RIGHT now – this very weekend – Peter Vallone has an unparalleled opportunity to seize control of the mayor’s race and ensure his own place in the run-off following the Sept. 11 Democratic primary. (That second contest between the two top vote-getters will occur if none of the four candidates gets more than 40 percent of the vote, which seems certain.)
The high-stakes gamble taken by Vallone rival Alan Hevesi to try to flout the city’s campaign-finance law finally came up snake-eyes this week. The Campaign Finance Board properly ruled that Hevesi couldn’t accept a non-monetary donation of a million bucks’ worth of time and effort from political consultant Hank Morris and still expect to receive $2 million in taxpayer matching funds.
Morris told the Campaign Finance Board that his First-Amendment rights were being violated. He’s right. All campaign-finance reform monstrosities, from New York city’s law to McCain-Feingold, are horrific violations of the First Amendment. So now maybe Morris will convince Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, whom he helped elect, to oppose such laws on the grounds that they stifle freedom of speech.
Yeah, right.
Anyway, back to the mayor’s race. I’ve said it before and will say it again: The electoral logic of this primary dictates that one of the candidates in the runoff will come from the Left and the other from the Center.
The two candidates of the Left are Public Advocate Mark Green and Bronx Borough President Freddie Ferrer (who just received the jaw-dropping endorsement of Pat Moynihan, as ideologically baffling in his retirement as he was during his 24 years in the Senate). Green has done almost everything right in this campaign and should finish in first place on primary night with around 32 percent of the vote.
The two moderate candidates are Hevesi and Vallone. Vallone has two reasons to celebrate this week. The first is that the Campaign Finance Board’s slap at Hevesi will not only impoverish his campaign, but carry with it the aroma of scandal and sleaze.
The second, and perhaps more important, is that it endangers Hevesi’s hopes of important late endorsements from The Post’s rival newspapers. For months, insiders have speculated that Hevesi had The New York Times endorsement in the bag. His entire campaign has been tailored for the approval of the Grey Lady – full of good-government talk about fiscal responsibility combined with an unabashedly liberal stance on social issues.
Such a nod would make a big difference to Hevesi, especially given the fact that turnout in September will be pretty low and nobody’s paying much attention to the candidates. But how can the Times’ editorial page, which considers campaign-finance reform the Holy Grail of American politics, possibly support Hevesi now?
Without the Times, there’s no chance Hevesi can make it into the runoff. His advertising has gotten him nowhere, and now he’ll have $2 million less than his rivals going into the final four weeks.
Vallone has to take advantage of the body blow to Hevesi’s campaign – NOW. He needs to run an ad informing city voters that Hevesi has been ruled ineligible for matching funds – and trumpeting the fact that Vallone shepherded the campaign-finance law through the New York City Council in the first place.
Vallone needs to make an issue out of Hevesi’s game-playing, because he needs to seize some of Hevesi’s voters and move undecideds who might have looked Hevesi’s way to look toward Vallone instead. The campaign-finance law in New York city is nonsense, but that doesn’t mean Hevesi and Morris can have it both ways – flouting its rules while seeking taxpayer dollars.
If he gets aggressive and forthright in his quest for the mayoralty, Vallone can take the initiative in the race and start making his move to be the candidate of those New Yorkers who know the truth – that the last 7 ½ years have been a glorious time for the city.
E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com