(may '00) McCain's Revenge
The State Senate has just approved a plan to revise the State's Republican primary system. The proposed reforms would replace the arcane petition process that requires each candidate to collect signatures in each district they wish to appear on the ballot.
The strictness of the Republican system came to the fore in the months prior to the presidential primary when George W. Bush supporters and members of the Republican machine tried to knock Mr. McCain off the ballot. Claiming that his petitions were rife with ineligible signatures, they attempted to remove him from about half the state's districts. Their maneuvering prompted outcry from the McCain camp, newspapers and good government groups.
McCain's strategy, to paint himself as an insurgent, the victim of party bosses, proved successful. Not only did he wangle his way onto the ballot, he managed to embarrass a number of high level republicans with a close race. McCain won 44% of the vote to W.'s squeaky 50%.
After the primary, there was little indication that reform was in the works; after all, it is another four years until a presidential primary rolls around. But Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno has pushed for the changes now. The bill proposes to put well-known candidates on the ballot automatically, and dispense with the petition process altogether. It would also change the way delegates and candidates are listed on the ballot. Under current law, the delegates are listed first, with the candidate they represent in small letters underneath. This was criticized from all sides as a) being confusing and b) favoring George W., whose appeared, for alphabetic reasons, at the top of the ballot. This too would be changed; only the names of the candidates would appear.
Hot in New Jersey
The Senatorial race between former Governor Florio and Jon Corzine is heating up. Corzine, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, has gone on the offensive, attacking Florio for his much criticized mid-recession tax-hikes during his tenure as Governor. The Florio camp has countered with criticisms of Corzine's expensive campaigning style; his television commercials total about $1 million a week.
While each side is doing his best to spin the damage away, the June 6th primary approaches...
Jessica Sounds Off:
The McCain insurgency is long gone; media hounds and the pubic have nothing left but (ugh) Gore and Bush. But, the deftly constructed brouhaha that John McCain created in New York will have a profound and lasting impact on New York State politics. He should be lauded for his ability to get results -- no mean feat in this state, and for the effect that his candidacy has had -- elevating the level of political discourse.
Susan Reefer is a Republican pollster and media strategist. She is based in New York City.
(apr '00) Money Train
There have been an interesting development in the all-too-talked about Senate race between Hizzoner and HRC. While many put their money on Hillary, both literally and figuratively, it now seems that Mayor Giuliani is raising the big bucks. In the latest reporting period, from January 1 to March 31, the Mayor raised $7 million, while Mrs. Clinton raised only $4 million. These recent figures confirm that the price tag for the race is rapidly spiraling out of control. The Mayor has raised a total $19 million during the course of his "campaign" (though of course, he has yet to declare his candidacy)
DZ
Rick Lazio has announced that he will reconsider a bid for the US Senate. Lazio, a Republican Congressman representing Long Island, feels that Giuliani's slippage in the polls is an indication of future disaster. Lazio feels that he has more universal appeal to the voters of New York and therefore would be more successful in a race against Mrs. Clinton. The State Republican Party and Governor Pataki remain supportive of Giuliani.
Jessica Sounds Off:
While James Brady's recent op-ed in Crain's New York Business includes many objectionable digressions, his main message, urging Senator Moynihan to run for re-election, is a welcome relief from the usual Rudy vs. Hillary sparring. Brady notes, "there were better candidates on the ballot in Russia last week." He's right. After a prolific career in politics, and a quarter century in the Senate, Sen. Moynihan will hardly consider Brady's request. But for the sake of New York politics, we wish he would.
Susan Reefer is a Republican pollster and media strategist. She is based in New York City.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon ruled that the Mayor's efforts to punish the Brooklyn Museum for mounting "Sensation," its controversial exhibit of British shock art, violated the First Amendment. Judge Gershon ordered the Mayor to resume monthly payments to the Museum, and to halt his campaign to remove its Board of Directors. Lawyers for the Museum are now seeking a permanent injunction (Judge Gershon's is temporary) while the Mayor, who called her ruling "the usual knee-jerk response of some judges," is appealing to have it reversed.
Mr. Giuliani now alleges that the Museum conspired with British advertising mogul Charles Saatchi, owner of the art on display in "Sensation," and with Christie's, the auction house which has sold works for Saatchi in the past, to inflate the value of his collection.
While these allegations seem unsubstantiated, hundreds of emails, memoranda and financial statements produced in court have raised serious questions about the probity of the Museum's fundraising methods.
David Barstow laid out some of the details in a 6 December New York Times article: Not only did Museum Director Arnold Lehman deliberately conceal the fact that Saatchi donated $160,000 to help foot the bill for "Sensation," but he also gave the collector a major role in determining the exhibition's content, provoking museum staff to worry aloud that Saatchi was taking over control.
Barstow describes an intricate web of ethically dubious wheeling and dealing. Lehman binds himself more tightly to Saatchi, enlisting the collector's aid in soliciting $50,000 from Christie's. Lehman has lunch with Patricia Hambrecht, president of Christie's America, and suggests that the Museum needs to "rethink its entire approach to contemporary art," an area of interest to Christie's. Weeks later, Christie's sells off $ 21,000 of art from the Museum's collection. Dealers representing artists featured in "Sensation"come up with more bucks. Rock star David Bowie donates $75,000. Bowie's for-profit website acquires exclusive rights to show "Sensation" on the Internet and Bowie himself records the audiotour. Lehman asks the Third Millenium Foundation, a Swiss foundation promoting arts education, for $200,000, falsely claiming he has already secured "several gifts" of up to $350,000. Lehman also presents the foundation with an "artificial budget" inflating the price tags of the programs it will fund.
The most conspicuous questions surrounding "Sensation" - whether the Mayor should withhold funding from a publicly-supported museum just because he doesn't like the art it chooses to display, whether a man should splatter white paint on a canvas - are easy. More complex and more nuanced are the questions now emerging about how art institutions fund, mount and promote mammoth exhibitions in a climate of limited public support.
L'AFFAIRE MARY BOONE: On December 6, Manhattan art dealer Mary Boone was cleared of a charge of unlawful distribution of ammunition. Ms. Boone, arrested in September after displaying handmade guns and a vase filled with live 9-millimeter cartridges that visitors were invited to take home as souvenirs at her Fifth Avenue gallery, described her subsequent overnight stay at the Tombs as an "adventure." "Art is the only thing I believe in and I'm glad to be arrested over it," she declared.
There is something entertainingly Tom Wolfean about the goings-on at the Brooklyn Museum - to say nothing of Mary Boone's recent brush with the law. And it's easy to point a finger at Arnold Lehman for putting the resources of a publicly funded institution behind an exhibition that - religious issues aside - was arguably low on artistic merit, though high on radical chic. It also appeared to embroil him in questionable financial practices. The truth is, however, that when public support of the arts is at best partial, visibility (ergo hype) is at a premium. Further, one finds the money where one can - be it from Charles Saatchi, Christie's, Phillip Morris, or Rudolph Giuliani. The Arts today make strange bedfellows.
Kati Kormendi is a freelance writer and actress; the former Artistic Director of the Magellan Project, a multiarts theater; and the creator of The Serpent's Eye an online eco-art gallery. She has written for Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, and Talking Leaves magazine.