As reported on Saturday night by Yossi Gestetner, “According to insiders knowledgeable of the discussions that took place in recent weeks, the Republican Leader of the NY State Senate Dean Skelos is ready to clear the way for Democrat Simcha Felder to run in an open election for the newly created Super Jewish State Senate District. ‘An Open Election’ here would mean that the GOP and Conservative lines will also try to carry Simcha Felder, to secure a Felder win.”
“Skelos is ready to help Felder secure the GOP and Conservatives lines, and to accommodate other potential Republicans such such as David Storobin that he should run in a different district.”
David Storobin, still hopeful of securing a victory in the special election in the 27th district, that took place on march 20th and is being fiercely challenged in court now, was outraged when I asked him if he would be willing to work together with the majority leader, that backed him him in the 27th, to decide on an agreed candidate for the super Jewish district. “Is this the Soviet Union?,” he asked. “I am outraged at the mere idea of there being an “agreed candidate”. Candidates should be agreed upon by the voters on election day,” he said.
Storobin is using the same argument that he used in the special election to explain why a he as a Republican is best equipped to represent the Jewish community in Albany. “The values of the Republican party are more in line with Jewish values than those of the Democrats,” He told me. “Even a conservative Democrat will support liberals for the leadership of the legislature. The single most important vote that a politician makes is for the leadership of the legislature where he’s serving because the leadership will set much of the agenda. A Democrat will inevitably support his fellow Democrats, and their leaders in the New York State Senate are liberals who oppose traditional marriage and school vouchers, who want to raise taxes to pay for abortions, and so on. Even if a Democrat himself votes against this liberal agenda, the fact is that he’s enabling it by bringing to power the liberals who make sure that these bills pass,” he bluntly claimed.
Asked how he would contrast himself with Simcha Felder, if he ends up running on the republican line, and Felder on the Democratic Line. Storobin sets the contrast on the issues, rather on personality. “Simcha is a nice guy, but he’s a liberal,” he said. “He’s a very close supporter of Christine Quinn. He even brought her to a girls yeshivah and declared that she’s a role model for these children. I don’t think that the parents of these girls would agree that her “non-traditional marriage” is a role model for yeshivah girls,” he added. “He voted to raise our property taxes 18.5%. He supported overturning term limits to give Mike Bloomberg a third term. He is so liberal that he said that the only Republican he could ever support is Mike Bloomberg, who is really not a Republican. He could support Barack Obama, but admitted that he can never support any Republican.”
Felder, known as a funny guy and very likeable in the Jewish community, doesn’t deter Storobin from looking at his ideological background to draw this conclusion: “People tend to assume that just because a politician is a nice guy and is funny, that he agrees with them ideologically. But that’s not true. Liberals can be nice and can be funny, but that doesn’t mean that they are ideologically in line with the population of this district.”
More on the early push to rally Jewish leaders behind Simcha Felder’s candidacy, read my piece in the Jewish Voice weekly edition, to be published on Wednesday.