New York Now; Caption Master #44

Candidates across the state make their case with the Election Day losing in the areas that the attorney general is responsible for or areas that I know and I have a demonstrated record of success and the one thing my son and I both agree on is that there is a clear difference between us both in our experience and our independence. We'll bring you the final debate for the A.G. race along with a pair from the Congressional ranks where the GOP is looking to get back to all important seats upstate. What we do is make sure that we don't enact big government policies where government is going to be a bigger taker Obamacare's example we'll examine the latest poll numbers with CNN's Steve Greenberg. And what they may mean come November 2nd. I would be very surprised if we don't see a handful of seats flipped from Democrat to Republican this election. It's all next on New York now. Funding for New York now is provided by W. I need to be

additional funding provided by the LEO Cox speech Berlin foundation. This is New York now. Hi everyone and welcome to New York now I'm Matt Ryan and I'm Casey Seiler Well after months of following the words and actions of politicians it's time to turn our attention to what you'll say at the ballot box on Tuesday this week featuring three candidates across the state. As we take a look at this week's headlines in a race that many expect to be a close one on election night. The two candidates for attorney general squared off for a final time Monday in Albany. It didn't take long for Eric Schneiderman to be questioned about the bombshell report last week from the inspector general that detailed a tainted bidding process behind the scenes within the state senators

Democratic Conference. Karen's a wit of a New York State Public Radio and New York now asking this question. You were deputy majority leader for policy how could you not know that some of these things were going on. And do you think that Senator Sampson should be removed as Democratic conference later. Well I didn't know anything was going on I wasn't involved in the deal as I said. I was one of the minority of senators who opposed this process from the start. So you know I chair a committee and I work on what the subject matter areas the code's committee that deals with all the issues related to civil and criminal justice. This was just not a deal I was ever involved with I don't keer appear anywhere in the report. There's a lot of things going on in the state legislature at any given time and I try to multitask but I can't do everything. The important thing though I think is to look at the issue and as far as Center Samson goes I called as soon as there were charges brought against Senator Pedro Espada I call for him to step down as majority leader. If there are charges brought against anyone is based on the allegations in this report I would certainly call for people to step

down from their leadership positions. I don't know what's worse knowing that something is going on doing nothing about it or being blind to the fact that it was happening. My opponent is part of the leadership of the Democratic conference in the state Senate. It's the leaders of the state Senate that are being accused of this conduct. How you could not know about it is beyond me I don't know if that's worse than not doing anything about it. He's accepted money from these individuals who are accused of these heinous acts. He he returned it only after the report came out although everybody in the Senate knew that the investigation was taking place. If you're still undecided here's your chance to listen to the candidates final pitch. Listen there's a clear contrast here. It could not be more clear cut. I'm someone who wants to continue Andrew Cuomo work as an activist attorney general fighting for people's rights standing up to powerful interests on Wall Street in Albany and on Main Street. My record is clear. I

have a vision for the office that is set forth in great detail I put out a public policy paper every day a reform proposal. My opponent's website which I think you should go to has virtually nothing nothing on the environment no mention of that. Very little on anything to do with labor law. The areas that the attorney general is responsible for are areas that I know and that have a demonstrated record of success and I think it's very important to understand that the next attorney general's going to have to be working with Andrew Cuomo who I'm confident to be the next governor on cleaning up the mess in Albany. He's chosen me as the person best suited to do that as has the good government group Citizen Union when it indorsed me explicitly noting that I am better than my opponent when it comes to fighting for reform on which he's been completely silent. Until he decided to run for A.G. And I'm the best person to root out corruption as I did in the Montserrat case and when I campaigned against Pedro Espada. Look I have the support of Republicans Democrats and independents. I have far broader support than my opponent. I'm very proud of it. On November 2nd I need your support so I'm Eric Schneiderman and I'm asking for your vote to be New York's next attorney general.

The one thing my opponent I both agree on is that there is a clear difference between us both in our experience and our independence. Mayor Ed Koch a prominent Democrat is indorsed me. Mayor Michael Bloomberg an independent has endorsed me Mayor Rudy Giuliani a Republican has endorsed me. All those gentlemen by the way a pro choice. They understand that a woman's right to choose is an issue in this race there's only one issue in this race who could clean up Albany. The reforms that my opponent has claimed to be the leader of haven't worked. It's obvious by the report that just came out with from the inspector general that said corruption was widespread in the state Senate Democratic Caucus a caucus that my opponent is one of the leaders in. I have 15 years of experience as a prosecutor running the most successful prosecutors office in the city of New York. Our county is the safest county in the safest big city in America. We helped make it that way. I have the independence from Albany that is necessary right now in this time in our state's history to clean up the mess there

to restore your confidence in our government again. And I'm asking for your vote on November 2nd. The debate was seen on various PBS stations across the state as well as live on New York State Public Radio. Let's head to Plattsburgh Now that's where the final debate took place in a very important congressional race the 23rd district is currently represented by Democrat Bill Owens. But he's facing a tough challenge from water towns that don't have any. Where did his money come from. Came from Wall Street. Who is he getting support from Wall Street. He wants to support tax breaks for the wealthy. That's a 700 billion dollar cost. It's very clear where Mr Doe he wants to take this. The reality is if people know that I work for them that I'm going to be fighting for their interest every single day down in Washington then matter what Bill says and all the other attack ads that are just flat out false and they are truly false. Who always won especially like should last November after former Congressman John McHugh was appointed secretary of the army. He is the first

Democrat to represent the district since the eighteen hundreds remember former Congressman Eric Massa. His replacement will be decided on Tuesday in Rochester Republican Tom Reed and Democrat Matt Zeller squared off at Nazareth College for the chance to be the twenty ninth district's new representative. What we have to do is make sure that we cut the spending at the federal level so that we get to a balanced budget state. Eventually we send a sound message. So the economic world that we're serious about getting our fiscal house in order then what we do is make sure that we don't enact big government policies where government is going to become bigger and bigger. Obamacare is an example of that policy that was enacted recently. Policies such as cap and trade that we oppose. We have to realize that our current tax policy your tax dollars are actually used to send your jobs overseas. Your tax dollars are used to subsidize the closing cost of plants. That has got to stop. We need to reward American companies to remain here

and to bring business back to the United States. And the third thing is we have to have to make sure that students in this audience tonight do not graduate as I did from college with a hundred thousand dollars of debt a mortgage without the house. We need to be able to set you up for success in the future. I have a plan to do that we do not need sound bite solutions. Well poll last month showed Reid with a double digit lead over Zeller. And speaking of polls they have been all the rage the last month or Karen do is standing by now with Sienna College pollster Steve Greenberg for their latest results. Thanks Matt. Steve Greenberg Sienna College pollster of the congressional races New York like most of the nation a lot of Democrats are really vulnerable. What are the closest races that you found in your polling. Well there are close races from one end of the state to the other practically. Look let's start with John Hall in the 19th Congressional district down in the Hudson Valley. Running against Nan Hayworth. Exactly. And we found that to

be a one point race virtually dead even up in the Mohawk Valley Central New York area you have my core Curia Democrat being challenged by Richard Hanna. This is a rematch of two years ago when our Curie won in a close race. Looks like it's going to be another close race at the moment we have our Curia up by five. But we had had him up by eight so it's tightened up there. Up in the north country Bill Owens who want to special election last year facing his first re-election it's a complicated race there because there was a Republican primary the winner of the Republican primary Matto Heaney is within a couple of points of all of our wins right now. But the loser of that primary Doug Hoffman stayed on the line on the conservative line. He suspended his campaign a few weeks ago. But when we were just in there this week with the most recent CNN poll 15 percent of voters still said they were supporting Doug Hoffman. So we had 40

Owens 37 doe Heaney 15 Hofman. So that's going to be a very tight and that hurts that it takes votes away from ours right so I know it actually takes votes away from dough Heaney that Hofman is going to the conservative is getting those votes if they figure out that Hoffman is not actively running even though he's on the ballot. Well what we did is we followed up and we said to those 15 percent of voters who were supporting Hoffman. Just so you know Mr Hofmann has suspended his campaign and has urged his supporters to vote for Doheny. What would you do now. At the end of that process we wind up with a 40 to 40 to between Owens and Doheny with Hofmann still getting four. Look he's going to get somewhere between 4 percent and 15 percent of the vote. It's going to cut into both major party candidates but more into Doheny. But this is a very Republican district you know that Bill Owens is the first Democrat to ever win in this congressional district the last non Republican in this district was a Whig and not the kind I should be aware of.

That's right it seems like before the Civil War. Absolutely it's been a long time in the other race I want to ask you about is the Murphy Gibson race. Yeah in the capital region up in the region Hudson Valley a little ways into the north country have to I mean if there was a big surprise in that race right Gibsons pulled ahead. Well we were we had out we had it yeah we showed a major swing there when we first went in right after primary day about seven weeks ago. We had Gibson with a sizable seventeen point lead when we came out this week what we had was 51 Gibson 42 MURPHY So a nine point lead for Gibson a twenty six point swing over the course of the campaign. Yeah so it alls going really going to come down to turnout who turn. Turns out right. Yeah well you know we have publicans more motivated Democrats were motivated well and I think it's almost district by district depending on the candidates the issues the the level of campaigning. But we also have to put this in a little bit of perspective. Twelve years ago in 1998 when you looked at the New York Congressional delegation there were 18 Democrats 13

Republicans. A lot of Republicans for a state that is two to one Democratic in Rome and today we're looking at twenty six Democrats two Republicans one open seat. Now I said this is a two to one Democratic state it's not a 13 to one Democratic state. So over the last decade and particularly in the last two three elections the Democrats have picked up a lot of seats in traditional and historically Republican areas. Republicans feel the need to try and get those seats back which makes them vulnerable to Angelou and the ones that we mentioned. And they are fair now and have just been in there for a couple years so that's one thing. And they won a lot of these Democrats won in the Obama year two years ago where there was a major Democratic turnout and the Republicans know that this is their best shot to take back some of those seats. So look we have about a. Eight or nine hotly contested congressional races where Republican challengers are going up against Democratic incumbents. I don't think the Democrats are going to see a clean sweep and hold

onto all of them. I don't think the Republicans are going to see a clean sweep and take them all. But I would be very surprised if we don't see a handful of seats flipped from Democrat to Republican this election. And that brings me to a question about methodology how how do you figure out how the turnout is going to be to measure up when you're interviewing so many Democrats so many Republicans so many independents. It is it is it is the art and the science of polling. Dr. Don Levy who's the director of the Sienna Research Institute the staff there do a phenomenal job. But what we do on these congressional district polls for example is we start by talking to registered voters and we make sure that the registered voters we talk to match the district as a whole in terms of geography in terms of partisan representation in terms of gender. And then what we do is we have a very a multi question likely voter screen. We asked voters a series of four questions depending on how they

score on those four questions they get counted as a likely voter to go through the survey. But then at the end we had another question at the end of the survey. We say Now let me just ask you one more time on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being somebody who's absolutely going to vote and one being somebody who's absolutely not going to vote. Where do you put yourself. You'd be amazed Karen at the number of people who are at the front and said I'm absolutely certain I'm going to vote and when we get to the back end there are five. So we eliminate the ones one through waits we keep the nine in 10 so we wind up a limb an aiding a lot of the registered voters we talk to so we don't get the likely. Exactly and then we don't wait. Additionally the way to the likely voter sample that we wind up with we let the likely voters self select themselves just very quickly in about 30 seconds there is hell left the state Senate races which ones are in play right now how many are nominal I'd say there's about 10 to 12 state Senate seats in play across the state. Right now I think Republicans only need two to flip the majority.

Right and and there are more Democratically held seats right now in play that are being challenged by Republicans than Republican seats being challenged by Democrats so it's going to be a very late night Tuesday for Senate Democrats and Republicans and for us and for us. OK. Thanks Dave very much. Back to you Matt. OK Karen thank you and it's time now for this week's New York now poll question which Election Day results are you anticipating the most. Check out our choices on line at org slash New York now or you can e-mail us directly and wine now at WME org or just go on our Facebook site. Let's check the results from last week's question when we asked which gubernatorial candidate are you voting for. And here are the results every candidate getting a vote with the top three being attorney general Andrew Cuomo Carl Paladino and libertarian Warren Redlich. Let's hear from a few of our viewers.

Lauren in Scotia is voting for Carl Paladino. No matter how on Polish Mr. pelligrino is it is a far better choice than any career politician. That is only interested in serving his own self-interests. Laura in Saratoga Springs is voting Democratic. Cuomo knows what New York State needs. We need to reduce a bloated bureaucracy that nobody has been willing to address in past decades. Jeff in Webster watching us on WXXI is going with libertarian Warren Redlich. Warren will do what career politicians can real spending cuts. Cap outrageous salaries and pensions eliminate many taxes. And finally Corey in the same neighborhood in Queens watching us on w n e t said neither Prince Andrew or crazy Karl will get my vote. Warren Redlich came across as the most reasonable in the debate. Thanks to all those who took the time to vote and we look forward to hearing from you in next week. OK time now to send it over to the reporter roundtable where Casey is joined by Karen and Kyle Hughes of NYS and y s dot com.

All right thanks Matt. This is going to be a speed round a very busy week so let's get right to it. The governor's race the new poll from Quinnipiac found essentially as Mickey Carroll the spokesman said that the race is virtually over that it's time for Cuomo centrally to measure the drapes. Oh you know where they went to clear it over but it sorta looks that way with all the signs I mean pallid you know just kind of flamed out I think. I think the turning point was the fight that he had with the New York Post editor Fred Dicker where he said he take them out and that went viral on the Internet he made those anti-gay remarks that he later apologized for. Do you really do not do well in the debate and we saw on Friday that the Wall Street Journal came out with a poll it's like 53 The thing was 53 percent of New Yorkers have a negative opinion of apology you know which is very hard to overcome. No matter. You know he's saying that. The polls in the primary show to be hind end up winning it in the polls here showing him behind to certain degree. And he said you could do it again but I don't think so if he's got such high negatives. We are coming images being cast I'm right we're taping this Friday morning we just came from a Palin

rally at the state capital. There you go yeah blustery and mad as hell rally and it was the mad as hell rally but it was a more subdued kinder gentler Karl but he did admit that he's made some mistakes and he stumbled but he said look this is my first time I'm an amateur politician but he did say that once he takes out the trash in the capital is going to hose down the building. So that was a new nuance in a lot of cheers. Yes. CUOMO finally came out and did a number of Edwardes which I know we've been trying my paper's been trying to set up for a while he did the Times-Union he did the New York Times did the Daily News. But I'm still not doing debates or broadcast interviews. Right exactly. Why wait so long to see what you want to see why based on what you told your paper and others he's really going to go after the establishment and he's talking about a Morland act to look into the legislature and he also had said publicly that he supports Governor Paterson's layoffs of state employees and he's going to take on the teachers unions and some of the ideas that he wants so I can see why he kept quiet all this time if he'd been saying that in July it might have been difficult.

We should point out for those few of you viewers out there who don't know what a Morlan act hearing is that it was battle process pressuring us AQ to look into systemic corruption in the legislature if which potentially he doesn't get the kind of ethics reform breakover that he wanted he has been kind of quiet because it's a lot of these groups that he's saying that he's going to focus on. Are part of Democratic base the people that he needs to turn out on Tuesday to cast ballots for him. And they're probably not too enthusiastic some of the union leaders anyway about doing that. OK anybody I would just say he does want a big turnout so he can have a mandate to do these things. So that's what he's looking for now in the final days get as many people to the polls as possible. Let's move on to the A.G. race potentially the tightest race according to recent polls Kiran you were on a panel at the debate at WAMC on Monday between Dan Donovan and Eric Schneiderman you know how is that looking there. Both candidates I think come off really well but I think this inspector general's report on the gambling scandal with the Senate Democratic leaders may be tarnishing Schneiderman his

opponent Dan Donovan is trying to make an issue of that every single day in session would have been spent in the Senate for over a decade I mean even you look at the corruption in the minima steeds and things that have been exposed in the last year not to mention Pedro spotted to go back even further and this is a burden on him as he tries to make his case for why he should be elected attorney claims even though he was in a leadership post he didn't know about it. Did anyone try to get a deal there. And I'll tell you probably didn't know about it but then the question that Donovan keeps asking why didn't you know what was going on there you know I guess I guess in that in some voters minds anyway they're going to look at the state Senate is probably the most corrupt of all the institutions right now in New York just based on what's happened. And he kind of thought it might end up paying the price for that. The New York City liberals don't turn out Schneiderman space than he is in trouble and Donovan could win. Let's use that as a segue to talking about the state Senate which is another big toss up. We were talking just before we began debating it now over 30 to 30 right now. And it could turn on some very tight races a couple of tight races on Ally island out in western New

York before we started taping. Karen you were mentioning the reporters dream or nightmare the 31 31 the so-called. Yeah yeah the nightmare scenario which we used to call the reporter's dream but I'm not so sure anymore after the last stand the last two years but you know it's possible because it's funny with all the voter anger there's not that many races that are in play there's really only three or four that that could flip either way. You know they're offering up their water to Brian Foley on Long Island they're the two that could their Democratic seats. They're the two that looks like they could possibly go Republican will find if their Republicans got both. They would be in charge 30 to 30 and honestly I think the Republicans could govern better at 30 to 30 than the Democrats have because the Republicans are more cohesive and the Democrats are so factionalized we've seen that in the last two years they've had a hard time. They would need more seats I think to govern effectively. Right. The controller's race between Tom DiNapoli and Harry Wilson could be another tight one it's seen some very heated ads I

think we would describe including the deployment of the word weasel. That's what it has right. Harry Wilson is trying to paint Tom DiNapoli is in Albany insider and I guess there was a column I think in the Daily News that referred to him as using some weasel tactics so they have it coming out at the screen. He's unqualified and weasel which I think was kind of what it was and boy it was I think they were in their ads they were calling him a hypocrite essentially for criticizing Wilson for things that he himself had done for example Wilson was a Wall Street guy and Apple has made a lot of trying to make that into a negative. The same time under DiNapoli the pension fund has invest I believe hundreds of millions of dollars in the same fund that Wilson was involved with so. You know it's he doesn't quite have the same opinion when it comes to the best campaigns are coming down to what New Yorkers hate more a Wall Street titan or an Albany insider and I guess that's what we're going to find out is what's called a Hobson's choice I mean after all right. We have two minutes left and I want to talk about the news coming out of the governor that we have right now David Paterson that that in fact the number of layoffs that will

happen if Paterson gets his way before the end of the year is almost nine hundred eight hundred and ninety eight people named a specific number and some of the and some of the particulars from from some of the different agencies as well. Is this likely to happen. He's still got a court challenge seems like he's going to go through with it but the unions say they'll go to court but they can't until the pink slips or whatever they give them they're actually in their hands. And if it happens at the end of the year it could be mid-December before they could even go to court for the holidays people might be losing their jobs the attorney general Andrew Cuomo who is the Democratic front runner has said he'll defend Paterson in court over this so it's kind of like Patterson's don't call most some of his dirty work for him and getting rid of some expense and other signatures you mention Paterson has said when he announced or confirmed the eight hundred eight or nine new jobs by the end of the year 2000 overall that this could have been avoided if if the leaders of the unions had agreed to furloughs. Or two alag payroll which is when you basically are giving the state your pay for another couple weeks they'll pay you when you're separated.

Schedule 4 percent pay raise write ins or they went to court and they won on all of that happened. Result of those people going to lose their jobs and so everyone knows right now losing a job in this economy is not easy in terms of finding something else. Very quickly if if it is in fact in the governor's chair in January will the unions be hitting him as hard as they've been having Paterson. Well you know it doesn't seem to matter whether the governor's a Democrat or Republican if the labor unions feel that their interests interests their members are not being represented. They go after him and they've already started. All right well that's where we're going to have to leave it. Thanks very much. Karen DeWitt of New York State Public Radio and Kyle Hughes. And now we'll kick it back to Matt at the desk. All right thank you guys and thank you for watching as well. Next week we'll have the full round up of the election results with footage from New York City Buffalo and all around the state you won't want to miss it. Karen and everyone here thanks for watching.

Funding for New York now is provided by W NTT additional funding provided by the LEO Cox speech philanthropic foundation. Hi I'm Matt Ryan from New York now this week in our poll question we're asking which

Election Day results are you anticipating the most. Log onto our website to cast your vote at WME or the 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. We hope to see you next time right here on New York now.