Local Vote Will Test Spitzer’s Woes

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The New York Sun

For local elections, next Tuesday’s races are unusually significant, providing the first real measure of the political fallout from Governor Spitzer’s immigrant license plan and the ability of state Republicans to rebound from a devastating defeat last year.

After watching their power further slip away in the 2006 race, which saw Democrats sweeping the four statewide offices and moving closer to taking over the entire Legislature, Republicans are looking to demonstrate that they remain a force in New York politics. They are raising the stakes by turning the results into a referendum on Mr. Spitzer’s leadership and policies.

Races from Long Island to Erie County are being watched closely by state lawmakers as a test to determine the extent to which Republicans are able to capitalize on voter disapproval of Mr. Spitzer’s plan to grant special driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

A strong performance by Republicans on Tuesday is sure to increase concern among Senate Democrats, who need two seats to capture control of the Senate next year, about their vulnerability on the license issue and compel them to distance themselves further from Mr. Spitzer.

“Republicans are looking for any Democratic defeat anywhere to hang around the governor’s neck,” a Democratic political consultant, Ryan Karben, said. “Local races turn on local issues. This isn’t a statewide referendum.”

While some Senate Democrats expect the presidential race to overshadow the license controversy in next year’s elections regardless of this year’s outcome, others in the conference say the issue has the potential to drag on, especially since Mr. Spitzer has said he aims to implement a new license program, which will include conforming to the REAL ID Act of 2005, weeks before the 2008 general election.

Historically, Republicans in New York have had an extra edge in off-year electoral contests; low voter turnout allows the party to compensate for its declining enrollment and win elections by relying on a small number of base voters. The lack of important downstate races this year provides Republicans an additional advantage.

In Nassau County, which has turned increasingly Democratic in recent years, Republicans are trying to tap into anti-Spitzer sentiment to take back control of the local legislature, where Democrats have a 10-9 majority. In one of the tighter races, a Republican challenger, Joseph Belesi, sought to peel away Democratic votes by focusing attention on the refusal of the incumbent, David Mejias, to take a position on the issue.

The license issue has dominated the county clerk’s race in Erie County, where the Republican challenger, Bill O’Loughlin, declared in a television ad: “I’ll stop illegal aliens from getting drivers’ licenses, even if I have to go to jail to protect you,” Gannett News reported.

The news service reported that Mr. O’Loughlin bought a full-page newspaper ad that urged voters to elect him in order to stop his Democratic opponent, incumbent Kathleen Hochul, from implementing the governor’s license plan. Ms. Hochul was appointed by Mr. Spitzer to replace David Swarts, whom the governor tapped to be his commissioner of motor vehicles.

Several local Democrats are responding to the attacks by distancing themselves from the governor’s policies. The Times Union of Albany reported that two Democratic candidates running for legislative seats in Schenectady County mailed voters petitions seeking signatures opposing Mr. Spitzer’s license plan.

Republican leaders say running against Mr. Spitzer will prove to be a successful strategy next week.

“The way he has conducted himself in office and his record has played a role in races across the state because people are seeing the leader of the party as ineffective and unwilling to listen to the public,” a spokesman for the state Republican Party, Matt Walter, said in an interview.

Some state Democrats, however, are already downplaying the importance of next week’s election.

“This is going to be a super-low turnout election, which doesn’t tell you anything about what’s going to happen next year when we’re in a presidential year with probably a New Yorker at the top of the ticket,” a Democratic state senator of Manhattan, Eric Schneiderman, said.

“If I’m running for county clerk in 2007, this might be an issue, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the inevitability of our capturing the Senate in 2008,” he said. “It’s not apples and oranges; it’s apples and microwaves.”


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