| Monday, November 04, 2002 - 04:24 pm In this election there has been a clarity of choice available in no other state election of recent vintage. The classic good versus evil. Tenant versus Slumlord. Clean versus Dirty. McCall versus Pataki. Rent Wars Endorses Carl McCall. To quote Assemblyman Scott Stringer, "A tenant would have to be CRAZY to vote for Pataki!" Rent Wars takes it a step further. We believe that any small homeowner would have to be twice as crazy to vote for Pataki than any tenant! He has been using eminent domain to snatch private property from small landlords to give for free to his party's big contributors. He has no respect for the tenant's leasehold and statutory property rights, and he has no respect for small owner's property rights either. With the cowed and timid judiciary acting like ostriches he can snatch away any property in state for less than 10% of its market value. And he has been doing just that, in the name of stadiums, big box stores, you name it. Pataki is more than just a threat to tenants, he is a threat to all non-millionaires. Rent Wars wholeheartedly joins with the unanimous and ringing endorsements of Carl McCall by the various tenant groups. Rare indeed is unanimity in the tenant's movement, but in Carl McCall is a record of public support for fairness to tenants, for holding the line against displacement, and for evenhandedness. But can he win? According to the major media Carl McCall is a remote second. They acted this way even when their own polls showed him within 6 points of the lead. When you add to this the fact that the pollsters have traditionally under-counted the minority vote and seem to have a political agenda adverse to doing so (this point will be fleshed out in a later edition of RWN). The large media establishments are being bought off by Pataki- most notably the New York Times* which is getting a virtual freebie in Midtown snatched by the same eminent domain scam mentioned above. No surprise if they endorse him, if you convert the value of the property into dollars, Pataki has paid a king's ransom for the endorsement. The so-called "alternative" newspaper the Village Voice suddenly forgot to endorse McCall. Is this yet another example of it's cloaked racist policy of demeaning minorities, or another display of the real estate industry's advertising dollars exercising editorial power (note the elimination of Towers & Tenements). McCall is openly against the use of eminent domain to steal from the (not so) poor to give to the (extremely) rich. McCall has spoken out against the ill-timed stadium madness in this time of fiscal strife. If McCall was planning to kill your multi-million dollar sweetheart deal would you endorse him? Kenny Shaeffer of the Met Council accused the major media of a conspiracy to keep McCall's message from the public. Is it really possible that the duty to report has been overwhelmed by greed? So ignore the major media. Pataki did. Remember years ago up to the last minute they said that Mario Cuomo had the race won. Add to this the entry of the popular Hilly-Wan Clinobi and her husband, the enormously popular former president, into the fray with "get out the vote" campaign calls and television spots. This Tuesday Carl McCall can win with your vote. So vote McCall! Rent Wars also endorses Alan Hevesi for Comptroller as a friend of tenants. Also remember to vote for: Dennis Mehiel for Lieutenant Governor Eliot Spitzer for Attorney General (read the reasons here) Liz Krueger for State Senator 26th Senatorial District Upper Manhattan The rest of the Democrats on the ballot. * both the Times and the Daily News were very enthusiastic in their endorsements of McCall for the Primary but appear to be critical of him ever since he won.
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