The election returns from Nassau this month were bad for Tom
Suozzi.
But they may be even worse for Jay Jacobs.
Jacobs, the Nassau Democratic chairman, was installed as the leader of the state party in September based largely on the impressive gains he had masterminded in his home county.
Now, some Democrats are wondering if Jacobs is up to the
task.
“Jay’s going to be under a hell of a lot of pressure,” said
one State Senate Democratic official who works closely with Jacobs “If he can’t
deliver the Senate next year, that’s going to be two huge strikes against him.
But I don’t know if he can recover.”
When Jacobs was chosen to lead the state party in September,
he had a sterling record in Nassau. Under his watch, Democrats had taken
control of the county legislature and all but one countywide office. Those
victories bolstered Jacobs’ credentials as a strategist and fund-raiser, and he
routinely advertised them to potential donors and candidates.
“He talked about the success he had in Nassau County—the
Legislature, the county executive, and of course fund-raising, he’s done a
tremendous job fund-raising in Nassau County—and how he hopes to do the same
thing at the state level,” said one Democratic fundraiser who participated in
a recent meet-and-greet with Jacobs. “Now he’s lost the Legislature and now
he’s lost the county executive. If he was up for state chair now, who knows if
he would be the state chair.”
Party insiders point to an embarrassing series of missteps
and tactical blunders that led to those losses, which they say may weaken the
faith of rank-and-file Democrats—not to mention donors and potential
candidates—in Jacobs’ leadership.
For months, Suozzi and Jacobs dismissed polls showing the
county executive hovering just below 50 percent, according to people who have
spoken with them. And the Democratic get-out-the-vote machine seems to have
faltered as well, with most precincts reporting Democratic turnout at one-third
less than that of the beleaguered Republicans.
Perhaps the most humiliating mistake, many Democrats say,
was the decision by Suozzi to leave more than $2 million tucked away in his campaign
account, anticipating a statewide run next year. Suozzi now trails in an
ongoing recount, and several marginal county legislators were unseated—including
one who lost by just a handful of votes.
“They ran a sloppy and lazy and unfocused campaign,” said
Larry Levy, the director of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra
University.
These are the kinds of missteps that Democratic county leaders had come to expect from the state party, which has seen its once-powerful machinery largely collapse in recent years.
In an interview, Jacobs said that he hoped the results would
not discourage Democratic activists and donors from trusting his leadership of
the state party.
“I don’t think that I was selected necessarily because I had
a great track record,” he said. “Hopefully nobody is expected to have a
multitude of perfect seasons. There are going to be setbacks.”
He added that the results would make him a better state leader in one respect: he has now experienced first-hand what happens when voters are angry with their elected officials.
Jacobs said he intended to relay that message to Democratic
leaders in Albany.
“I assure you that, having suffered this loss … it gives me
a certain measure of credibility in saying, ‘I have seen what happens when we
have an angry electorate,’” he said. “We have to prepare for 2010 in ways that
are going to ensure that we don’t see this kind of result again.”
Supporters of Andrew Cuomo also suggest that the attorney
general and all-but-declared gubernatorial candidate may be one of the unintended
beneficiaries of the Nassau Democrats’ losses, given that Jacobs is seen as a
fierce ally of the governor.
“He’s clearly a Paterson guy,” said one Cuomo supporter and
fundraiser.
Jacobs’ defeat in Nassau and the looming loss of his close ally,
Suozzi, may make it easier for Cuomo’s operatives to push back against him.
Some Democrats even speculated that Cuomo could re-elevate Jacobs’ predecessor,
June O’Neill, who is now the party’s second-in-command. O’Neill is a confidant
and supporter of Cuomo, and seen as sympathetic to his gubernatorial ambitions.
amiblue
