Nassau County
All George Maragos wants to do is run for Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand
First, he watched as internet entrepreneur Marc Cenedella quasi-announced, then abandoned, a bid for the Republican nomination this year to challenge Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand. Then he watched Manhattan attorney and judicial activist Wendy Long declare her candidacy, with help from some veteran G.O.P. operatives, as if he didn't exist. And today, Representative Bob Turner, who became a national Republican hero last year by winning Anthony Weiner's old seat in a special election, announced that he's joining the race too. More
(1)Term-limit exceptionalism, Long Island-style
Suffolk County's district attorney Thomas Spota filed a lawsuit with two other elected officials arguing the county's term limits don't apply to them.
Spota, a Democrat who used to be a Republican, is term-limited and the Wall Street Journal notes he's running without opposition from any political party, which is not uncommon. (See: Richard Brown in Queens.) More
(1)Dems hold up a temporary bailout in Nassau County to protest a gerrymander
Democrats in Nassau County are refusing to sign off on a crucial loan for the mismanaged, cash-strapped government until the majority Republicans change their stance on partisan redistricting. (The Republicans are very much in favor of it.) More
Under pressure, a Nassau County legislator attacks his rival with a 'porn star' flier
Nassau County legislator Howard Kopel is in a bind. He's an incumbent member of the majority of a county legislature that just passed a budget that doesn't raise taxes, but does call for shuttering two police precints and privatizing county bus services. Newsday, known in that part of the world simply as "the paper," endorsed Kopel's opponent, Adam Moser, in next week's election.
But Kopel seems to have come up with a late-in-the-game mailer that will shift the conversation away from fiscal management and whatever Newsday has to say about his race, at least momentarily. It attacks Moser, a lawyer, for representing "porn stars & strippers." Pictured on the mailer, separately, are Moser and two blonde ladies. The pictures are set into an insert that looks kind of like a page from the New York Post, across the top of which runs an actual Post headline that says, "$exxxy duo use tongue". More
(3)The fall of the Nassau Republican machine and the rise of Homeland Security chair Peter King
To the casual observer of national politics, Peter King, whose Homeland Security committee will soon launch what amounts to a Congressional inquest into the loyalty of Muslim-Americans, probably seems like a perfect caricature of a Tea Party-era Republican. More
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