Update:Whatever the mailing’s effect on the electorate, it has elicited sharp reactions from the candidates. A spokesperson for Sheldon Silver, Jonathan Rosen, called it a desperate move and an attempt “to inject gutter politics into this campaign,” adding he was “confident that Lower Manhattan voters will reject it.”
Newell issued a release today, denying he had anything to do with the mailing (which was apparently paid for by an Indiana group called the Common Sense Coalition), but attacking Rosen’s response “That Silver would allow his spokesperson to slur Elizabeth Crothers when she is simply repeating well-established facts is disrespectful of Crothers’ and demeaning to women in general,” said Newell’s spokesperson, Evan Hutchison. “A simple retelling of the story and reprinting of reputable news sources is neither ‘desperate’ nor ‘gutter politics.’”
With a week to go before the Sept. 9 primary, Paul Newell continues his campaign to topple Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. However Quixotic that quest might be, some people are willing to pay for it.
The Politicker reports that Newell has raised $40,015, more than double’s Silver’s take of $19,575.44 in the most recent campaign finance filing period. A third candidate, Luke Henry brought in only $510.
“Has that even ever happened before, that a challenger for an Assembly seat outraised the sitting incumbent in any time period?” asked the Daily Gotham.
We don’t know but we do know that Silver’s campaign war chest still dwarfs Newell’s. The speaker has $2,941,159.64 on hand, Newell a mere $37,729.78. The money Newell has raised, though, has reportedly enabled him to buy ads on FaceBook and Google.
Meanwhile, the Politicker also writes that residents of the Lower East Side district have received an explosive anti-Silver flyer writer by Elizabeth Crothers, the victim of alleged sexual assault by Michael Boxley, then a top Silver aide. Crothers blames Silver for standing by, enabling Boxley to, she charges, commit a sexual assault on another women two years later. That attack, she writes, “was a rape Sheldon Silver could have prevented, but — for the sake of his own political convenience — he did not.”
In the flyer, which Crothers emailed us, she continues that Silver’s “decision to protect a close political advisor had devastating consequences on more than one life. Like many politicians today who believe they are above the law, Sheldon Silver put his own political ambitions above justice. New York deserves better.”
For more on this race, see Running Against Albany on the Lower East Side and for information on all the competitive primaries, see Gotham Gazette’s Guide for the Last Minute Voter.
By Gail Robinson on September 2, 2008, 4:32 pm
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