When I described his all-but-announced gubernatorial campaign as “a long shot,” Suozzi corrected me. “Very long shot.”
So don’t worry if you’ve never heard of him. Eighty percent of 404 likely Democratic voters quizzed in a Sienna poll last week said they had never heard of him.
“Do you know which people know who I am?” Suozzi asks, sitting inside his Mineola office, his feet perched up on a bronze plaque that doubles as his coffee table. “Good government groups, policy wonks, political insider types,” he says, his voice beginning to trail off at the weight of that responsibility. After a slight pause, he resumes: “Editorial boards, those types of groups know who I am.”
Suozzi tells me that his name recognition is better than Chuck Schumer’s was the year before Schumer ran successfully for U.S. Senate.
But while Harvard-educated Schumer ran against Senator Pothole, Suozzi’s primary foe, State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, has a more intimidating nickname: The Sheriff of Wall Street. And he’s got the support of the entire state Democratic Party operation to take out the 42-year-old, boyish Nassau County Executive who, when told to take his feet off the table, sarcastically tells his campaign manager, “Okay mom.”
Nassau’s Turnaround
Despite his name (un)recognition, Suozzi’s resume is based on Nassau County’s fiscal recovery.
Nothing says rock bottom like post-Sept. 11th rejection. The state agency watching Nassau’s finances rejected the proposed 2002 budget presented by Suozzi’s predecessor, Tom Gullota. “We cannot let the national emergency or coming election prevent us from doing what is right and doing it now,” wrote Chairman Frank Zarb of the Nassau Interim Finance Authority.
Years of one-party rule had finally taken their toll on one of the richest (and, until recently, most Republican) counties in America. More than 45 percent of county cops took home $100,000 in pay, according to Newsday. Despite the GOP’s smaller government mantra, Nassau’s payroll swelled, and its tax rate exploded.
The budget proposed by Gullota at the end of 2001 would have put Nassau in the red by $208.6 million by 2005, NIFA said. Instead last year Nassau ran a surplus and received its 11th bond-status upgrade in four years, the most of any city, state or municipality in America, and Suozzi was named one of eight public officials of the year in Governing for having orchestrated the turn-around.
Suozzi’s raised property taxes 19 percent (and quickly promised never to raise them again), cut 1,400 county jobs from the pay roll, trimmed “waste, fraud and abuse,” refinanced the remaining debt and negotiated what he termed “historic” givebacks with “our friends” in the unions. That’s the same plan he wants to use in Albany.
When asked about the county’s turn-around, the guy who lost the 2001 Democratic primary to Suozzi, naturally, considers the credit misplaced. “The commitment for the $100 million [grant from Albany] and the commitment to establish NIFA happened in 2000,” Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli explained. “The benefit and fiscal improvements happened in the years since then.”
Suozzi, who said he’s heard DiNapoli make the charge before, seemed unfazed as he started dialing the phone. While it rang, Suozzi explained, “My guy who is my deputy county executive for finance was DiNapoli’s top policy guy in his campaign. Okay?”
Speaking to his deputy county executive, Suozzi repeated DiNapoli’s argument. The voice on the speakerphone erupted in laughter. He hung up and reminded me again who his deputy used to work for.
The county’s revival helped Suozzi do what even his idol John F. Kennedy couldn’t: beat Nassau Republicans. Forty-eight hours before the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election, Kennedy huddled next to Tom’s father Joseph, then Nassau County democratic chairman, at a rain-soaked rally. The would-be King of Camelot pleaded with supporters to hit the polls and prove “that Nassau County has gone Democratic.” It hadn’t. In fact, “There’s never been any Democrat that won the presidential race in Nassau County until Bill Clinton came along,” Suozzi noted in a radio interview. Who ran Clinton’s New York campaign? Harold Ickes, a lawyer with Tom’s dad at, drum roll please, Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein.
Fixing Albany
Suozzi’s gubernatorial campaign against Spitzer is an extension of his fight against all things Albany. Spitzer, who’s been in Albany since 1999, built a reputation for attacking Wall Street, but never his colleagues. Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was caught vacationing in a heavily-discounted Las Vegas hotel room while the hotel’s owner had business pending before the legislature. Democratic Assemblyman Clarence Norman’s indictment for pocketing campaign cash was picked up by the Brooklyn D.A. (whose own campaign finance racket was never investigated either). After getting caught charging taxpayers for travel expenses paid for by lobbyists, Democratic Assemblyman Roger Green “retired” momentarily, avoiding major penalties, and promptly went unchallenged as he ran for his “open” seat. He’s now considering running for Congress.
But “Mr. Spitzer, who is running for governor, now has a big question mark on his resumé as a reformer,” The Times, usually Spitzer’s biggest booster, editorialized last July, because of another scandal: Medicaid.
The state’s $44 billion Medicaid program is—increibly—almost half of the state’s total budget. But from Albany, it looks like a great moneymaker.
Here’s the scheme: The cost of the program is split three ways. D.C. kicks in half; and Albany and local counties split the other half. From Albany and from the seats of local government, it looks like spending a dollar brings in three free ones, so spending and fraud have of course exploded. New York spends more on Medicaid than California and Texas combined.
Mayor Bloomberg quietly lobbied Albany’s leadership to mind their money with little success, and Spitzer has done nothing; no Wall Street-style investigation into widespread reports of widespread Medicaid fraud. All of which bolsters Suozzi’s candidacy and the notion that he, not Spitzer, is the real reformer. (Suozzi refused to go on the record with anything but praise for at least some of Spitzer’s work as Attorney General.)
Suozzi seized the moment, and started Fix Albany, a shoestring operation that sought to cap Medicaid spending and fund Democratic candidates looking to unseat incumbents of either party in Albany. Shortly after announcing his plan, the influential lobbyist he’d hired, Patricia Lynch dropped Suozzi as a client. Now that is responsive.
It wasn’t until editorial boards and policy wonks (Suozzi considers himself a wonk) echoed an NYU study that called New York’s state legislature the worst in the nation that a cap on Medicaid spending was finally signed.
Picking on The Disabled
To date, Suozzi is the only elected official pursuing anything resembling reform. One Queens Democrat said he spoke out publicly about the need for term limits in Albany, once. “My phone lit up like a Christmas tree,” he said. “Some were friendly, saying ‘Don’t do this.’ Others were like, ‘You’re dead.’”
In 2004, Suozzi ran his own candidate for Assembly, Charles Lavine, against a less-than-impressive fellow Democrat from Long Island. Suozzi won, and deemed it a wake up call to Albany. One Democratic operative was less impressed: “Beating David Sidikman is like picking on the disabled.”
The heart of Sidikman’s district was in—where else?—the Suozzi-loving city of Glen Cove. The committee’s other victim, Senator Nancy Lorraine Hoffman, represented the oft-frozen city of Syracuse. Fix Albany sent her challenger, David Valesky, $8,500 and sent an additional $11,500 to the county’s Democratic committee. Filed under “field expense” were countless activists who helped the reform effort (like Tracey Denton of the highly-regarded and very popular Democracy for New York Web site).
The Chronic outsider
Seeing Suozzi standing with Bill Clinton and Harold Ickes, it’s hard to remember Suozzi is the outsider.
“It’s highly likely Suozzi won’t get the support of a single legislator or congressman outside of Nassau,” said a Democratic operative familiar with Nassau. Running against Spitzer and his supporters will make even “the JFK of Long Island” persona non grata.
Big or small, Suozzis “were celebrities in Glen Cove,” remembers Yonkers City Council president, Democrat Chuck Lesnick. “I was 11 and he was eight. And I remember his cousin Vinny ‘cause Vinny’s dad was mayor [of Glen Cove] and Tom’s dad had been mayor prior to that, so they were celebrities.”
Tom’s dad, Joe Suozzi, was mayor of Glen Cove in the early 1960s and later became a senior partner in a firm now called Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein. His law partner, Jack English chaired the Nassau County Democratic Organization.
The Suozzis were Nassau’s Kennedys—and they knew it. “Tom has always had an affinity for Kennedy. Even his kids are named Caroline and Joseph,” said Lesnick. Suozzi’s other kid is named Michael, just like Bobby Kennedy’s son. (“They’re family names,” claimed Suozzi campaign manager Kim Devlin.)
But the Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein juggernaut did more than spawn another Kennedy obsession. Dubbed “The Firm” by other lawyers, they’ve ruled the roost in Nassau for years. Along with Suozzi, the job of running Nassau County politics fell onto partners Bernard Meyer and John Klein at various times.
It’s hard to be an outsider when Harold Ickes is the guy one cubicle over from Dad. Other notable employees of The Firm include: Basil Patterson, father of Senate Minority Leader David Patterson of Manhattan; Harold Ickes, and Robert Gaffney, former the executive of neighboring Suffolk County.
Suozzi pondered his family’s outsider credentials when asked about his cousin. Ralph Suozzi ran for mayor of Glen Cove (insider) against the Democratic Party (outsider) and against the wishes of cousin Tom, who endorsed the incumbent. “So is he an outsider or an insider?” Suozzi asked, letting the matter linger in the air mysteriously.
Looking at Suozzi’s 2001 campaign against Tom DiNapoli serves as a good reminder of who is inside and who is not. Eliot Spitzer endorsed DiNapoli, as did Chuck Schumer (who now reminds people he “generally” stays out of primaries, and will do so this year). Shelly Silver came out for DiNapoli, as did the state comptroller at the time, H. Carl McCall, and most every other Democrat recognizable in Nassau. And they lost. DiNapoli chalked it up to the volatile days after Sept. 11 when Suozzi, as Glen Cove mayor, made headlines for delivering aid to affected Nassau residents.
In a candid on-line account of that 2001 race, strategist Mark Sump admitted, “[T]he majority of consultants were arguing strongly for staying positive throughout, while [Suozzi] and his committee of local advisors wanted to rip DiNapoli apart.” Sump later told me, “There were plenty of things that we could have suggested [but] if we had gone negative, it probably wouldn’t have worked.” What they “suggested” was a subtler insult. “We’ll build up this [theme]‘He can do it because he’s done it.’ Tom DiNapoli’s a fine person. That’s okay. But he hasn’t really done anything. He’s a legislator.” The Fix Albany seeds were already planted.
But perhaps Suozzi could use some legislative instincts himself. One political admirer who asked for anonymity called him “The closest thing to a DLC Democrat New York has,” and “a giant among midgets.” But for all Suozzi’s big plans, even this booster conceded that the giant is himself a midget when it comes to specifics. Visit the Fix Albany Web site—the complaint-to-proposal ratio is awfully high.
One set of specifics he does offer is a list of his more famous admirers: “If you want to call people about me, Mario Cuomo is not encouraging me to run, but you should call him about me… You should call Senator Joe Lieberman. He knows me very well. Terry McCauliffe knows me very well.
“You should call these big players who are not part of the establishment,” Suozzi goes on, making little quote marks with his fingers after that last word. After naming some policy wonks at NYU’s Brennan Center and the Citizen’s Budget Commission, Suozzi adds, “You should try to find some rebel types.”
When the silver-haired Chairman of the State Democratic Party, Herman Denny Farrell, said in a television interview that he hadn’t spoken to Suozzi in two years, it only helped reinforce his outsider credentials.
When Suozzi’s campaign manager replied, a second image appeared.: “Mr. Farrell must have forgotten when Tom called him earlier this year to congratulate him on his new daughter,” she told me, referring to the 70-year-old Farrell’s recent love child. Pow. Suozzi, the hitman.
Devlin, in an earlier conversation, dismissed the question of Suozzi’s street cred. “It’s an insider-outsider argument,” she said, meaning that voters who go to the polls won’t care. “800,000 people voted” in the 1998 state Democratic primary, she told me. “There aren’t 800,000 insiders.” She’s been doing her homework.
Spitzer’s Victims
The only things comparable to Suozzi’s sharp suits and elbows are Spitzer’s stubbly chin and voluptuous forehead, which suit the A.G.’s image as the Wall Street regulator. One especially ecstatic New York Times magazine headline might have been written by the candidate himself: “Can Spitzerism Save the Democrats.”
In the wake of Enron, Wall Street executives became guilty until proven innocent, and Spitzer’s very public investigations have further pressed that notion. His critics, who, not surprisingly, work on Wall Street, say that just below the John Wayne swagger is an actor rehashing a tired (yet effective) role. In front of a camera, nothing looks guiltier than a rich guy in a nice suit.
“I don’t want to go on the record defending any of these guys,” Suozzi says of the people Spitzer has investigated and who have vowed to avenge themselves against Spitzer (the most hated man on Wall Street since Rudy Giuliani), in part by vowing to fund Suozzi’s campaign.
Suozzi sees no liability in taking this money. “I could probably raise money from those guys if I wanted to.” He hasn’t so much as had to ask, though.
Suozzi’s argument against Spitzer is essentially that even if he wins his suit against the New York Stock Exchange and former NYSE head Dick Grasso has to give back a portion (or even all) of his nine-figure severance package, it goes to all the millionaires who own shares of the Exchange. It doesn’t go to the tax payers. It doesn’t go to the public. It’s a private dispute that has nothing to do with Spitzer’s job as Attorney General.
Langone has already vowed to back Suozzi, who, as much as I prodded, stuck to a very safe script. “Eliot Spitzer has been a good attorney general,” he repeatedly told me. When asked about Langone, John C. Whitehead (who’s publically accused Spitzer of threatening him) and other Spitzer foes, Suozzi said, “Ken Langone is a billionaire; he doesn’t want anything from the government.” And why not take his Spitzer-hating money, then?
That Elephant
With a promise not to run for another term as County Executive, and a “very long shot” chance at being governor, there is a very real chance Suozzi will soon exit the public stage. “I’ve done all that I wanted to in Nassau,” he relents after a while.
The humor, though, lingers. Seemingly poking fun at the idea that his travails against the Democratic Party are a Republican’s dream come true is a black and white photograph in his office of Suozzi on top of an elephant, with three signatures.
You look good on an elephant —Rudy Giuliani
You belong up there —George Pataki
Tom, we need you —George W. Bush.
It’s a striking image, one Suozzi likes to use selectively. Though I was pointed to the photo while there, repeated calls to get a copy of it for this article were met with the run-around. “It won’t reproduce well in a newspaper,” Devlin told me. n
