Candidates Keeping Low Profile

September 21, 2001

Democracy is pretty sloppy on good days, but candidates for city office this year are trying to cope with a national calamity and one of the busiest elections in local history.

Candidates have largely taken a back seat to the human tragedy, but they do keep popping up in highly visible venues.

City Council Speaker Peter Vallone (D-Astoria) has been at several press conferences with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and his aides say he is acting in his capacity as the city's legislative leader, not as a candidate for mayor.

Another mayoral candidate, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, was spotted earlier this week accompanying labor leaders John Sweeney and Dennis Rivera to a memorial Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Betsy Gotbaum, a candidate for public advocate, said her campaign office at 50 West St. in lower Manhattan was wiped out by the terror attack.

"I don't know what to do. I don't want to campaign," she said yesterday. "I guess we'll start campaigning Monday. I don't know what to do."

She said she was working on a project to buy new ambulances for volunteer companies that lost their vehicles in the World Trade Center collapse. "I'm feeling useful again. That gives me a big boost."

The campaign staff of City Councilman Herbert Berman (D-Brooklyn), a candidate for comptroller, finally got back into their offices yesterday at 225 Broadway, just north of the scene.

The offices had been used as a triage center during the aftermath and they were a wreck, according to campaign spokeswoman Carolyn Daly.

"At this point, there is no campaign infrastructure," she said. "We can't find computers. We can't find mailing lists.

"The office certainly was put to good use as a triage center."

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Check the Postmark. Candidates keep sending out mailings, but designed to look like they were printed before the Trade Center attack.

One mailing to Queens Republicans this week has Michael Bloomberg promising to "build on Republican accomplishments" - a not-too-subtle reference to the stability for which Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has gotten credit.

The glossy mailing shows Bloomberg talking to two police officers: one on a NYPD motorcycle, the other standing nearby.

A Vallone mailing that also started dropping in mailboxes this week pushed his plan to have the city pick up coverage for prescription drugs to senior citizens of moderate income.

Both mailings urged voters to cast their ballots in the Sept. 11th primary, which is now the Sept. 25th primary.

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'People Have Been Generous.' While fallout from the Trade Center attack might have an impact on some candidates, particularly those of South Asian ancestry, Jairam Thakral said it hasn't affected him.

Thakral, who came here from India in 1971, said there has been no change in attitude toward him in the eastern Queens City Council district, where he seeks to replace Sheldon Leffler.