Former Democratic Member of Congress Michael McMahon, now in private practice at Herrick Feinstein as an attorney/lobbyist, and Democrat John Liu, New York City's first Asian-American Comptroller, addressed the Bay Ridge Democratic Club tonight at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church on Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge.
McMahon, after individually greeting many of the two dozen or so members present, and thanking the club for its support during the November election, gave a presentation, including the results of a Third Way Poll of Obama voters who voted Republican in the mid-term election, on why he lost to Conservative/Republican Michael Grimm.
McMahon characterized the 13th Congressional District, a melange of Staten Island and Bay Ridge, as one of the most conservative in the country.
Pollsters found that the majority of election day "switchers" (Democrats voting Republican) listed "government spending", "new taxes", too little focus on jobs, and opposition to Health Care Reform as the primary reasons. Most "switchers" see President Obama as more liberal than they are and disapprove of the job he's done.
Those who didn't vote, called "droppers", were more liberal than "switchers" and more approving of the job the President is doing.
Comparing "switchers" and "droppers", pollsters found an "enthusiasm gap". Switchers were
fired up about government spending and jobs and eager to vote, while droppers, for no particular reason, just failed to
show up -- McMahon saw voter anger at corrupt Democratic state legislators as a contributing factor.
Michael Grimm won the election by 4,229 votes, despite McMahon carrying the Brooklyn side of the 60th AD (Grimm took the Staten Island side) and the 61st AD. Grimm took the 62nd, but carried the 63rd by just 2%.
Turnout was spectacular, with 126,813 people showing up at the polls, an increase of about 21% over the 2002 and 2006 elections. The 100-vote drop-off between the gubernatorial and the congressional race showed voters focused on the congressional election.
Significantly, there was a growth factor of 30-60% per election district in the primarily minority areas of the North Shore, with Stapleton and Mariner's Harbor showing increased turnout over 2006 and prior midterms, while below 2008 levels.
Turnout, McMahon said, higher in Republican than in Democratic districts, drove the election results. The Republican base was clearly energized. The vote count was double what Grimm was expected to poll.
The Staten Island Tea Party gave Grimm a grassroots push, said McMahon, registering voters and getting out the vote on Election Day.
The Staten Island Conservative Party, strongly allied with the Republican Party, had never performed so well in his experience, he said.
The Democratic and Republican parties are patently different organizations, McMahon said, something you can see when you look at them by the roomful. Democrats are a highly diverse group by sex, age, race, ethnicity. Republicans are far more homogeneous.
While the diverse Democrats struggle to unify their message, he said, the Republicans speak as one. Working class people in Bay Ridge who have bought into the Republican message for that reason, McMahon said, are voting Republican against their own best interests.
If the Democrats, who far outnumber Republicans, are losing elections, he said, it's because they have failed to heal their divisions and take control of the message. Diversity, said McMahon, should not mean disorder.
McMahon took serious heat from those present about his vocal opposition to the Health Care Reform Bill. Several in the room echoed Scott Klein's criticism that McMahon should have talked to Democrats back home about his vote instead of winging it in Washington. McMahon agreed that he could have handled the situation better, but defended his actions by saying that he thought it was a bad bill, and that he had very little power to change it.
Comptroller John Liu, who was born in Taiwan, came to New York City with his parents as a 5-year old child, and went on to get a degree in mathematical physics, spoke about some of his notable successes since taking office this year, including blowing the lid off the infamous Citytime contract, which Liu had followed since his days on the City Council; cutting the amount of the inflated 911 overhaul contract; and killing a consulting contract to recruit new teachers -- at a time when the mayor is threatening 6,000 teachers with layoffs.
Liu, who said he was inspired to run for the comptroller's job by the term limits debacle, has formed a taskforce on pension reform, called "Retirement Security NYC", to study the costs of the city's pension system.
Mayor Bloomberg wants to eliminate pensions for city workers, but the mayor is moving too fast, Liu said.
While pension padding -- working inflated overtime in the runup to retirement -- should be eliminated, he said, most city workers are honest.
The main threat to the city's pension system, Liu said, is not the city's workforce, but Wall Street. Pension costs have increased primarily as a result of the devastating losses the financial industry imposed on the city by causing the near-meltdown of the American economy.
But no matter which side of the pension debate you're on, Liu said, pension reform should be fact-based, not based on rhetoric.
Responding to a question from the floor about ending seniority for unionized city workers, Liu, whose child is a 5th grader in the city schools, said that, again, he thought the mayor was moving too fast. LIFO, he said, was a reform put in place to protect experienced teachers from being arbitrarily removed by corrupt education officials, something that ultimately protects students.
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