Diamondstone in for the 33rd
Alrighty then: Per Azi, Ken Diamondstone has thrown his hat and not insubstantial personal resources into the ring for the 33rd City, currently represented by one David Yassky.
When he ran for State Senate in 2006, Diamondstone was seeking to represent a district that covers lower Manhattan and portions of Brooklyn. Diamondstone lost the Manhattan portion of the district to Connor by 2,163 votes, but he carried the Brooklyn portion by 1,384 votes.
The 33rd Council district overlaps with that area of Brooklyn.
Already in that City Council race are Yassky’s former aide Evan Thies, Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s chief of staff Stephen Levin [Ed. note TDG: No Effing Way], Democratic district leader and attorney Jo Anne Simon, and chair of the Sierra Club’s political committee in New York City, Ken Baer.
Just a few more, and these folks could form a soccer team. What is clear is that Diamondstone will be able to count on Progressive support stemming from his 2006 race, and that blogger Gatemouth will soon be frothing at the impertinence of yet another Progressive running for office against County's clearly expressed preferences.
Stay tuned.
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2009 Elections | New York City | Brooklyn | Ken Diamondstone
May or may not be comparable
Submitted by mole333 on 17 June 2008 - 4:15pm.
Diamondstone's numbers were against an incumbent in a two way battle. Now it is an open seat and a free-for-all. If he can hold on to his support base, it puts him in a good, but not solid, position. Jo Anne Simon also has an existing support base probably only partly overlapping with Diamondstone's. Thies is more likely to compete with Simon assuming he is riding Yassky's influence in the district. I think Jo Anne Simon's support base would overlap more with Yassky's (and hence possibly Thies') than with Diamondstone's. My impression is that Baer and Diamondstone have overlapping areas of support. Of course Thies will try to play the quasi-incumbent card if Yassky backs him. Levin will have the machine backing him and hence probably developer money from all over.
I personally know three people in the race, so for now my stand is I am for beating Lopez/Levin and am open to the others mentioned in the article. There remain chances of other candidates since it is clear not all constiuencies have their horse in the race.
Diamondstone should be considered frontrunner
Submitted by Gothanonymous Reader (not verified) on 17 June 2008 - 10:33pm.
Dan, I almost completely disagree with your analysis.
The 52nd Assembly District part of this district is more important in this race than the 50th Assembly District race, just look at the last time this was an open race in 2001. At that time, there were several candidates from the running for City Council from the 52nd AD. The frontrunner was from the 50th AD, but lost to Yassky who lived in the 52nd.
Aside from that, I really feel that the above posts put too little value in the fact that Diamondstone is the only candidate in this race that has run a contested primary and has voters who have twice voted for him against a fellow Democrat. No other candidate in this race can say that. What his past experience also means is that he has a very valuable form of name recognition, as a result of the fact that he has previously sent out targeted mailings, campaign literature, and has probably phone banked and received results about who would support him. In terms of winning an election, this is much more important than how many times a candidate might have been mentioned on a political blog, or even a local newspaper.
Also, many of his supporters were probably upset that he was asked to step aside in the State Senate race in favor of Dan Squadron, since Squadron is beginning to look like a paper tiger. Look for Diamondstone’s supporters to be very upset if this happens again.
What happened to Gatemouth Bouldin Debate?
Submitted by Gothanonymous Reader (not verified) on 19 June 2008 - 8:25am.
Did I dream that or were there two other posts from Bouldin and Gatemouth that were removed?
The truth behind the 2006 election numbers
Azi's numbers are wrong (as someone else already pointed out); Diamondstone lost in Brooklyn to Marty Connor, by 58 votes.
Diamondstone won the 52nd AD by 1,384 votes. Looking quickly at district maps, it appears that slightly less than half the 33rd CD is in the 52nd AD; the rest is almost all in the 50th AD, in which Diamondstone got his clock cleaned (1740-295). The Kings County breakdown is available on the Board of Elections website.
It's going to be a tough race.