I usually respect Newsday’s candidate endorsements with its impressive criteria and process for making them, but it seriously dropped the ball with its endorsement of Jack Martins. The article begins with “The power of incumbency for an elected official is strong when it is based on experience”, but then fails to mention a single accomplishment he made during his current or past terms as Senator.
Newsday needs to add character, integrity, and respect for the public to its criteria. Martins has run a smear campaign of demonstrable falsehoods about his opponent who in turn has behaved with honesty, decency, and utmost command of the issues we face. Just a few of his unfounded claims include, but are not limited to, 1) a mailer calling his opponent a “tax hiker” when that is impossible since she has yet to hold elective office, 2) condemning her for an event promoting free school lunches that she never attended, simply because the event was attended by a Queens Assemblywoman whom he maliciously and falsely claimed was a “blatant anti-Semite” and 3) another mailer falsely claiming she is funded by Chinese Communists.
What happened to “fact-based”, “research”, and correcting “misinformation and disinformation” in Newsday’s criteria?
Then to prevent being questioned about those falsehoods by his opponent and the public, Martins cancelled his appearance at the gold standard of debates – the League of Women Voters’ Candidate Forum – on one day’s notice while providing no reason to his opponent, the League, or his public.
Such behavior is disqualifying for elective office.
The implicit thrust of this endorsement appears to be that because Democrats are in the majority in Albany, we should keep the few Republicans we have. That violates Newsday’s criterion “Endorsement decisions are not based on a candidate’s party affiliation” and is a poor reason for choosing any individual candidate.
It is telling that instead of its usual “We endorse ___ for ___”, Newsday ended with only “He’s the better bet.” That suggests Newsday wasn’t very confident of its opinion in this case. It is also telling that Newsday has now issued an endorsement “with reservations” of Nick LaLota for CD-1. If it lacks such confidence in a selection, why doesn’t it follow its own guideline and “make no endorsement”?
To be clear, this is not a matter of disagreeing with an endorsement, which readers frequently will do and is to be expected. Newsday has clearly violated its own standards for making this one: it failed to adequately research, ignored many of its criteria, and omitted several crucial characteristics that clearly ought to be in its criteria.
In this regard, Newsday has failed its readership and its responsibilities to the electorate in this most consequential election. Given that early voting has already begun via absentee ballot and early mail-in ballot, I call upon Newsday to promptly rescind its ill-conceived endorsement for NYS Senate District 7 and issue a public apology.
Newsday owes the public better. I urge everyone not to “bet”: vote for Kim Keiserman for NYS Senate District 7.
Robert Yamins
Great Neck
