FOREST HILLS, Queens – The only event officially on NY09 GOP candidate Bob Turner’s schedule the day before today’s special election was a “Significant News conference” called for 2 p.m. at a commuter rail station in Forest Hills, Queens. That day, it turned out that former Mayor Rudy Giuliani would join the candidate. From this event, an unfamiliar observer could be forgiven for being mistaken that this election is really a bout between the President of the United States and the former mayor of New York City.
Giuliani was an hour late getting out to the neighborhood that he bragged voted for him in four mayoral runs – and, joking for former Democratic NYC Mayor Ed Koch “like 10 times” (Koch has also campaigned for Turner in this election.), implying that his pit stop should be a boost for Turner here. But few passersby took much notice of all the TV cameras and reporters surrounding the Giuliani and Turner.
Framing the election as a chance to “send a message” to Washington, and President Obama specifically, Giuliani started off with some perfunctory remarks about economic policy. “I’m trying to think of a nice way to put this,” Giuliani averred while he was probably actually trying to come up with a zinger. “A bucket of warmed over spit,” is what the former mayor settled upon to label Obama’s jobs proposals. Turner, whose private sector experience includes producing “The Jerry Springer Show,” is a man with a history of business success, who should be sent to Washington to work on a new jobs plan, because a Turner victory would tell Obama and the Democrats to scrap their plan and to come up with a new one.
Then, it was time to launch into the red meat rhetoric, the real points of Obama policy that get him riled up. Giuliani questioned Obama’s support for Israel, a salient issue in this district with a prominent Jewish – of the Conservative and Orthodox stripes – population. A “Congressman Bob Turner,” Giuliani assured the TV cameras, would challenge Obama’s stance of “moral equivalency” between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and speak up if Obama claims again that the PA “is our ally.” (“I don’t ever the Palestinian Authority being our ally” in the war on terrorism, an indignant Giuliani added.)
This race really is a referendum on Obama because the Democratic nominee, Assemblyman David Weprin – and Giuliani’s “watched his record in both the city council” and in Albany – would be just another rubber stamp for Obama, while Bob Turner would be an independent voice, representative of the ticket-spliters who live in Forest Hills and the rest of NY09.
But it was Weprin’s support of a mosque near Ground Zero that really sent Giuliani into a tizzy, comparing it to the nunnery at Auschwitz that the pope ordered shuttered. Bob Tuner would not be so “insensitive” to the families of 9/11 victims.
Turner for his part was mostly quiet, letting the tardy Giuliani hog the mike. Turner volunteers and media reps outnumbered the few “real voters” on hand. So, Giulani’s appended “but I suppose I should be proud of that” to his explanation for being delayed because of post-9/11 tenth anniversary checkpoints set up at bridges and tunnels throughout the five boroughs didn’t draw any reaction. If Forest Hills’ Giuiani fans had turned out, his credit claiming for that policy could have appeased an uneasy crowd, and turned his lateness into a plus for Turner.
Giuliani made another comparison between this special election in the Scott Brown Senate upset in January 2010. The key distinction between these two elections was highlighted by the lack of “real voters” showing up and showing off enthusiasm for the candidate. Fans mobbed Scott Brown, Turner wasn’t overwhelmed. Turner’s volunteers on hand were committed to their man, and chomping at the bit to be able to stick it to Obama. The question is, how many of those voters are there, and will they turn out in numbers needed to pull of this potential GOP upset?
