May 9, 2008 1:57 PM 1 comment

DCCC Talking To 3 In 13th CD

Rep. Steve Israel, a Long Island Democrat who handles recruiting for the DCCC in this neck of the woods, told me today that he has spoken several times to three potential candidates for Rep. Vito Fossella's seat in the 13th CD: Sen. Diane Savino, Councilman Domenic Recchia and Assemblyman Mike Cusick.

Interestingly, the one individual to whom Israel hasn't spoken is the only one who has formally announced his candidacy to date: Brooklyn attorney Steve Harrison, who is mounting his second run for Fossella's seat after coming close - but not close enough - to ousting the Republican congressman last fall.

Israel insisted he's willing to chat with Harrison, but said Harrison hasn't been as "aggressive" in reaching out as the others. The DCCC has never been all that high on Harrison, however, which seems to have a lot to do with his fundraising ability, and maybe is also a little bit about his very liberal ideology in a not-so-liberal district.

Israel refused to pick a favorite in the field, although he did mention several times that Recchia has raised a lot of money for a potential run this fall, adding: "$350,000 is a pretty formal announcement, I'd rather have $350,000 in the bank and no press release than a press release and no money."

(For the record, Recchia has raised $350,460 to date, and has $325,175 on hand).

The congressman also stuck to the script in declining to say whether he thinks Fossella should resign his seat now that he has been both busted for drunk driving and admitted having a child out of wedlock.

In Israel's mind, three are three scenarios that could play out in the 13th, and all of them are positive for Democrats, who already viewed the district as a potential pick-up this fall due to the expected unprecedented Democratic turnout for the presidential election.

1) Fossella resigns and there's a special election. This is the best-case secnario, Israel said, because it means the party leader would pick the candidate and there would be no primary.

If Fossella announce's he'll depart before July 1, then it's up to Gov. David Paterson (a Democrat) to call a special. The governor and Democratic leaders are having a conference call today to discuss just this possibility, Israel said.

"We're not being premature," the congressman insisted. "If Vito Fossella made the decision not to return to Congress and the governor had to call a special election, we want the governor to be prepared,"

2) An injured Fossella decides to try his luck and run for re-election, providing a much better target for the Democrats than either of the leading GOP replacements, Sen. Andrew Lanza and DA Dan Donovan.

3) Fossella decides to serve out his term, but does not seek re-election, creating an open seat in the fall. The only problem with this from the Democratic point of view, is it could allow for a possibly bruising primary.

The Democrats have polled three times in the 13th CD - all pre-scandal - and don't intend to go back into the field, despite the recent turn of events, Israel said.

"The fact is that any Democrat in this climate is viable in that district," he continued. "If we were able to win special elections in Mississippi and Louisiana, then I feel good about out ability to win in Staten Island and Brooklyn."

Staten Island

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Comments (1)

Fri, 2008-05-09 19:45 - peterpiper1

Savino chairs the Dems efforts to take over the state senate but is actively reaching out to the DCCC to run for Congress? That doesn't sound like her.