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National GOP aims to defeat Bishop
Congressman schedules town hall Aug. 27; St. James GOP businessman announces challenge in 1st CD
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The National Republican Congressional Committee has taken aim New York's 1st Congressional District.
In a slew of statements and releases emailed nearly daily to regional media throughout the summer, and now with expressions of support for a St. James businessman who has announced a campaign challenge 15 months before the next Congressional election, the national GOP has staked out an aggressive offensive against Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton). There has been no similar literature campaign against next door Democrat, Rep. Steve Israel of the 2nd District.
Since unseating former GOP Rep. Felix Grucci in 2002 — in a district that at that point had far more registered Republicans than Democrats — Bishop has won re-election three times with overwhelming majorities. But an NRCC spokesman said the committee has targeted Bishop's district as among those vulnerable to fall to the GOP in the midterm elections, when the party controlling the White House has historically lost Congressional seats.
"I think the sentiment is changing," NRCC spokesman Tory Mazzola said Monday. Protests at his public events — a demonstration at Bishop's June forum in Setauket was among, if not the first, in the nationwide phenomena of impassioned protests wreaking havoc at representatives' town hall meetings — are an indication that his "voting record continues to shift him further and further from his constituents and closer and closer to [Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi," Mazzola said. The NRCC spokesman said Bishop's support for the conservative-opposed federal stimulus package, cap-and-trade emissions reduction plan and health insurance reform, among other Democratic initiatives, are weakening his standing with constituents.
Bishop's camp said they've heard all this before, and it has yet to prove true in an election. In any case, "we're way far away from the campaign season," Bishop spokesman Will Jenkins said Monday.
The congressman's "focus right now is listening to constituents and making sure we get health care reform right and making sure we're bringing federal and other funding to Long Island to help get the economy back on track," Jenkins said. "I think that's a bigger issue for most Long Islanders than the 2010 election."
Mazzola said it's "too early to tell" if the GOP would be pouring substantial funds from its national war chest into the first district race. But if the NRCC hopes to compete in eastern Long Island, it might have to. Despite spending almost $850,000 in his 2008 campaign, Republican challenger Lee Zeldin still only marshaled 41.6 percent of the vote to Bishop's 58.4.
National and local GOP representatives have already discussed a potential campaign against Bishop with Randy Altschuler of St. James, chairman of the board of CloudBlue, an electronics recycling consultancy firm. Alschuler's bid has already begun to garner "some positive attention," and the candidate is "very dedicated to working," Mazzola said.
"While encouraged by some in Washington to run for Congress, my reasons were very personal," Altschuler wrote in a Wednesday email. As for those reasons, "As a businessman, I know we cannot tax and spend our way out of this recession," he wrote. "As a father, I believe we have a moral obligation to our children not to saddle them with a mountain of debt."
Several NRCC releases in the past month have targeted Bishop's withdrawal from scheduled town hall forums after the Setauket meeting grew so rowdy police were called to ensure the congressman's safety; Bishop has since expanded office hours and hosted telephone forums to converse with residents. When asked whether the national GOP had played a role in the Bishop protests, Mazzola maintained that they were "organized at the local level."
Citing the cancelled meetings, NRCC accused Bishop of "hiding" from constituents and "refusing to man up" to face their health care reform concerns. However, Bishop has upended the GOP assertions, announcing last week a town hall meeting set for Aug. 27 at Brookhaven Town Hall in Farmingville.
The NRCC spokesman said the national organization "may have some presence" at the Aug. 27 forum, but any protest would be "organic and locally driven."
"If the extreme element tries to [disrupt the forum], that's what they try to do," Jenkins said. "But we felt it was important to continue to have this conversation."
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