Suozzi, Gillen and Avlon file for new ballot line

Daily Point

Looking to gain from a bit of Paine

When voters in three Long Island congressional districts see their general election ballots in the fall, they may notice a new option. Rep. Tom Suozzi in the Third Congressional District, Laura Gillen in CD4, and John Avlon in CD1 — all Democrats — are expected to have their names on an alternative line labeled “Common Sense.” Avlon’s campaign expects to have the label say “Common Sense Suffolk.”

This is not a new minor party. Nor is it just the phrase associated with early patriot and pamphleteer Thomas Paine. It is intended as a way of using New York’s system of “fusion” voting — where votes for one candidate on different lines are added together. It gives more options than a binary major-party choice.

For many years, Democrats seeking a second ballot line sought endorsement from the Working Families Party. But in suburban Long Island, WFP has become evocative enough of the New York City left that Republicans make use of the label to attack their Democratic opponents as tied to a controversial socialist ideology.

While Republicans still can largely rely on the Conservative Party for a second ballot line, self-styled “moderate” Democrats use the Common Sense label to offer what they hope some voters would find to be an acceptable way of choosing them.

The three congressional candidates are doing this by having filed 3,500 signatures each during the recent petition period. Suozzi, for example, submitted an independent “Common Sense” nominating petition to the state Board of Elections on May 28. General objections were submitted but not followed up with specific objections, board spokesperson Kathleen McGrath told The Point on Thursday.

While these petitions are presumed valid, the general election ballot still needs to be certified by the board’s members, a step generally taken late in the summer. This year, the deadline for certification is Sept. 11.

Backers of such an alternative line say that in the future it can also be sought out by any Republicans who don’t wish to be associated with MAGA militants or extraneous culture wars.

One member of the Common Sense New York advisory committee is Zak Malamed, who last year declared and later withdrew his candidacy for the CD3 seat before GOP fabulist George Santos was expelled.

“We need representatives who will do what’s best for our state and our democracy,” Malamed said in a statement. “That includes reducing the cost of living for working and middle-class families, protecting our freedoms and cracking down on corruption and special interest influence.”

Asked by The Point for his take on this move, Suffolk GOP Chairman Jesse Garcia said, “I don’t think much of it. They’re trying to hide their progressive socialist tendencies and it’s not going to work with the voters.”

One may never be able to legislate common sense, as the old saw goes. But this year, at least, the phrase is poised to appear on the November ballot.

— Dan Janison dan.janison@newsday.com

Pencil Point

The great debate

For more cartoons, visit www.newsday.com/nationalcartoons

Reference Point 

Debates through the ages

Most histories of political candidate debates in America begin with the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858 where slavery was the top topic discussed by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. And most modern presidential faceoffs are said to pale by comparison to the anticipation and attention paid to Lincoln vs. Douglas — which wasn’t even a presidential debate. The two were competing for Douglas’ seat in the U.S. Senate.

Newsday’s editorial board evoked that high bar when it wrote about a 1960 faceoff — not the Kennedy-Nixon debate but one between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey during the Democratic Party primary. The board judged it a “great big bust” because the two men “agree on most everything” and therefore could not replicate “the fireworks of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.”

Kennedy-Nixon was more consequential. The first-ever general election presidential debate took place on Sept. 26, 1960 in a CBS studio in Chicago. The next day Newsday’s board judged it “a completely enthralling and immensely impressive hour that seemed to have taken much less time. Both candidates acquitted themselves handsomely — this in reference to their sincerity, their forcefulness, and their presentation of differences on important domestic issues.”

Americans viewed it differently, of course. Nixon came off poorly. He refused to wear TV makeup, exposing his facial stubble and his sweat under the studio lights. His gray suit blended in with the background of the debate set, highlighting his underweight and pale appearance. Most observers credited the more-youthful Kennedy with the win and the debate is considered a turning point in the race.

It took 16 years before two presidential candidates faced off again when Jimmy Carter and President Gerald Ford met in 1976. Again, Newsday’s board evoked 1858 in writing that “a presidential debate is a lot more complicated now than it was when Lincoln and Douglas simply climbed up on a platform and had at each other.” On Aug. 31, 1976, the board cautioned that Ford and Carter “will have to think about both audiences” — the first live studio audience for a presidential debate and the one watching at home. “That should make it harder for a candidate to fool all of the people all of the time.”

Ford was considered the winner, which helped him cut into Carter’s lead. But the president committed a major blunder in their second debate when he wrongly said that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,” and his surge was blunted.

In 1984, Newsday’s board pronounced that “Walter Mondale accomplished a great deal Sunday night during his debate with President Ronald Reagan.” The Oct. 9, 1984 piece called “How Much Did Mondale Gain From the Debate?” said that the Democrat, a decided underdog, “came across as relatively confident and good-humored, with an apparent mastery of the subjects he was addressing. By comparison, Reagan seemed surprisingly tentative and close to faltering at times.”

In pronouncing Mondale the winner, the board issued a caveat.

“The question, of course, is whether Mondale’s strong performance translates into significant numbers of votes,” the board wrote. “And that’s something only time will reveal.”

It only took two weeks. At their second debate, Reagan addressed the age question — he was 73 — with one of most effective jibes in presidential debate history. “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience,” Reagan said.

Any momentum Mondale had established was gone.

— Michael Dobie michael.dobie@newsday.com, Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

Programming Point

Reminder: The Point is taking Fridays off for the summer and will be back in your inboxes on Monday.

Subscribe to The Point here and browse past editions of The Point here.