Democrats mentioned in Astorino Mailer Run for the Hills
By Dan Murphy
“I don’t ever recall a time when we’ve been more divided.” This state- ment could have been sent out from a number of elected officials.
Governor Cuomo could have said this about US Senator Mitch McConnell and his refusal to agree to a ‘Blue State Bailout’. Democratic Presidential hopeful Joe Biden could have said this about Donald Trump and the state of our politics today.
But the above quote came from Rob Astorino, the former Westchester County Executive now running for State Senate in the 40th District
against Democratic State Senator Peter Harckham. Astorino made the comment after he sent out a mailing which featured four comments from NY Democrats back in the day when Astorino was county executive.
The quotes came from U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, NY State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and former County Legislator Virginia Perez. The mailing was an effort by Astorino to show that he has worked with democrats in the past and will do so again if elected to serve in Albany.
Schumer, DiNapoli and Stewart-Cousins have all endorsed Harckham
for re-election, and the three criticized Astorino for using the old quotes,
which they did make. “I am disappointed that Rob Astorino would begin his campaign by using old quotes out of context to mislead voters,” said Stewart-Cousins. “I guess he has become so used to being Trump’s top cheerleader that facts and integrity don’t matter to him. It is disturbing that Rob is using almost 10-year-old quotes to pretend he has support. Everyone knows that Rob was bad for Westchester and he would be bad for New York state.”
Senator Schumer’s spokeswoman Allison Biasotti said, “Mr. Astorino’s
mailer is deceptive and dishonest and is right out of the Trump playbook,”
said Schumer spokeswoman Allison Biasotti. “And it is not the first time he
has pulled this deceitful stunt.”
When Astorino ran for County Executive in 2013, he used a similar
tactic when he won re-electon by a large margin over democrat Noam
Bramson. At the time, Astorino was working with a bi-partisan coaltion on
the County Board of Legislators. Two democratic county legislators, Virgin- ia Perez, and Michael Kaplowitz, joined with the republicans on the board
to form a majority.
Comptroller DiNapoli said, “A recent mailer from the New York Republican Committee misguides the voters of Hudson Valley regarding who I am
supporting for State Senate in the 40th District.”
While its clear that all three prominent democrats want to be associated with Astorino in any way, but the mailing is accurate, even though the quotes were made seven and eight years ago, in what seems like an eternity in politics today.
Longtime Astorino political consultant Bill O’Reilly was called out in
other media reports for doing nothing more than pulling out some old
quotes when the political climate was a bit more mild. “These quotes
demonstrate how leading Democrats have viewed Rob Astorino’s charac- ter as a man and as an elected leader; they provide invaluable insight to
voters. It’s unfortunate that partisanship supplants refreshing honesty in
election years,” said O’Reilly, who we agree with on this matter.
If any of the democrats has a problem with what they said in 2012, and 2013, (and by the way the mailer, paid for by the NY State Republican Committee includes the dates next to each quote), perhaps they shouldn’t have said it. If anything it shows how deeply politically divided we have become in such a short time, so much so that even a passing complimentary comments from eight years ago is considered poltical treason by your own party.
We also all call out Harckham spokesman Tom Staudter for calling the
mailing a “fabrication of bipartisan support.” That’s not true Tom, there
once was a time when democrats and republicans did work together for
the good of our country, state and country. We agree that those times are
gone for now, but the quotes are not a fabrication. They happened.
