Frustrated as we are the almost complete irrelevance of our vote in the Presidential race to the ultimate result, the desire of Brownstone Brooklyn voters to at least send a complete up and down the ballot repudiation to the GOP in its entirety has been cleverly frustrated by the Brooklyn GOP’s decision not to run candidates. Local Republicans in my area have failed to nominate a candidate in either state legislative district I reside in.
Likewise, voters in Red Hook and much of Sunset Park might feel they are living in the former Soviet Union, for in their races for State Senate and State Assembly, they have the option of either voting for a Marxist, or for no one at all.
In the four Assembly Districts overlapping into this newspaper’s distribution area, only one, AD 44, has a Republican candidate. He is Salvatore Barrera, a Senior Administrative Assistant at the NYC Board of Elections, who faces Democratic incumbent Bobby Carroll. Barrera has apparently failed to answer a single candidate questionnaire available on-line, even from friendly groups, and his candidacy can be best described as merely “holding the line,” giving the voters in his AD a choice more analogous to present-day Tsarist Russia than to the USSR. But in the context of the Brooklyn and Citywide GOP, he is practically a hero to his partisan cause (and has been rewarded for it with a job with a very decent salary and ample opportunities for overtime).
In AD 52, incumbent Jo Anne Simon faces no opposition of any kind, nor does Democratic primary victor Marcela Mitaynes in AD 51. In AD 57, Democratic primary victor Phara Souffrant faces the ghost of the incumbent she beat in the primary, Walter Mosley, still lingering on the Working Families line, a painful irony, both because Mosely, still a Democratic District Leader, has the fiduciary duty to oppose himself, and also because most Working Families voters would probably prefer Souffrant.
Things are no better at the State Senate level, where two of the four seats overlapping into this paper’s catchment area are unopposed. In the 21st, incumbent Kevin Parker, who is seemingly always spoiling for a good fight, has none, and neither does Democratic primary winner Jibari Brisport in the 25th. In the 20th, incumbent Zellnor Myrie is opposed only by a Libertarian.
Only in SD 26 does incumbent Brian Kavanagh face a GOP opponent, Lester Chang, an “international shipping consultant” whose Ballotpedia page actually lists a campaign website, Twitter page and Facebook page. It should be noted, that the campaign page is actually from prior race for Assembly and contains nothing but a notation that it is still under construction. By contrast, the Twitter page does contain content, but still notes Chang as an Assembly candidate, and has not had a new post since 2016. The Facebook page does acknowledge Chang is running for Senate, and features pictures of him, and most of them, in a daring display of independence from Party, show him wearing a mask. One of them shows him with an unmasked Curtis Sliwa. There is even a long, but not quite readable, policy statement about mass transit, though it is a reprint of someone else’s thoughts. It should be noted that there has not been a new post on this page since April 27th, but compared to the other Senate choices offered to voters in brownstone Brooklyn, Chang shines like a mackerel at moonlight.
The GOP has done better in filling its Congressional slots. Every one of the Brownstone Brooklyn area seats has a candidate, but apparently not much more than that.
In CD 7, incumbent Nydia Velazquez faces Brian Kelly, who’s previously run for office in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018, never hitting 4% of the vote. A search for further info mostly leads to a perennial Pennsylvania candidate of the same name. If that’s not enough for you, Velazquez also faces a Libertarian. In CD #8, Hakeem Jeffries faces Garfield Wallace, a candidate, the evidence of whose existence appears to have been written in invisible ink.
In CD #10 Jerry Nadler faces Cathy Bernstein, who has an actual website, where one learns little more than that “she is witnessing the city decline again due to the progressive policies of Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congressman Jerry Nadler of the 10th Congressional District. As a fellow constituent, Cathy cares deeply about the quality of life in the 10th Congressional District.” Beyond that, she is a financial consultant somewhat active in GOP and Jewish causes, as well as the East End Hospice, Harlem Junior Tennis and ACC of New York in Harlem. Nadler also faces a Libertarian.
But the prize-winning Republican candidate in Brownstone Brooklyn is easily Constantine Jean-Pierre, facing incumbent Yvette Clarke, in addition to Libertarian Gary Popkin, a former member of Community School Board #15, as well as a candidate from the resolutely strange SAM Party.
Unlike other area Republicans seemingly trying to avoid association with Trump, or anything else for that matter, Jean-Pierre’s Facebook page makes clear that he is a full-bore, fire breathing, MAGA-hat wearing Teapublican, who admirably calls Chinese President Xi Jinping a “fucking bastard.” Somewhat less admirably, he reflects, without any signs of sadness, that “G-d called #RBG to be judged!” “Elsewhere, it is unclear whether it is Ginsburg or Hillary Clinton who Jean-Pierre calls a “shedevil” who despises Jesus. He also offers helpful advice to CNN’s Don Lemon “Why don’t we start by blowing up your rectum you confuse for a women’s vagina?”
And that’s all in just one 24-hour period.
Finally, with the Supreme Court so central to our thoughts, I should add that the one judicial race Brownstone voters participate in is for our own (trial level) Supreme Court, where the GOP has nominated candidates for all six seats, although five of them are Democrats. In addition, the GOP has also given its line to Beth Parlatto, a defeated GOP Congressional candidate from the Buffalo and Rochester exurbs who, in a process charmingly known as “backfill,” was dumped here to get her off the Conservative line in the Congressional contest. Beth is very concerned about building the wall, the “right to life,” socialism, indoctrination in our schools, which bathrooms we use, and Christian values being mocked; as such, left and liberal voters looking for catharsis might find it voting against her.
Aside from that, there is the Presidency. Since there is likely to be a lot of controversy over the legitimacy of the results, helping to build a larger popular vote victory for Joe Biden might actually have some impact, although the President will undoubtedly tell us he did really well, “if you take out the blue states.”
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