New York Now; Caption Master #43

It was the first and likely only gubernatorial debate. This guy gets them. You're going to be laid off your pension is gone your health care is gone. We must get to the Fingal payoff the THANK YOU help you pay on and we've got an attack of the DNC Yeah. Like all measures they go with neutrals that no jobs so who are the winners and losers. We've brought in three journalists who were at the event on Long Island to analyze or were listening to two kind of attacks and snipes where we're watching who is attacking the discussion of the issues it wasn't there. Also squaring off this week for congressional candidates across the state. It's a very tight races. We'll take you there if you really need to try to tell the truth I know it's something that's a little difficult for him to try. It's all next on New York now. Funding for New York now is provided by W.A. additional funding provided by the LEO Cox Beach Foundation and.

This is New York now. Hi everyone and welcome to New York now I'm Matt Ryan and I'm Casey Seiler. A crowded gubernatorial debate is a dud but Inspector Joseph fish has rolled a grenade into the battle for the state Senate. Lots to talk about. We also have footage from two very important congressional races to show you. But first let's start things off with a look back at the gubernatorial debate on Long Island. It was a crowded stage at Hofstra. All seven candidates got together for what may be the only debate before Election Day and after early on the front runner according to all the polls Attorney General Andrew Cuomo made clear why he was the most qualified of the seven. We're going to have to reduce the number of government were enough to reduce the number of state programs we're going to have to cut Medicaid and we're going to have to find savings in education because the taxes

are too high. I think the question in this race is who can actually do it who can get it done. Because a woman is exactly right we've heard it before. A lot of promises very little progress. I've actually shrunk government Republican Carl Paladino who's been attacking Cuomo for the past month surprisingly stayed away from this tactic and instead spoke about his agenda to reform Albany. But the Buffalo native struggled at times to fit his thoughts into the allowed time limit. I was saying on education we should be destructuring our state board of education so as to just set out general policies bring the local bring back to the local school districts those mandates and policies that are so costly to them and let them handle it on a local basis. As to Medicare I want to say one more thing. No person on Medicare today who needs Medicare will will feel any effect of our reductions

in excuse me not Medicare and Medicaid benefits. OK I'm certainly 30 seconds while Peleg veto didn't go on the offensive against Cuomo. Others did including a Libertarian candidate Warren Redlich a guest here in New York now two weeks ago. Mr. Cuomo I read your book and Mr. Cuomo spoke he says that he's going to create it the way he's going to cut spending is the first thing he's going to create a new commission. That's a career politician for you. The way to cut spending is to spend more money on a new commission. And then once the commission comes up with its recommendations then he's going to get the legislature to give him authority to make the changes without their approval. Anybody think Sheldon Silver is going to agree with that raise your hand. Mr. Cuomo I don't see any hands you might want to write a new book. Also attacking Cuomo Freedom Party candidate Charles Baron which prompted a response from the attorney general consolidation means layoffs.

Cuomo is going to be the king of layoffs Trust me if he gets in office that's why you better go with me I'm telling you this guy gets in you're going to be laid off your pension is gone your health care is gone. We must get to a single payer system with your health care. And we kind of protects against layoffs you know they go with you Charles there are no jobs. While there isn't a consensus about who is the clear cut winner of the debate the one candidate people were talking the most about was Jimmy McMillan whose party affiliation and rolled off the tongues of many New Yorkers the following morning. Back to this. Someone say I'm a one your candidate but it all boils down to one thing rent it's too damn high. We'll have analysis of the Long Island get together coming up at the reporter roundtable. If Republicans are to gain control of the House in Washington they'll need some help from the Empire State to congressional debates also took center stage this week. We'll start off first in the Utica where Representative Mike R. Curie is locked in a tough rematch with Republican Richard Hanna our curio Blue

Dog Democrat got into a testy exchange with Hannah in this clip over spending. We have cut off. Budget by 5 percent I went to my chief of staff last year and said we need to do this and we did it and we ended up turning back one hundred twenty thousand dollars to the federal government next year and I introduced a bill called the Congressional belt tightening act that our salaries by 5 percent and our budgets by 5 percent this year I'll turn back a hundred eighty thousand dollars to the federal government who we think you can call me back in the first 50 days when you voted for the omnibus bill that's billions of dollars hundreds in the first 50 days. You proved one point two trillion dollars and you're going to stay here talk about $120000. I realize you've offered to take a 5 percent pay cut. That's common. Everybody in Congress now.

At one time or another do nothing because you never see you that you are the last or never came and I don't want to do much for your time. Say Richard you know you really need to try to tell the truth I know it's something that's a little difficult but you need to try another key congressional race lines in eastern New York where Scott Murphy is the representative in the 20th District. He won a special election when Kiersten Gillibrand was appointed U.S. senator last year. Thursday night he debated challenger Chris Gibson as part of a New York now special edition in the capital region. In this particular race Chris has got four different groups running ads attack ads all outside groups. Several of them we don't even know who they are from or what they are it's a 60 plus group Americans for Prosperity American Crossroads we know that's affiliated with Karl Rove but we don't know where the money is coming from or what their agenda is. I think that's a problem it's two million dollars of attack ads they're running it's a lot more than Mr. Gibson's even putting up on TV so they're having a big impact in our elections and I think we need disclosure and reform.

Mr. Gibson 45 seconds for your mascot you don't have the market cornered when it comes to outside groups attacking you because I'm having that too. But you know with regard to the Disclose Act I mean this is something that I could have supported if it was worded in a way that was fair and evenly applied. You know this is you know the bill that was designed to combat corruption. Was itself corrupt. You know it excluded it said that all these reporting requirements and then through the union leadership they were excluded from it. And there was also some other special interests that were excluded from it. Let's apply it fairly and that's something that I can be supportive of. And finally an update on a story we first brought you this summer. Remember the two fire towers in the Adirondack Park which were in danger of getting taken down. Well this past week the Adirondack park agency designated the half acre under both the St. Regis and hurricane Mt. fire towers as historic making them now in compliance with the state land a master plan. And unless Governor Paterson changes the ruling these towers will continue to be a

part of the Adirondacks. All right time now for some analysis of the week's news including that debate on the island Monday and also some big news coming out of the Capitol this week. And for that let's send it over to Casey at the reporter round table. All right I'm joined by my fellow legislative correspondents from Newsday James my door from my own paper the Times Union Jimmy Beale kind and a new addition to the table Paul Merrill of Fox 23 news here in the capital region. Thanks very much for coming in all three of you. All right we have a lot to talk about. But first I want to start off by talking about the seven way debate on Long Island on Monday. You were all in the hall for it. Did it seem any more worthwhile if you were there than it did from my sofa. Well for some people who don't know all the candidates they actually got a chance to learn about the minor party candidates and the minor party candidates stole the show because they had very narrowly focused subjects and it didn't matter what the question was.

They just used the same talking points and the best example is Jimmy McMillan whose campaign revolves around the slogan The Rent Is Too Damn High. And he repeated it over and over again. So Cuomo Andrew Cuomo the Democratic candidate and Carl Paladino the Republican candidate sort of got lost between the minor party had it well but you say they stole the show but isn't the keyword there show to a certain extent was this really substantial. Well that's the thing. New York faces a 10 billion dollar budget deficit. Our commies at a crossroads. We have lingering unemployment we have all kinds of problems here and we're talking about a guy who was wearing black gloves and why I was doing it and how the Rent Is Too Damn High. You know we're listening to to kind of a tax and snipes we're we're watching who is attacking who. Where was the discussion of the issues it wasn't there. So did this serve and rise to the level of serving the political discourse of the state of New York. I was you know I rode the train back to Albany the next day and it really started to bug me the more I thought about it and the way the debate was covered I think the New York Times proclaimed it a farce

in its headline. It's it's it's just made me sad as a New Yorker. But I agree with James that the minor party candidates got a chance to speak directly to voters on a platform that they are not normally afforded. We did not see a good issue clash between Andrew Cuomo and Carl Paladino the Republican tax payer's a conservative candidate. And what is problematic is that Cuomo who is very much the front runner candidate in this race really didn't have to explain much he didn't have to be challenged in a very substantive way. He was not grilled in a substantive way and so it was disappointing. I didn't have a problem with the five minor party candidates but I had a problem with the format. If you give everybody equal time let everybody be up there it's fine it was a bit of a circus. But at least let the candidates go at each other we got nothing new from Palin you know we got nothing new from Cuomo. You know the winners were Jim even McMillan because he's a YouTube sensation and Warren Redlich who came off sounding intelligent and made sense. And you know I wanted to see Cuomo and pallid you know take off the gloves. Jimmy McMillan could keep his gloves

on the other to take it off and go at each other. There was no opportunity for them to interact they never even said each other's names Cuomo and Palin you know so I thought the format was the was the real loser Cuomo. Absolutely. Came out and said that it was unlikely I think it's fair to say that it's highly unlikely that there's going to be another debate. Does that does that hurt him more. It doesn't really matter at this point after that showing you know it's like football was up by three touchdowns of statements left in the game so he's going to run up the middle and all he has to do is not fumble the ball as and he has to not act like the New York Jets. But in this case as we said there was no exchange of ideas. And now why would Cuomo agree to another debate if he's done a debate if he's been in public why would he go to another one when the only thing that can happen to him is that he can lose support that he could make some sort of gaffes in a poll that came out just two days after the debate showed that he leads by thirty seven points which is I think well outside any margin of error. Well in fact that thirty seven point lead comes two weeks after he was ahead by 24 points. So what we're seeing

is. Palominos gaffes particularly his criticism of homosexuality have really hurt his standing in the polls we also saw in the CNN poll the closest race is really for state attorney general between Democrat Eric Schneiderman and Dan Donovan the Republican Staten Island district attorney. And in that race it's really close. And Donovan is doing better with independents he's also doing much better upstate in the suburbs. So we're seeing a real horse race there and it'll be interesting to see how it all turns out. I think that transitions into the IGF report with as far as the yes no yes I gave OK excellent for segue thank you and now to move to something that may in fact have an effect on at least some of the elections on November 2nd. A three hundred and eight page report from state inspector general Joseph fish that has criticism for almost every branch of government I think except the judiciary but holds a special disdain for leaders of the Senate. Although Governor David Paterson and Speaker Silver of the Assembly don't

come off well either. Its subject is the chaotic bidding process that ultimately and a board of Lee selected to be the developer of the Racine Oh the VLT facility at the aqueduct racecourse. And what Judge fish found was the Senate's top leaders John Sampson of Brooklyn. And Malcolm Smith of Queens both looked out for their own interests and the interests of their party. John Sampson insisted that we do business with a developer friend. He insisted he do business with a business group in Brooklyn. He pushed incessantly for a.g to be chosen lobbying both the governor and Speaker Silver the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee actually directed its supporters to make campaign contributions to five Democratic senators. In fact in this whole process more than one hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions were given by the people trying to get this contracted aqueduct and forty thousand

dollars went to the Senate Democrats. Senator Malcolm Smith the Senate president said he was recusing himself from this whole process because he was friendly with two of the partners and A.G. And yet behind the scenes he's being briefed he's e-mailing people he's lobbying the governor directly the governor looks bad in this because he was disengaged. His top aides did not tell him important information particularly the fact that A.G. would not qualify to have this contract. His top attorney Peter Kiernan never told it. And Speaker Silver. Many people thought the adults in the room the one with the most experience. The report said he knew that Agee would not meet state standards and yet he refused to just eliminate them outright and instead played a political game. Slimy as this is as you know it makes you sick as a New Yorker as a taxpayer as a journalist as a human. Is anybody surprised. I'm surprised and actually I'm a little bit outraged I think that fish certainly are a bore

I mean this I don't I don't I don't I just waited this long to figure that this has been and this is this is laid bare in a very explicit way all the allegations all the rumors all the whispers all the charges of pay to play the stay here concluded that these men acted with a quote militant difference to the public good. A militant in desperate straits these are the men and women who we men in this case who we elect and who we place our trust in to guard our dollars to guard our treasure to make decisions on our behalf on what is best for us and what if they make the decisions based on based on who is going to contribute to their campaigns based on which friendly developer was going to get what. I am disgusted I think that this is something that's going to have a major impact on the upcoming state senate elections I feel that the Democrats will be forced to defend themselves all of their candidates not simply the leaders implicated by name in this report but all of them and I think the Republicans who had no role in this three men in a room all three of the men happened to be Democrats. I think that we're going

to see them go immediately on the offensive based upon the findings of this. And in fact they did that yesterday you saw a flurry of press releases put out by the various candidates including candidates who were running against running against Democrats who had nothing to do or virtually nothing to do with this process saying this is yet another example of what you're going to get if you hand all the gears and levers of state government. Are you the Democrat in fact I was talking to some Democratic campaign managers yesterday and each one said the same thing to me. We're in big trouble because all 32 Democrats voted for John Sampson to be their leader. And John Sampson looks horrible in this report. The other thing though that's so interesting about this report is the three men in the room negotiating sessions that produced this bad result in terms of the aqueduct. Also produce a budget every year and every single major decision in this state uses that format. So this is not simply a condemnation of the aqueduct situation. This is a

condemnation of how the Paterson administration and the Capitol has worked for the last four years. I don't think they're in big trouble. Senate Senate Democrat Senate Democrats because I feel like anybody who is named implicated here the enrollment is is so lopsided that they're safe. I think anybody maybe in a few of the tossup districts you know Foley. Yup. Dyleski in Syracuse maybe but those guys aren't even tied in and yes they're yes they're. You can paint them with the same brush. But I think that the average person watching a reading at home says you know it was it was shady. I'm not surprised nobody's led away in handcuffs. I don't think to that point but if you're in a unit in a in a race where we've got such a closely divided chamber in some of these races are turning on just a couple of percentage points I think. Jimi are you about to agree with me on this. Yes I am absolutely and what we've seen in the past is the Republicans taking for example Pedro Espada who was sued by the attorney general's office who's under scrutiny by federal prosecutors

state prosecutors and local prosecutors for a variety of misdeeds and who lost the Democratic primary earlier last month. Marginal members people like David Dyleski people like till our time here in the capital district people like some of the Senate candidates Joanne yap said Susan Savage who are the challengers and the president represents Albany County. They are tied to this leadership and here we see the leadership's actions laid completely bare by this report. Now you're saying how can they be tied together. These men direct the political efforts of the Senate Democratic conference they're giving campaign contributions they're giving staffers their top staffers from the Senate Democratic Party in the in the government are working on the campaigns. There's a big tide I think the Republicans are exploiting very quickly is when I mention one other race that could be affected by this and that's the race of Eric Schneiderman who of course is an outgoing state senator running against Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan. Is this going to potentially cost him Schneiderman put out a statement saying The findings were horrendous.

He's going to give back money. It definitely could affect him and in fact it brings up a very important point and that is that this report shows no one stood up in the Senate or the Assembly or in the governor's office to say this is wrong we shouldn't be doing this. There were no profiles in courage. Now we know that not everyone who works in the Capitol is corrupt. And is taking money on the side and is looking out only for their own interests. There are many people in the capital who believe in public service who want to serve the people of the state of New York. Why did no one stand up publicly and say this is wrong. Do not do this Senator Sampson do not do this David Paterson do not do this Assembly Speaker Silver but nobody did. And that's one of the most shocking things about this. I urge all the viewers to go to the State Inspector General's website read this report for yourself. I think you'll be appalled at what's there. It reads like a detective novel in some cases. All right one more topic I want to move on to is the the announcement late this week on Thursday

evening that the commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Conservation Pete Grannis who had served since being named by Eliot Spitzer in 2007 had been summarily fired by Governor David Paterson and especially by Laurence Schwartz his secretary who also turns up his as a player in the in the A.G. report. Granice denied that a leaked memo that criticised the Patterson administration's plans to cut more than 200 people from D.C. came from him. But but certainly the memo was embarrassing for the administration. What's what's going on here. Well you know I think it's interesting because Paterson is moving ahead with this agenda to lay off workers and it's something that he says is necessary to balance the budget necessary give back and that's probably justified based on the amount of deficits Grannis said earlier this week or didn't say excuse me a memo from going to his agency was appeared on our front page unsigned undated right saying that our agency has been disproportionately

cut and if these further reductions go through it will really impede our ability to effectively regulate and ensure that New Yorkers can rely on things like clean drinking water clean air and that are environmental soon to be done. So Grannis in this instance and kind of was seen and said by some environmental advocates to be standing up for the interests of his agency. But guess what we're seeing is that you know Schwartz has been a person rumored to always have a pretty heavy hand and Granice called him. Granice called him a thug. It may have going to have to thank you I've forgotten the exact now is memorable. Yeah the sad thing here is that Pete Grannis came to D.C. after years in the assembly fighting for the environment. He is a well respected commissioners. One of the most respected in the Paterson administration. And it's sad that he's being dumped overboard because all he and his colleagues appear to try to do is try to defend their agency which is what a commissioner is supposed to do. And you just wonder who's the next commissioner who's going to be fired for trying to

stand up for their agency. I think they all have resumes stacked up in their offices anyway. This reminds me of Denise O'Donnell you know you try to do your job you try to stand up for your agency and you know things go south and you're gone. You know there's no way Patterson keeps the governor's office next year after this. It's important to note that I think I think I'd bet on that it's important to note though that p p Grannis was very loyal to David Paterson and we would ask Pete Grannis about various scandals that were engulfing the Paterson ministration. He was always very careful to defend the governor and to be the loyal foot soldier. So it's sort of ironic that he's thrown under the bus in this way by Lawrence Schwartz who conveniently in the fish report had amnesia in many cases. All right well we've just got a minute left and I just want to go around the table and ask a question that I know is on the minds of many New Yorkers right now. Is the rent too damn high. Paul we drove to Brooklyn on Wednesday. We talked to Jimmy McMillan and the stories on Fox News dot com he's got a lot of interesting things to say. Check it out.

The Rent Is Too Damn High also too damn high are the property taxes and the cost of various things. I was going to say the same thing in fact that many have made it on an island where pretty I live and they heard the Rent Is Too Damn High just substituted the word rent for property taxes. All right Will thank you that is where we will have to leave it. Paul Merrill of Fox 23 news Jimmy Beal kind of the Times Union and James mentor Newsday as always we appreciate your coming in. Time now for this week's New York now poll question which gubernatorial candidate are you voting for. Let us know by logging onto our website WME org slash New York now. You can e-mail us as well and why now at WME. Org or just vote on our Facebook site. We want to give you the results of last week's question when we asked will you be voting for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand or Joe DioGuardi. A lot of DioGuardi supporters voting this week. The CIA ran away with this poll getting 77 percent of the vote. Let's hear from some of those who took the time to write in.

First off a couple of viewers in the senator's old congressional district. Polly in Boston she has grown into her role as a senator and managed to represent both up and down state well no way. I give her Doris and Bernie Hill's disagrees. Transparency is not Jila Brandes forte. We need a change. Steve in Buffalo DioGuardi is the only viable answer to solving our economic problems and getting us our jobs back. And finally Joel in Brooklyn watching us and w ne t said Gillibrand was said to be conservative when she was selected by Paterson that ended up being a rubberstamp copycat of Schumer. Thanks again to all those who voted this week and we look forward to hearing from you next time. Well that's all the time we have with a week left before voters go to the polls it's probably wise to expect the unexpected. Want to stay tuned next week will prime you for Election Day and we look forward to seeing you then for Casey and everybody here at New York now will see you next week right here on this PBS the

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on that Ryan from New York now this week in our poll question we're asking which gubernatorial candidate are you voting for. Log onto our website to cast your vote at WME Keita org slash New York. Now there you can find all of our past programs as well plus keep tabs on us on line by going to our Facebook and Flickr pages and we hope to see you next time right here in New York now.