Here in New York City, we’re being deluged with direct mail, not only for Mayor (why doesn’t Bloomberg just save his money, since we all know him, and he’s gonna win, anyway?) but for lower offices, such as Comptroller and DA. This diary will be about the candidates for DA.
There are three candidates in the Democratic primary for New York County DA: Cy Vance, Richard Aborn, and Leslie Crocker Snyder. Amazingly, no-one is running on the Republican line.
Cy Vance, the son of the former Secretary of State under Carter, is endorsed by the New York Times, apparently the Daily News (“Vance stands well above his rivals”), and an array of New York City politicos and activists, including Caroline Kennedy, former Mayor David Dinkins, Gloria Steinem, and Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, but probably most importantly, the legendary outgoing DA, Robert Morgenthau, who calls him the “best qualified” for the job.
Richard Aborn, endorsed by Bill Bratton – the former brilliant NYPD Commissioner, hired early in Giuliani’s administration and eventually forced out because his extremely successful crime-fighting ways made him too popular for Giuliani’s liking – and my congressman, Jerry Nadler, among others, is making reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws (here’s a critical look at them) his main campaign plank. In his direct mail, he calls for:
treat[ing] substance abuse as a public health problem, not just a criminal one[, providing] drug treatment for non-violent offenders who have a substance abuse problem[, and…]providing retroactive sentencing relief to non-violent offenders still incarcerated under obsolete laws[.]
He doesn’t make clear in the mailing or in the relevant section of his website how he would be able to reform laws as New York County DA, but it seems clear that he would use his “judicial discretion to divert non-violent, low-level drug offenders into treatment programs rather than sentencing them to state prison.”
Finally, there is Leslie Crocker Snyder, a former Judge of the New York City Criminal Court (appointed by Mayor Ed Koch and reappointed by David Dinkins) and New York Court of Claims (appointed by Republican Governor George Pataki) and longtime attorney.
Based on her direct mail, her campaign seems to be an attempt at frightening people into voting for her. In 2005, she tried to beat DA Morgenthau by arguing that he was too old and she should replace him almost just because she is younger. It seemed that everyone who knew and worked with him said that he was extremely sharp mentally and worked long hours tirelessly, so Snyder’s strategy backfired, and she was heavily defeated. Now that the position is open, she appears to consider Cy Vance her main opponent, and seems to be once again trying to get in through sleazy methods. She is sending a 4-page direct mail brochure. On the first page, there is an ugly, mirror-image photograph of what is supposed to look like New York in the bad old days. The text on top of the page says as follows (in all caps):
WHEN TIMES WERE TOUGH IN MANHATTAN WHAT DID THE CANDIDATES FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY DO?
On the second page:
JUDGE LESLIE CROCKER SNYDER STAYED AND FOUGHT TO PROTECT NEW YORKERS
On the third page:
CY VANCE JR. MOVED TO SEATTLE TO MAKE MILLIONS DEFENDING MURDERERS, MOBSTERS AND WHITE-COLLAR CRIMINALS.
The brochure details two of the criminals he defended, as if their crimes reflect badly on him as a defense lawyer. This is demagogic in the extreme. As Vance said to Snyder in an excerpt from a debate that took place on New York 1 TV (I didn’t hear the whole debate):
I believe that everybody in this country deserves the right to a fair trial, particularly those who are presupposed guilty like the individual in the Sudafed case. I took on that case in a court-appointed capacity. I believe that is the job of a defense lawyer to protect people and to make sure the government proves its case. Now if you believe otherwise, you shouldn’t be running for this job.
My inclination is to vote for Aborn, based on his strong position on the drug laws, which have caused almost incalculable waste in money and human lives, but if I find out that this is really a two-person race between the other candidates, I will vote for Vance without hesitation in order to keep Crocker Snyder out.
I’d welcome your opinions about this race, and any polling data you may have come across.