Atlantic Beach Mayor Stephen Mahler remembers the first time he saw Tom Suozzi at a campaign event. It was six years ago in an auditorium in Long Beach, where Suozzi - a longshot in the Democratic primary for Nassau County Executive at the time - was speaking.
“Everyone said this guy had no chance, there was no way and when I got there, in this auditorium for 200 people, there were 18 people there,” Mahler said when he showed up Monday at a Suozzi campaign event — a town meeting at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Maspeth, Queens. “I saw 18 people and I thought - maybe everyone was right. But they weren’t.”
Mahler, who grew up in Queens and has law offices in Kew Gardens, was the finale of the town meeting in which Suozzi - once again a longshot in a Democratic primary, this one against Attorney General Eliot Spitzer — played the underdog/reformer card over and over during the 90-minute appearance.
“Queens and Brooklyn are places where he could have some traction,” Mahler said outside the white-panelled hall, where a painting of the late Pope John Paul II hung next to a Suozzi for Governor banner.
Karla Schuster
At one point, Suozzi even invoked the memory of the Kitty Genovese case to drive home his message that a large turnout is the only way he has a chance against Spitzer, who is leading by more than 60 percentage points in most polls.
Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death outside her Kew Gardens apartment in 1964, became a famous symbol of the so-called “bystander” effect because many neighbors heard her cries for help, but none called police.
“For me to win this race,” Suozzi told the ethnically and racially mixed crowd of about 60 people, “you can’t say ‘somebody else will take care of it’. I need you to take responsibility and decide you want to see a difference.”
After the session broke up, Suozzi looked beyond the Sept. 12 primary and handicapped his chances against Republican John Faso. “The next governor of New York is going to be a Democrat,” he told a group of reporters. “The polls show even I’m leading Faso by double-digits.”