Representing the candidates, from left, Keith Wright (for Hillary Clinton), Adam Stolz (for Martin O’Malley) and Sean Patrick Murphy (for Bernie Sanders), with moderator Ronnie Eldridge.
BY MARY REINHOLZ | While national polls put Hillary Clinton far ahead of her two remaining rivals in the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, self-described socialist Bernie Sanders won a straw poll taken last Sunday in Chelsea, surging past the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state by 30 votes.
The informal sampling of public opinion was conducted in a darkened auditorium with a call for raised hands to signify choices to occupy the Oval Office following a two-hour Democratic presidential forum at the SVA Theatre, at 333 W. 23rd St. Sanders, the 74-year-old senator from Vermont, garnered 89 straw votes compared to 59 for Clinton, according to a count of hands.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley inspired 54 straw votes, trailing only five behind Clinton.
Nearly a dozen local Democratic clubs sponsored the event, including Village Independent Democrats, Downtown Independent Democrats, Village Reform Democratic Club, Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, Gramercy Stuyvesant Independent Democrats, Coalition for a District Alternative, Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, Samuel Tilden Democratic Club, Lexington Democratic Club, Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club, 504 Democratic Club and Manhattan Young Democrats.
O’Malley’s was a surprisingly strong showing for an uber-liberal whose national numbers were only at 4 percent when he headed into the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas last month, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. But on Oct. 27, his campaign announced he had picked up 26 new endorsements in Iowa, including a state senator, two mayors and several activists who had previously supported Vice President Joe Biden.
“He’s starting to get noticed, starting to get some buzz in the nominating process and with groups like this,” said Adam Stolz, an articulate aide with the Martin O’Malley for President organization who represented his often media-ignored man of the people on the dais.
Stolz was joined on the dais by two other local surrogates: longtime Harlem Assemblymember Keith Wright, the New York County Democratic chairperson, representing Clinton (he is also a member of the powerful Hillary for New York Leadership Council); and Sean Patrick Murphy, a Sanders campaign organizer with Team Bernie NY. None of the actual contenders were present.
The forum was moderated by former City Councilmember Ronnie Eldridge, who gave the men three minutes each to explain in opening remarks why they were endorsing their candidates before an audience of about 250 people.
Attendees included several local elected officials, among them Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and state Senator Brad Hoylman.
The first to speak was Wright, who made it plain he believes Hillary Clinton has the right stuff in his rulebook to lead the nation after President Barack Obama exits the White House.
“I think Hillary Rodham Clinton is battle-tested. She’s a person who is cool, cool, cool under fire and can take a hit,” he said. “She has the intellectual capacity and the political acumen. Let’s not forget, she was our senator from 2000 to 2008. She’s been talking about criminal justice, jobs and healthcare. She speaks to me as the father of two boys. She doesn’t think young people should be saddled with student loans and astronomical usurious rates. She’s talking to me and she’s talking about future generations. I’m proud to support Hillary Clinton.”
Stolz detailed O’Malley’s cred as a progressive with an ability to get “big things done,” noting he had helped Maryland come out of the 2008 recession, “and he led the fight for marriage equality in 2011.”
“He’s fought for the Dream Act for young, undocumented immigrants,” Stolz added, later recounting that O’Malley “stood up” for immigrant children illegally entering the country in 2014. Clinton, he said, did not. His remarks drew applause.
But many in the audience were clearly “feeling the Bern” when 30-year-old Murphy, a former Peace Corps volunteer, touted Sanders’s purist leftie persona and the outpouring of support he has received from small donors to his campaign.
“He’s raised more individual contributions than any candidate in history,” Murphy contended. He said that Sanders refuses to take any super-PAC money.
“He also has refused any form of special-interest money,” he added.
Murphy cited the Brooklyn-born senator’s “impressive progressive” report card spanning 34 years as a public servant, stating he has received a “100 percent civil rights record from the NAACP” and a “100 percent [record] on women’s rights from Planned Parenthood,” among other liberal endorsements.
Eldridge, who hosts Eldridge & Co., on CUNY TV, attempted to differentiate the candidates on such hot-button topics as campaign finance reform, trade deals, climate change, gun control, racism in education and the prison system. She began by asking where they stood on wealth and income inequality.
“This is Bernie’s issue,” Murphy insisted. “He has been the candidate going after banks and Wall St. ever since 2008. He’s stood up for workers’ rights his entire career.”
He later said that Sanders believes that the “billionaire class has taken over the reins of the financial system and the election structure.”
Income equality is the “centerpiece” of O’Malley’s campaign, Stolz said of his candidate.
“We need more cops on the beat” scrutinizing Wall St., he said, adding, “When a bank repeatedly breaks the law, they should know they’re getting closer to going out of business.”
Both Sanders and O’Malley have proposed reviving the Depression- era Glass-Steagall Act to break up big banks. Clinton would allow regulators to do that job but hasn’t called for resurrecting Glass-Steagall. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, signed legislation in 1999 that repealed the legislation.
Wright candidly stated that he was “not intimately involved” with Clinton’s campaign, but claimed she has a plan to “go further than Glass-Steagall and see to it that the big banks don’t take advantage of the American people.” He could not provide specifics when asked by Eldridge. But he claimed Clinton has “fought for women’s rights and income equality since law school,” and added that progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio recently endorsed her “on this issue.”
And so it went. While discussing gun laws in the U.S., Stolz swiped at Sanders for getting support from the National Rifle Association in 1990 when he was running for Congress as the hippie ex-mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Stolz also faulted the senator for failing to back the 1993 Brady Bill that mandated federal background checks on purchasers of firearms and imposed a five-day waiting period (a provision later supplanted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check system launched by the F.B.I. in 1998).
Murphy replied that Sanders now has a near “flunking” report card from the NRA.
In another exchange between the surrogates, Stolz jabbed at Clinton for supporting the death penalty in certain cases. That disclosure appeared to disturb Wright, who, prodded by Eldridge, declared, “I have emphatically opposed the death penalty and authored a bill to end the death penalty in New York!”
As for O’Malley, Stolz said he “does not believe the state should be in the business of killing people” and noted that O’Malley has called for “abolition of the federal death penalty. We Democrats have to be more careful about principles,” he observed pointedly.
Eldridge suddenly turned to the crowd, asking if anyone in the audience supported the death penalty. No one voiced an opinion or raised a hand.
“Assemblyman,” she said, addressing Wright, “would you take this measure of the audience back to your candidate?”
Wright said with a smile that he would do that.
Over all, the forum was notable for its civility, with only a few testy interactions and not many raised voices during the question-and-answer period from the audience. For example, the surrogates, when asked, said their candidates all support Obama’s Iran deal. Clinton, however, known for hawkishness, was the only one among them to support a no-fly zone over Syria.
But there were some highly charged moments, especially when a young white activist apparently involved with the notorious Lyndon LaRouche movement started shouting questions to the surrogates on stage, such as: “What are you going to do to stop the drones from killing people and the World War III instigator and mass-murdering dictator Obama?”
That one seemed to surprise and fluster Eldridge a bit. She turned to the panel and asked: “Do you want to answer the question — quickly?”
Tony Hoffmann, from the Village Independent Democrats club who had welcomed the audience from the outset with fellow V.I.D.’er Marti Speranza, could be heard saying that the activist’s question “doesn’t deserve an answer.”
Nevertheless, Wright gave it a try.
“Let’s not forget that George Bush got us into this war. Let me finish, thank you very much,” he added sardonically as other angry voices intruded. “One of the first things I learned in school was that when we get into wars, the economy is supposed to get better. Well, George Bush got us into two wars and the economy got worse. Whether you disagree with how our president is handling this — that’s your opinion.”
Eldridge ended that discussion after Wright’s comments.
“I think that’s enough. All of the other members on the dais approve of most of the things in the Obama administration,” she said, as several people in the audience clapped.
Then the straw poll began. When it concluded, people began filing out of the auditorium and into the street from an exit door near the stage. Several lingered to talk to the panel, among them the aforementioned activist, who carried a placard showing an image of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The words on it said: “We Need FDR!”
Separately, on Oct. 24, V.I.D. conducted a “bean poll” of residents, on Astor Place, that saw Clinton narrowly edge out Sanders. Of 292 respondents, 142 backed Clinton and 139 supported Sanders, while only 11 went for O’Malley.
