By John DeSio

As with any election, last week’s primary had its share of winners and losers, and not just those candidates who were actually running for office.

WINNERS

Congressman Anthony Weiner certainly came out on top on primary day. When City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke’s Brooklyn congressional campaign looked like it might come to a screeching halt following revelations that she had been less than truthful about where she went to college and whether or not she graduated, Weiner swooped in with his endorsement. He even helped bolster her liberal base by bringing Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha, the Democrats strongest critic of the war in Iraq, to the district just days before the election to host an anti-war town hall meeting. By supporting Clarke, Weiner has reiniforced a strong ally in the Caribbean-American community for his likely mayoral run in 2009 and has given himself the appearance of a kingmaker at the same time.

To a slightly lesser extent, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr. also emerged a winner last Tuesday. In the contentious primary for State Senate in Queens between incumbent John Sabini and his challenger, City Councilman Hiram Monserrate, Carrion chose Sabini—resisting the urge to follow his predecessor Fernando Ferrer and many other Latino politicians who endorsed Monserrate. Carrion provided Sabini with a high-profile Latino endorsement to counter Ferrer and give the incumbent a boost in communities that were sure to vote strongly for a fellow Latino, and he secured a relationship with the powerful Queens County Democratic organization that he can call on for support should he also run for mayor in 2009.

Staten Island Congressman Vito Fossella was also a major winner last week. Not only did he fight off a challenge in a hard-to-predict Independence Party primary, which saw less than 400 participating voters, he also helped usher City Councilman Andrew Lanza through the Republican primary against attorney Robert Helbock to replace retiring State Senator John Marchi, a race that was decided by only 446 votes. With that victory, Fossella beat back those forces aligned with current Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro and his patron and predecessor Guy Molinari, asserting himself as the true power broker of the City’s most competitive wing of the Republican Party.

LOSERS

Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, along with other activist groups that are vehemently opposed to Bruce Ratner’s basketball-and-skyscrapers Atlantic Yards development proposal, saw themselves on the short end of the stick last week. The two most notable candidates with the loudest anti-Atlantic Yards platforms, Chris Owens in the 11th Congressional District and Bill Batson in the 57th Assembly District, were both beaten handily with Owens finishing fourth behind Clarke, City Councilman David Yassky and State Senator Carl Andrews. Anti-development forces could take heart in one result: State Senator Velmanette Montgomery easily dispatched City Councilwoman Tracy Boyland in her race to retain her own seat. 

Another loser in last week’s primary had to be the anti-war left, which saw challengers to Democrats perceived to be supportive of the war in Iraq go nowhere. Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini grabbed just 17 percent of the vote, overwhelmingly defeated by Senator Hillary Clinton. Though a win by Tasini was always a long shot, many anti-war types hoped that he could at least pull Clinton’s number down below 70 percent, a solid number for a protest vote, especially following the national momentum generated on the left following Ned Lamont’s victory over Senator Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut’s Democratic primary last month. That momentum never materialized, and the results were just as bad as you continued down the ticket. In the 17th Congressional District covering The Bronx, Westchester and Rockland County, incumbent Congressman Eliot Engel defeated his own anti-war challenger, Jessica Flagg, by a better than 4-to-1 margin. 

ON THE FENCE

The power of the New York Times endorsement has never been questioned, yet it was not enough to push former Public Advocate Mark Green over former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, a result that many had predicted. Yassky was also endorsed by the Times, and was just as unsuccessful, though his race was much tighter than Green’s. Still, the paper’s endorsement helped propel Brian Kavanagh to victory over freshman Assemblywoman Sylvia Friedman on the Lower East Side, a rare defeat for an Albany incumbent helped considerably by the Times backing. 

Monserrate’s fate is also in doubt. Some have surmised that his political career has probably ended. The City Councilman has an extremely bad relationship with Congressman Joseph Crowley, likely the next chairman of the Queens Democratic organization. Bad feelings between the two stem from an aborted attempt by Monserrate to run against Crowley in 2004. Though the campaign never got off the ground, the ill will between the two men was cast in stone. With the loss this time out and term limits forcing him out of the City Council in 2009, Monserrate has run out of places to go and wouldn’t get support from Crowley to run for dogcatcher at this point. However, he only lost to Sabini by around 200 votes, and the district is getting more and more Latino as the days go by. In two years, he could pick up just enough momentum to finally go over the top.