Tim Bishop in the Fight of His Life, Every 2 Years.

The attack ads are without a doubt world class and vile. I could be talking about races going on anywhere in the United States on any level, county, state, and federal. The east end race for New York’s First Congressional District is the one that has caught my eye, why?

Over the years as a “paid political reporter.” I tried to write balanced articles about candidates to inform the readers what I thought was their strengths and weaknesses. So it pained me to see both these candidates Lee Zeldin and Tim Bishop campaign’s and followers attack each other as if they were opposing drug cartels in the jungles of Columbia.

Rep. Bishop a soft spoken 12th generation native has been running tough campaigns since I first covered his campaigns in 2008 when he also was opposed by Lee Zeldin who was then a novice politician and an Iraq war veteran. Zeldin had served his country with honor and now wanted to be a Congressman. Zeldin lost that election as part of the Obama title wave that floated Tim Bishop back into office. At the time there wasn’t any Congressman more anti-Iraq war than Mr. Bishop in all of Congress. There was a huge contrast on this issue then between these candidates.

This election cycle Mr. Bishop’s integrity seems to be the main issue which I find really sad. I watched Randy Alschuler attack Mr. Bishop’s Congressional record effectively in both the 2010 and 2012 election. In fact in the 2010 election it came down to absentee votes for the narrowest victory in Mr. Bishop’s long political career. Sadly the forces who are financing Mr. Zeldin decided to go with the “Lee Atwater” (a fellow congressional intern friend of mine when I was in college) playbook..Mr. Atwater was the creator of the George H.W. Bush ‘Willie Horton Ads,’ a strategy of endless waves of huge negative ads. Then, of course, Mr. Bishop’s zealots pushed back by quite frankly making some odorous political ads too.

The sad part is these are two seriously committed family men who have decided to make a difference for every one on the east end. They both have outstanding character and have taken care of their constituents well. However they both have two completely different political philosophies yet their financial backers won’t take a chance on making that the real focus of this campaign. I believe everyone knows which candidate truly represents their values. All that smelly manure the campaigns have tossed in our faces in all those ads is a statement of where the Political Operatives of both political parties want to take us to confuse us. I was trained to be a professional political operative at GWU. I worked in a Presidential Campaign at a National Headquarters doing polling, and then in a NYC Mayoral Campaign before I was 22 years old. I worked for Ralph Nader, the Republicans, and the Democrats all before I was 24. (That’s how I knew Lee Atwater, who on his death bed with cancer was saddest about his”Willie Horton legacy.) I am saddened to see where the art of politicking is now.

My conclusion is this; because of the nature of the 1st Congressional District of New York every election cycle is a tough one for incumbent Tim Bishop. The fact that unlike 2008 this election cycle will also be a tough one for Democrats nationally.That won’t help Mr. Bishop But all politics are local so anything can happen in a closely contested district.