Letter to the editor

To the editor:

Al Benninghoff may be an “old hat” at phone-banking for Democratic candidates in New York, but his shocking ignorance displayed in “Calling it for Thompson” (Oct. 18, 2009) of how New York elections are run should give all Columbians reason to wonder what kind of misinformation he has been spreading through unsolicited political calls to our neighbors. In his article, Benninghoff starts by insulting a person he called who insisted that Mayor Bloomberg is not a Republican. Speaking to this educated citizen like a child, Benninghoff explains that, well, Bloomberg “is running on the Republican ballot line.” To Benninghoff, this is enough to end the conversation.
What Benninghoff fails to mention, of course, is that New York allows party cross-endorsements, so that parties can endorse candidates even if those candidates are not party members. If Benninghoff were older, he might remember the experience of the Liberal Party, which in 1993 surprisingly put Rudy Giuliani on its ballot. Did that experience make Giuliani a liberal? Certainly not.

Incidentally, Benninghoff also fails to mention that Mayor Bloomberg was placed on the Independence Party ballot before he was placed on the Republican ballot this year, and the Republican Party chairmen had a heated debate last spring over whether to endorse Bloomberg’s candidacy precisely because he was not a registered Republican. Bloomberg won that battle, and he did so with the same independent style and persuasiveness that has made him such a great leader in these troubled economic times.
Fortunately, most New York residents, unlike Benninghoff, know to look beyond labels. Any New Yorker who has actually interacted with the Bloomberg campaign—as I have over the last three election seasons—knows both that Bloomberg does not follow any marching orders and that he has supporters from both sides of the political aisle. And that is why I, unlike Benninghoff, am calling it for Bloomberg. Because I like Mike, and I am confident that most New Yorkers, whether Republican or Democrat, would agree.

Dennis Schmelzer, CC ’06
Oct. 20, 2009