McMahon gets nomination, Cusick out

The Richmond Democratic County Committee has nominated Mike McMahon by a vote of 131-40. This follows on an earlier decision by Mike Cusick to not run for the seat. via the Advance;

"I took a hard look at Congress," Cusick (D-Mid-Island) told the Advance in a telephone interview moments ago. "I looked hard at what it would take to get there. The one thing utmost in my mind was what would be best for the people I serve, and the people of Staten Island as a whole."

snip

"I don't want to have a fight for the seat, a fight in the party," Cusick said. "This is a hard decision for me."

Potential candidates: Assemblyman Mike Cusick

The following is the second part of a series on potential candidates for this Congressional seat. Currently only one candidate has declared, Steve Harrison.


Mike Cusick is a State Assembly member representing the 63rd Assembly District covering mid island of Staten Island. His district is overlapped on the congressional district (green below);




From his Assembly bio;

Prior to his election, Cusick served as Director of Constituent Services for U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer.

snip

He was instrumental in researching and developing statewide legislation, including the law to close the Fresh Kills Landfill.

Assemblymember Cusick was first elected to the Assembly in 2002 and has won re-election in 2004 and 2006. He is up for re-election this November.

2006
Cusick (D, I, C, WFP): 62% (13,086)
Grossman (R): 38% (5,775)

Congressional totals in the 63 AD
Harrison (D, WFP): 44% (8,547)
Vito (R, I, C): 56% (11,215)

Why he could be the nominee
Cusick represents the mid-island which separates the very Democratic North Shore from the very Republican South Shore. He has a large amount of bi-partisan appeal, needed to hold this seat. In 2006 he was endorsed by both the Independence and Conservative Parties who had endorsed Rep. Fossella in the congressional race. While Rep. Fossella won this Assembly District in his 2006 Congressional run, Cusick managed to get even more voters than Fossella in his down ballot race.

Rep. Anthony Weiner has publicly stated his support for Cusick and his desire that he run for this seat. While Weiner's seat is in Queens and not in this district he is considered a top tier mayoral candidate which may give his 'endorsement' additional weight and resources.

His previous boss was Sen. Schumer. Schumer could provide access to his donors, although he offered very little to Harrison after his endorsement in 2006.

The DCCC has been apparently dropping his name as someone of interest. As far back as 2005 the DCCC had been trying to recruit him.

Why he might not be the nominee
Cusick has been on everyone's short list for at least the 2006 and 2008 congressional race yet has passed on both opportunities. He has what appears to be a seat in the Assembly for as long as he wants it and would have to give that up if he ran for Congress in a general election.

If he gives up his Assembly seat it will not be as easy for Democrats to hold as Savino's senate seat or McMahon's city council seat. That said the Democrats hold a 2:1 advantage in the Assembly so this would be a minor loss for the state party.

He would start a congressional campaign with no money. [updated]

up next: City Council member Mike McMahon

see also:
Potential candidates: Sen. Diane Savino

Candidate speculation; August 2007, Harrison is in

With Harrison's announcement that he is in, he clearly is the front runner today. Councilman Recchia is still getting plenty of coverage in all the Harrison announcement articles, although he is not returning calls and has made zero movement so it is unclear why this is happening. Assemblyman Cusick has been downgraded after announceing the to SI Advance that he would not be running. Assemblywoman Hyer-Spencer has been downgraded as there has been no speculation at all regarding her for quite some time. Finally Councilman McMahon has been slightly upgraded to no movement, although he is clearly not running for this, he once again does not appear to want to make any public statements that he is not running. Good PR for him, bad news for the party

	no movement
	positive movement (towards candidacy)
	downgraded movement (away from candidacy)
	Stephen Harrison
	Council Member Recchia
	Council member McMahon
	Assemblywoman Hyer-Spencer
	State Senator Savino
	Assemblyman Cusick

Does Gulino help a Harrison run?

John Gulino was recently re-elected as Staten Island Democratic Party chairman despite attempts and murmurs that he would face potential powerful challengers, namely Assemblyman Cusick and Councilman McMahon. Both eventually backed down and the party backed Gulino once again;

But simple logistics and basic math also played a role: It's nearly impossible to dislodge a sitting party chairman even if you work the streets to put as many of your own people on county committee as possible. Gulino's supporters had already been working for months to add bodies and shore up his support. [via SI Advance

So Gulino seems to have the upper hand, despite the tone of the article claiming he made many consessions to the party electeds. I mention Harrison out of curiousity, considering right now the three potential candidates are Recchia (McMahon's candidate), Cusick, and Harrison. If Gulino wants to flex some muscle make a point that he is Party chairman throwing support to another Harrison run whether behind the scenes or publicly may prove a point and help solidify his position should Harrison go on to win. It is a risk, but may be necessary if there is a rift between him and the McMahon and Cusick supporters of the party.

Should a Democratic nominee knock off Fossella, they will unofficially become the Party leader in Staten Island in the same way Fossella unofficially holds that title now for Republicans. With that Fossella has hand picked his own supporters for office, consider the backing of Lanza over Helbock;

A victory by Mr. Helbock would have been embarrassing for Mr. Lanza and the ascendant faction headed by Rep. Vito Fossella who have effectively taken over the borough GOP. [via SI Advance

Gulino has to know that his time is potentially limited if a McMahon or Cusick backed candidate can take out Fossella, making him a lame duck even if he continues to retain his current position. He effectively could become irrelevant. So if he wants to become a king maker does he help a candidate such as Harrison get the nomination, essentially pushing all his chips in for the 2008 election? It is risky considering should it backfire he also would be targeted next time around, which he probably already is.

Candidate speculation: Cusick

This really is a two part post; 1. candidate speculation showing a potential three horse race for the primary and 2. all around bad reporting and partisan hackery from the party.

From Tom's reporting at the SI Advance;

McMahon has been boosting his pal, Brooklyn Councilman Domenic Recchia, but Cusick is being lobbied to take on the race as well, mainly by Democrats in Washington, D.C., including, we'd imagine, his old boss, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

"Nothing has changed," Cusick told us of his congressional deliberations. "I'm still taking a serious look at it."

Should Cusick jump into the race I feel as though he clears the field and almost automatically becomes the nominee. The problem is he is in no apparently rush to decide. We saw last year how disastrous the indecision of the party was with candidates still mulling over the idea in April, seven months before the election. This time around we had Fossella starting off in debt and a chance to from the gate out raise him quarter after quarter and every month a candidate thinks he does not have to make a decision yet and picks some arbitrary date off in the future we lose on fund raising, media coverage and the opportunity to simply pound Vito on any number of issues.

And then the political hackery;

One Democrat says that any candidate would have to have $100,000 in the bank by the first filing date in July in order to be considered a serious player in the race and draw the attention of off-Island money types.

After the Cusick speculation in the article you get to that gem of a quote. First off who is this anonymous Democrat and why are they wishing to remain anonymous? Nothing in that statement is damaging or offensive to any candidates and would require off the record commentary. I am not sure how this is reporting, since that one Democrat could be me or you or Sen. Schumer for all we know. The problem is we don't know, and we don't know the validity of that comment. That leads me back to the anonymity of it all and to the presumption that the intent may be to damage or disuade someone from entering the race, which at the moment would be either Harrison or Recchia. Certainly I have been calling for candidates to jump in the race and have guessed that they need to reach $100,000 by December in order to be the presumed front runner if not clear out the field with their proven fund raising abilities, however this quote concerns me and questions whether there is any more research that goes into articles than what I put into blog posts.

	no movement
	positive movement (towards candidacy)
	downgraded movement (away from candidacy)
	Stephen Harrison
	Council Member Recchia
	Assemblyman Cusick
	Assemblywoman Hyer-Spencer
	State Senator Savino
	Council member McMahon

Candidates and their backers

Being a blogger outside of the political circles that I often write about can sometimes be hard when it comes to understanding the behind the scene dynamics of the party and party leaders. Here in the congressional race we see some early names being floated around and some potential established backers;

Councilman Recchia announced his interest, and we saw that Councilman McMahon expressed support in seeing Recchia consider the race.

Earlier we saw Assemblyman Cusick pick up some public comments (did he solicit them?) encouraging him to run from Rep. Anthony Weiner.

During the 06 election we saw Rep. Weiner support Harrison as one of the few big names to lend any support, and word is that Weiner made some curious post race comments about how close it was on Harrison's limited budget. A little hindsight regret possibly. You might recall these comments;

"I just hope this isn't one of those things where the day after we're kicking ourselves that we didn't do more to help him."

Also it appears that some of the local Democratic clubs that backed Harrison in 06 would be willing to do so again.

So in terms of support, it almost seems as though for another potential candidate to jump in, they would need to pull the endorsement/support from one of the above. I am not sure that leaves a lot of room for a candidate like Hyer-Spencer, not that there is any indication she would run, and this no way is meant as an opinion on her as a potential candidate. Still unknown is if state senator Diane Savino has a favorite. Anyone out there better connected than I am and have a scoop on this?

Fielding a candidate for this seat, UPDATED

Since I promised to touch on this eventually in my prior post Financing a Run at this Seat, and following yesterday's nudging of Assemblyman Cusick into the race by Rep. Weiner, there seems to be no better time than now for this. The premise in the link above is that the DCCC have their hopes set on a certain candidate or at least of preferred candidates in light of their early targeting of Rep. Vito Fossella .

Before we jump into this I want to state that DCCC backing does not create a campaign victory (see Lois Murphy, Tammy Duckworth in '06) and candidates can certainly win without the DCCC's support (see McNerney, Shea Porter in '06). With the right candidate, DCCC support would certainly make this an even more competitive race but does not make or break a Congressional race. And so the candidates;

01 State Senator Diane Savino: Diane Savino clearly has to be the favored candidate for many organizations. Her seat includes the North Shore of Staten Island, Councilman McMahon's district as well as parts of Brooklyn. She lives in Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, something of a pre-requisite almost in any talk for viable candidates. The last two nominations have been from the Brooklyn section of this district, which encompasses only a small portion of the Congressional district and thus often sets up the talking point of them being somewhat of an 'outsider' since they are not a Staten Islander. Her background though is what propels her to the top spot on this list;

In her work to preserve the rights of her fellow workers, Diane Savino rose through the ranks to become the Vice President for Political Action & Legislative Affairs of her union – the Social Service Employees Union, Local 371, DC 37 of AFSCME. In that role she represented 16,000 public sector workers and their families at City Hall and the State Capital. Diane Savino is one of the most respected labor leaders in New York State and is known throughout the state as a fierce advocate for working families.

Frank Barbaro, a former long shoreman and labor advocate in the Assembly, managed to tap union support for $187,750 in his race in 2004. That number alone eclipses the total fund raising efforts of Harrison's 2006 campaign. For a candidate to draw the attention of the DCCC they will need to raise significant amounts of money early on, and Diane Savino would be able to do this if she can mirror Barbaro's success. All that though may be just wishful thinking. With the Democratic state senate victory by Craig Johnson on Long Island, would Gov. Spitzer and the state party allow Savino to give up her senate seat when Democrats see majority control in their grasp? While it may not be hard to hold on to her state senate seat I can't see the party asking her to run.

02 Assemblyman Mike Cusick: Yesterday's news of Rep. Weiner supporting Cusick should he jump in this race definitely raised his chances, although he probably already was in the number 2 position. Cusick represents the 63rd Assembly District [map]. While Democrats are two seats away from taking control of the State Senate, they already hold a staggering 106-42 advantage in the Assembly, so he avoids the problems Diane Savino would face. Prior to winning his Assembly seat he served as Director of Constituent Services for U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer which may prove to be a valuable connection, especially for fund raising efforts. DeBlasio was given instant credibility because of his ties to Sen. Clinton and the impact that would have on his fund raising abilities, so that would be somewhat similar for Cusick. With Schumer's success with the DSCC, one has to imagine that he can easily plant a suggestion with the decision makers at the DCCC.

03 Stephen Harrison: As I stated before for Stephen Harrison to get a second go at Rep. Vito Fossella, I think his best bets are an early announcement and vigorous fund raising ahead of the craziness that will be the '08 campaign season. Early money and lots of it may be the one thing that could keep other candidates from having a go at this race. His second option is organizing a grassroots volunteer base such as Rep. McNerney put together in his race in '06 beating out a DCCC endorsed candidate in the primary and eventually taking out Rep. Pombo. Both are going to take some time.

04 Councilman McMahon: All indications point to him preparing for a run at the Borough Presidency in 2009. I only see him entering should Savino and Cusick decide not to and with promises of support and party resources. UPDATE McMahon has indicated he is potentially interested in running for the late Assemblyman John Lavelle's seat. If he is considering moving up in the political world and not hanging onto his Council seat until he can run for BP, speculation potentially arises now that he could be considering the Congressional race. Should he run and win the Assembly seat, I would find it hard to imagine him a year later then running for Congress. Consider his momentum changing though and now on the rise.

In doing some research I came across an old Politicker post from May 2005 with some relevant findings. They obtained a "poll performed for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee of Vito Fossella's congressional district."

[T]he DCCC is clearly hoping a serious candidate -- the three they tested were McMahon, Diane Savino, and Mike Cusick -- will jump in to the race.

Not much has changed, and I don't foresee the DCCC straying far from their hopes in 2005, for 2008.

Candidate Speculation; Cusick

Apparently Rep. Anthony Weiner is trying to weild some political muscle and has indicated his hopeful candidate to take on Rep. Fossella in 2008 is Assemblyman Cusick. Via the SI Advance polit:bureau blog;

"It would be great to have Mike fighting for us in Congress instead of Vito Fossella," Weiner told the crowd, which included Cusick.

Though the two are old pals, having worked together under U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Cusick still appreciated the sentiment, even if he isn't thinking about 2008 right now.

Back in September Rep. Weiner stepped up his role in helping Harrison attempt win this seat. The analysis then is just as apt for the above;

This is very exciting news for two potential reasons. First of all it is always nice to have the fund raising power of a Senator behind an event. But second, and possibly more telling is Rep. Anthony Weiner's attendance. With the primary battle for NY-11 over, and his candidate Yvette Clarke getting the nod, Rep. Weiner who has his sights on the mayoral race is going to do what he can to show off his bench building power. Now with NY-13 as the only legitimately contested congressional race do we see Weiner's organizing and campaigning abilities turned towards helping this race, and maybe others, to shore himself up as the front runner to succeed Bloomberg? [September 14, 2006]

With that let's update our candidate speculation list, now with colorful indicator arrows and links to speculation coverage:

	no movement
	positive movement (towards candidacy)
	downgraded movement (towards candidacy)
	Stephen Harrison
	Assemblyman Cusick
	State Senator Savino
	Assemblywoman Hyer-Spencer
	Council member McMahon

UPDATE
Just doing some formating changes. Blogger doesn't seem to like non breaking spaces after those images.