The Fall of Kings County

By next week, the largest Democratic organization in the country may find out who their next leader will be. There may, though, be little reason to care.

What we know already is that Brooklyn's next boss won't be Clarence Norman, who was convicted last week of pocketing $13,000 in campaign contributions, and who reportedly testified that he "forgot" about loaning himself $100,000, interest-free. Norman, a wide-chested, impeccably tailored lawyer and son of a preacher in Crown Heights, has three more trials coming.

Not that Brooklyn should mourn the loss, having become the weakest political machine this side of Staten Island under Norman's leadership. Councilwoman Letitia James described an endorsement from the Brooklyn County organization he controlled as "an albatross." Senator Martin Connor dubbed it "the kiss of death." And they're both Brooklyn politicians.

Look how much the clubhouse endorsement helped Gifford Miller's mayoral bid. Back when Miller was running for Council president, though, the boys (who represent the largest single potential voting bloc) backed Angel Rodriguez, who lost out to Miller and who was then convicted of extortion. Queens and the Bronx banded together and took home the Land Use, Finance and Economic Development and 11 other nice committee chairmanships for Queens, and the Majority Leader's job for Joel Rivera, the son of Bronx boss Dennis Rivera. The list of Norman-endorsed losers goes on-Alan Hevesi for Mayor! Jeanette Gadson for Brooklyn Borough President!

In the meantime, internal dissension has left Bill de Blasio and Al Vann sharing the title of Delegation co-chair, and led to Brooklyn D.A. Joe Hynes taking down Norman, his former ally.

When Hynes is playing the reformer, it's a sure sign the borough is fucked.

It's been quite a fall for the County of Kings. Majority Leader of the City Council Tom Cuite was elected in 1970. Then came Governor Hugh Carey, Assembly Speakers Stanley Steingut, State Comptroller Arthur Levin, Mayor Abe Beame. All Democrats. All from Brooklyn. All served overlapping years.

Norman took over the county organization in 1990; Assembly Speaker Mel Miller stepped down in 1991. Taps was already playing.

The clubhouse does have a better batting average when it comes to judges. That's because judicial nominations are picked by judicial convention where party bosses pick their candidates and every other candidate drops out of the race. So, a candidate is picked and a judgeship delivered. Then the grateful judge steers large estates left by dead people who didn't leave a will to lawyers. The lawyers in turn buy expensive tickets to the county's annual dinners. Everyone gets fed.

Some of those judges simply donated money to the Norman-controlled Thurgood Marshall Democratic Club. Judges who don't play along, like Margarita Lopez Torres, can expect a primary challenge by a county-favored candidate.

Losing a leader ain't always so bad. Queens and the Bronx both lost their leaders in the Parking Violations Bureau Scandal back in the 1980s. Both boroughs bounced back with Tom Manton in Queens and Jose Rivera in the Bronx.

From 1968 to 1983, Brooklyn had Meade Esposito, a cigar-chomping boss who traded votes for favors over his mother's kitchen table on Sundays. He got caught on tape claiming that he "made 42 judges." Beat that Norman! Saying he "was boss of the fucking state" didn't help Esposito either.

For all his flaws, Esposito was a party guy. "You want to sit on your hands, I can't stop you. But you can't endorse Richard M. Nixon. He's a Republican," Connor recalled the leader saying.

Norman, though, didn't believe in the rules of honest graft. "Who wants to be county leader if the only way you can be it is with the votes of people who aren't backing the Democratic ticket," he asked. "It always made you wonder what was so great about being county chair."

Well, we could start with the more than $100,000 in interest-free "loans" from the county organization he controlled. Judges grateful for the party's nomination donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Thurgood Marshall Democratic Club. Wannabe mayor Mark Green, grateful for his 2001 endorsement, donated $245,000 to the club.

But the money didn't get spread around. When Connor asked the boss for money to protect Vincent Gentile, a Democratic senator whose Bay Ridge district was redrawn to favor a Republican challenger, Senate Democrats ponied up more than $300,000. Norman coughed up $5,000. Gentile lost and Connor was voted out of his post. Thanks Norm.

District Leader Allan Fleishman said the borough may simply be just too damn big and diverse for any leader to rule:

"There's a huge orthodox Jewish population that's led by Assemblyman Dov Hikind. There's the Bushwick-Ridgewood area that Assemblyman Vito Lopez controls. There's the Bedford Stuyvesant area that [Assemblywoman] Annette Robinson and [Councilman] Al Vann control. There are the reformers that come out of the Brownsville area. There's the Sheepshead Bay [area], whatever's left of the old white population [with Councilman] Lew Fidler?There's all of these groups that want a piece of the pie."

Doug Muzzio, professor of public affairs at Baruch College, said machine politics are passé-"Vito Lopez's base of electoral power and patronage is no longer the party apparatus but social service organizations."

Lopez, by the way, is among the leading contenders to replace Norman.

"They talk about the fall of Rome and they give it a date," said Connor, "But [Norman's conviction] was the final blow. Yesterday at 4:45? was the fall of Rome. If you really study what was going on in Rome, the decay took years."