YOU CAN READ MORE OF DOC'S PAST WORK BY CLICKING HEREYOU CAN READ MORE OF DOC'S PAST WORK BY CLICKING HERE
Doc's DIS-patch
"I believe this high office requires more than being Senator Pothole. It demands a genuine, continuing commitment to repair the holes in our social fabric and to chart a road into the future that offers all New Yorkers and all Americans an opportunity to earn a better life."--- Geraldine Ferraro
No, I'm not talking about the coming baseball season and high hopes for the Yanks, or the miracle transformation of Times Square into a sanitized tourist mecca, or the Grammys at the end of next month, about which I will report in detail in my on line music rag, Gonzo Journal (sorry Mac, had to get in one free plug).
It's because New York's beloved Senator Pothole is up for reelection in what will surely be the highest-profile Senate race of the '98 elections, and The Doc is looking forward to the spectacle of mud-slinging, trash-talking and generally heinous behavior that this once-every-six-years opportunity is guaranteed to afford --- even to non-political junkies!
"Senator Pothole," for those of you who have been asleep since the Summer of Love (like Ronald Reagan), is the popular nickname for New York's whiny junior Senator Alfonse D'Amato.
As with anything truly New York, there are a number of popular urban myths about how Pothole got the nickname. Some say it's because he loves getting on the phone and demanding immediate action when urban constituents call his office to complain about even the smallest sign of deterioration on their streets. Others say it's because he's an implausibly canny operator on his home territory, "the street," where the "real" people are. I've always thought it might have something to do with a long-past skin condition.
Whatever. "Pothole" has the nickname, and he's actually proud of it. The Doc is not surprised in the least, given that the symbolic "altitude" of his personal conduct, scruples and ethics can best be described as subterranean.
Finding them would require potholes at least the size of that giant hole on Fifth Avenue where a water main burst late last week. You may have seen the national news coverage of this local story --- especially the videotape of firefighters and a public works team excavating when a gas pipe suddenly burst, exploded, and sent flames about thirty feet into the air as workers fled. Thankfully, nobody was badly hurt.
Of course, the first thing to cross The Doc's mind when he saw this harrowing footage was how close this was to running against the real Senator Pothole. A muddy, Stygian mess --- you will get your hands dirty. He will not be "repaired" overnight. And there will be eruptions --- the lucky Dem who gets the nod at the state convention runs the risk of getting burned by the nearly indestructible, insurmountable Pothole.
A small man who looks like an intense CPA with a nasal, almost parrot-like voice, Pothole remains astonishingly popular in his home state. He's adept at using hot-button issues to consolidate his popularity among those who wouldn't normally vote for a rabid pit-bull conservative who only departs from GOP dogma for reasons of political convenience. He's also a shameless media hog, rearing his head at least once every couple weeks on local news, Sunday PunditVision, Imus, Howard Stern, or some combination of the above.
His top issues:
And given the skeletons that have roared out of Pothole's closet, it's a miracle he's still in office:
During the Presidency of the "Great Napper" Reagan, Pothole passed out HUD grants to his big-buck Puerto Rican campaign contributors.
He simultaneously secured a million HUD buckaroos for a public swimming pool in Island Park, his wealthy hometown, known for its outsize homes replete with huge lawns, painstaking landscaping... and swimming pools.
Pothole has accepted close to $60,000 in campaign donations from people with ties to "the mob."
He tried to convince then-US Attorney Rudy Giuliani (in his pre-hairpiece days) to ease up on members of the Gigante crime family and Paul Castellano (killed later in a gangland-style hit).
Pothole asked then-Secretary of State George Schulz not to deport one Karl Linnas, a former concentration camp commander --- funny how this got no press, but his efforts to force Swiss banks to fork up WWII-era accounts with interest to heirs of victims and survivors of the Holocaust are a media magnet.
An investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee resulted in a strong reprimand --- and Pothole had the gall to claim he had been "exonerated of wrongdoing.
Oh, yes --- Stratton Oakmont is the subject of a number of SEC investigations for trading violations, including insider information. Principals officers of the brokerage have repeatedly denied that they were involved with Pothole's lucky day... but a recent article in the New York Observer revealed recent evidence that Pothole and Stratton Oakmont have been, to put it politely, less than candid about the situation.
But in The Doc's opinion, the worst scandal of all took place before C-SPAN cameras some eighteen months ago when Pothole gave perhaps the single worst public performance of the song "Old MacDonald" in history. I still have nightmares about "and on this farm he had some pork." Let's just say he's no Michael Bolton and leave it at that.
And there's no telling what sort of skeletons will come crawling out of his closet once the campaign starts in earnest, when the second opportunity this year for prolonged public low-blows gets under way.
Yet Pothole emerges from each scandal only a little disheveled and muddied, and with just enough of the "ring-a-ding-ding" attitude that Sinatra popularized four decades ago to keep his enemies pissed off.
But before D'Amato gets his next mud pack, the Dems have to have their own in-house donnybrook. The 1992 primary was just plain ugly, with the big loser having been Geraldine Ferraro, a nationally-known "liberal" Democrat who lost out to Bob Abrams.
You know Ferraro --- she's the former Congresswoman and Vice Presidential candidate who, until late last week, played the part of "the liberal" on CNN's top-rated situation comedy "Crossfire." It's one of my favorite laff-fests --- pundits heatedly arguing trivial points, with plenty of hilarious intractable posturing thrown in for good measure. Each episode ends with Sununu, Press, Buchanan and Ferraro holding exactly the same mindset they'll carry into the next episode. Crossfire is CNN's Seinfeld --- a comedy in which nothing happens.
But I digress.
Now Ferraro is throwing her hat into the ring to take on D'Amato, along with semi-known Brooklyn Congressman Chuck Schumer and unknown-outside-New-York-City, Mark Green. Ferraro has the advantage --- unlike Schumer and Green, she beat D'Amato in a recent statewide New York poll by a handy margin. And on closer inspection she's far more of a centrist in her positions than most people are aware. She has a war chest, the support of grassroots organizations including Emily's List, massive name recognition --- and some might look at her years of "debating" right wingers day-in, day-out (between the laugh track) as an added advantage.
But she also has her share of ethical peccadilloes in her past, not the least of which are her husband's legal problems and her son's possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell --- probably to Young Republicans who liked the "upscale cachet" of the controlled substance back then.
It's an open invitation to a bare-knuckles, no-holds-barred political slugfest, and what could be the most expensive Senate campaign in US history.
But first Ferraro has to survive the primaries. Mark Green --- too liberal on some issues even for New Yorkers --- is a very dark horse with little money and no chance of posing a plausible challenge to Ferraro.
There may be some fight from Chuck Schumer, who has already amassed about $8 million. And The Doc thinks a Schumer-Pothole showdown would be far more fun than Ferraro-Pothole.
Schumer's an outspoken champion of such traditional liberal causes as gun control, Medicare and abortion rights. He's assertive and direct on the chat shows and has a reputation in the Beltway for being pushy and tough. And that's when he's getting his way! He's a sometimes obsessive workaholic with a reputation for street toughness --- probably more than a match for Pothole's street savvy. He rarely gives an inch when he has the political advantage and is known for total defiance in the face of political defeat. His first move would be for the throat --- go after Pothole's ethics record, even if everyone else who's tried it has failed. Bob Abrams, the '92 candidate, failed. But then, Bob Abrams was too damn nice, not to mention underfinanced.
Forget the term "negative campaigning" --- a Schumer-Pothole contest would be pure, unadulterated bloodsport --- Jean-Claude van Damme meets Quentin Tarantino meets the League of Women's Voters with more than a dash of "Duke Nukem: Lunar Apocalypse," The Doc's latest second-adolescence computer-game obsession, thrown in for good measure.
It'll be messier than Tyson-Holyfield. And more fun.
'Nuff said.
GONZO SIDEBAR: Novak "Spins" Grover
Bob Novak
From The Evil One's column for Monday, January 5:
"Anti-tax activist Grover Norquist used to tell friends that Jeb Bush must have been adopted because he does not share his family's predilection for raising taxes. No longer. Bush, making a second try for governor of Florida, refuses to sign Norquist's no-tax-increase pledge. Behind Bush's refusal are conflicts roiling the Republican Party as it seeks to solidify majority status in the country. I relayed that information to a surprised Norquist..."
Norquist... surprised? Sorry, Bob, you may call it a "roiling conflict," but sure seem loath to point out that Jeb may be the only Bush to have the brains to publicly distance himself from psycho-politico Norquist, for whom The Doc currently posts 100-to-1 odds of being indicted for campaign fundraising crimes.
Dave "Doctor" Gonzo
Search American Politics Provided by Hot Bot |
