Tag: SD-7

The Working Families Party field operation is hitting the doors every day to elect Craig Johnson to the State Senate. In 12 days we’ve already knocked on 23,427 doors for Craig Johnson, including a one-night high of 2,501 doors this weekend.

You can join in too. This weekend kicked off with State Sen. Liz Krueger meeting volunteers at the Mineola LIRR Train Station and sending them out canvassing for Craig Johnson. Sign up now and find out about more volunteer opportunities.

If it’s to cold or wet for you to canvass outside then you can still help.  A massive field operation like this is an expensive undertaking.  Make a donation to support the field operation.

Pictures after the jump.

15 days until Election Day!

Here are some pictures of the people working hard out there from a recent briefing.  I’ve been tagging these on flickr as NY-SD7, so if you’ve got pictures please add them to the stream.  Careful watchers will be able to pick out Aaron Hecht, the Johnson campaign Field Director, who came in to talk to the canvass before they went out into the field.

15 days until Election Day!

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Joe Mondello, Chair of the New York state GOP and of the Nassau County GOP, has a lot riding on the Feb 6 special election for an open New York State Senate seat in the Seventh Senate District.  It’s the first election under his watch as chair of the state GOP, it’s happening in his backyard, and it’s a test of how the state GOP will respond to their drubbing in the 2006 Governor’s race.

So maybe that’s why Joe chose to be a little, shall we say, extravagant with the truth.  From a New York Times article on the race:

The campaign is off to a quick start. “We had 500 people going door to door last weekend, and we hope to have 700 this weekend,” Mr. Mondello said. Democrats say they have an equally ambitious field operation. Their county chairman, Jay S. Jacobs, said that with an expected 10 to 15 percent voter turnout, “the ground game is the decider.”

Yeah right.

Details after the jump.

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Now it is right that the ground game is the decider.  And the Working Families Party is running an ambitious field operation, that’s right too.

But there’s no way the state Republicans have 100 people going door to door, much less 500 or 700.  The thing about canvassing is, if you’re out there canvassing for hours and the other side is out there canvassing for hours then each side’s canvassers are going to run into each other.  But I asked our 45 canvassers, who are knocking on thousands of doors every night, if they’ve seen a GOP door knocker.

The word from the Working Families Party canvass is that yesterday is the first day O’Connell had people on the doors, and it was only a handful of people.

And it’s not like we stick to the areas where turnout has historically been in our favor.  Our targeting is pretty advanced, so we can pick out the voters likely to go our way even in areas that don’t look promising overall.  So we’d be running into any GOP door knockers that are out there.  A couple of nights ago, we were in Maureen O’Connell’s home turf, near her house, and we didn’t see any GOP door knockers.  Not a one.

So I’m asking you. Campaign volunteers were deep in Republican turf in Mineola on Saturday, with not a single Republican walker spotted. If you were out there knocking on doors for Craig, did you see any of Joe Mondello’s imaginary friends?

16 days until Election Day!

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(So the election is one month from today. I think this one is going to consume a lot of my interest. – promoted by DavidNYC)

Adapted from a post at the albany project

According to Newsday, the special election to replace outgoing state Senator Michael Balboni will take place on Feb 6th. The GOP has chosen Nassau County Clerk and former Assemby Member Maureen O’Connell and the dems will choose a candidate on Monday.

It’s interesting to me that Tom DiNapoli, who was often mentioned as being the candidate with the right of first refusal in this race, isn’t being mentioned in media reports at all anymore. I guess he really does want to be Comptroller. As for the other dem hopefuls, Newsday lists them thusly:

Jacobs said he will head a screening committee that Saturday will interview four Democrats seeking the party’s nomination: legislators Roger Corbin of Westbury and Craig Johnson of Port Washington; East Williston activist Matthew Cuomo, nephew of former Gov. Mario Cuomo and cousin of state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo; and North Hempstead Town Clerk Michelle Schimel.

The screening committee will submit its recommendation to the executive committee Monday night, Jacobs said.

Everything I’ve heard in the past two weeks points to Nassau County legislator Craig Johnson as being the new favorite. Johnson seems to be a pretty progressive candidate. (here is his  official site and campaign site)

Over at the albany project, guest blogger and all around bad ass Scott in NJ has some more relevant details about the state of the players and district.

Republicans have nominated Nassau County Clerk Maureen O’Connell, who reportedly has the Independence and Conservative lines as well.  The Democrats will pick their candidate on Monday; Nassau County Legislator Craig Johnson is the front-runner for that nomination.  Johnson has run on the WFP line in the past and he will probably get row E against O’Connell.  Insiders suggest that the parties could spend up to $4 million on the race.

As of December, the Senate Republican Campaign Committee had $580,490.96 on hand; the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee had $143,166.31.  O’Connell can expect substantial support from the Nassau County Republican Committee, which has $1,359,471.43 on hand.  The County Democrats spent all of their cash on the 2006 campaign.

Tom Suozzi had $560,190.76 left over after his primary run, but he might have spread some of that money out among ’06 general election candidates.  FWIW, Johnson supported Spitzer over Suozzi in ’06.  Spitzer-Paterson 2006 still had $5,529,993.05 in the coffers after the general election.

Democrats hold a 38-35 registration edge in the district.

Looks like we’re gettin’ it on a month from today. As soon as the dems pick their candidate we’ll be covering that as well.