpayers. Mr. Harckham, to his credit, voted “no.” The tax increase passed anyway by the razor-thin margin of 9-8, a testament to Mr. Harckham’s lack of influence with his Democratic brethren, seven of whom voted for the tax increase.

We’ll take Mr. Harckham at his word that he wants to cut taxes. But the hard work of cutting New York’s taxes requires changing, first, how the dysfunctional New York Assembly works. Mr. Harckham has yet to explain why voters should send yet another liberal Democrat to a Democratic-controlled legislature, especially a liberal Democrat such as Mr. Harckham, who was unable to persuade one — just one! — of his fellow liberals to vote against a tax increase.

Mr. Harckham’s opponent next Tuesday is Bob Castelli, the former Lewisboro town councilman who went down to defeat back in 2003 anchored to the deadweight of the Tom Herzog-era Republicans. Mr. Castelli ran for the Assembly in 2004 against the incumbent Mr. Bradley and managed the impossible — running as a conservative, he received the endorsement of The New York Times, which called Mr. Castelli “the kind of outsider Albany needs.”

What’s most interesting about that editorial is what The Times wrote about Mr. Bradley: “In his one term, Mr. Bradley has quietly supported an array of well-meant measures that have not gotten very far.”

Well-meaning, but ineffective — that description from 2004 could apply equally to the affable Mr. Harckham in 2010. It encapsulates, perhaps, the best reason to send the tougher, reform-minded Mr. Castelli to Albany next Tuesday.