The New York Republican Massacre 2006, Pt. 3 Teflon Hevesi Vs. Callahan

As NY State, and formerly NYC Comptroller, Alan Hevesi has investigated waste and fiscal corruption for over a decade. My fondest thoughts for him come from seeing his name on the forty dollar state tax refund check one year (I had paid seventy dollars a few months before). He also was a target of one of my posts when he said that Chuck Schumer would put a bullet between Pres. Bush's eyes.

Mr. Hevesi is running against Chris Callahan , who called Mr. Hevesi's "public hotline" (really, the State Comptroller has one of these) to report a theft of public funds. The funny thing is, he reported Alan Hevesi for using a state-funded driver for his disabled wife. The story became a huge scandal, and Hevesi had to drop out of the race.

NOT.

Hevesi paid the state the cost of the driver, ducked the press for a few weeks, and guess what? He still has a bigger lead over Callahan than Cuomo does over Pirro (see Pt. 2 )! His numbers haven't budged a bit, for some reason. The most amazing part is that Callahan, after starting this whole thing, didn't even seem to try to capitalize on the fallout. There were local headlines for several days, but not a commercial from Callahan's camp. It could be his lack of money, but I can't remember any memorable quote from him in the news stories, either.

Worse still, Hevesi got caught doing the same thing when he was NYC Comptroller, with a similar non-reaction. Mr. Hevesi is a Democrat's democrat, in a Democratic city and state. Few people even care who the Comptroller is, but people remember the names on unexpected tax refund checks. This is one race where I may vote Democrat, just to protest Callahan's weak effort. However, if he at least exposes the things mentioned here, he may yet get my vote.

That's this conservative's view of the 2006 NYS Comptroller's race.