Going after Pelosi

Daily Point

Pelosi in Suffolk

Just how central has the specter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi been to Republican campaigns to take back the House this year?

As central as it has been almost every election during which she’s been speaker, even as her 82-year-old husband is recovering from injuries received in a Friday break-in to their family home. That’s when a man “brutally attacked” her husband, as she described in a Saturday note to colleagues.

Yet some of those colleagues are still using her name as an applause line on the campaign trail.

“I got a question for everybody. Are we gonna fire Nancy Pelosi?” asked Rep. Andrew Garbarino Tuesday night to raucous applause in a GOP hangar rally at the Brookhaven Calabro Airport.

Just before, Suffolk County GOP chair Jesse Garcia had asked the crowd, “Do we need to fire Nancy Pelosi?” The crowd of several hundred cheered.

And during the main speech of the evening, Rep. Lee Zeldin, the Shirley Republican running for governor, pointed to the “possibility” that half of New York’s congressional seats could be filled with Republicans next year.

“As someone serving my fourth term right now in Congress,” Zeldin said, “I really want to be able to know that at the beginning of January that [CD1 candidate] Nick LaLota and Andrew Garbarino are sitting there in person to watch the gavel permanently come out of the hands of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

It was one of the bigger applause lines of the event.

Neither Zeldin nor Garbarino, who is running in CD2, mentioned the attack onstage on Tuesday, though both have condemned the violent act. Zeldin himself was accosted by a threatening man at a July rally in Western New York.

Politically, Pelosi remains a prime GOP focus.

“The last two years I have spent in DC under Speaker Pelosi, I have seen how her policies and agenda are hurting Long Islanders,” Garbarino told The Point in a text on Wednesday, adding that he “unequivocally” condemned the attack. “Criticizing her leadership is not the same as condoning violence.”

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Talking Point

What’s so important

In the week since Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Lee Zeldin met for their only general election debate, Zeldin has repeatedly sought to bring attention to one particular line: when Hochul told him, “I don't know why that's so important to you.”

The full exchange was somewhat convoluted and hard to parse. It started with Zeldin saying his Democratic opponent “still hasn't talked about locking up anyone committing any crimes.”

Hochul, who had repeatedly spoken about public safety during the debate, including guns and subway crime, answered: “Anyone who commits a crime, under our laws, especially with the changes they made to bail, has consequences.”

Then came the crucial phrase: “I don't know why that's so important to you.” The incumbent went on to say that “all I know is that we could do more.”

But the line by itself with its somewhat untethered “that” was perfect fodder for Zeldin to suggest that Hochul is checked out on crime, his top issue. The Shirley Republican has referred to the line multiple times in TV appearances in the days after the debate. He has highlighted it on social media, and used it on the stump: In Suffolk County on Tuesday night, both Zeldin and running mate Alison Esposito flicked at the moment, eliciting big responses from the crowd. Zeldin suggested that Hochul had been “refusing to talk about the whole fighting-crime, locking-up criminal part of the criminal justice system,” and then repurposed her line into some solemn political rhetoric: “When Kathy Hochul says that she does not understand why it is so important to me, she’s saying that she doesn’t understand why it is so important to all of us.”

The line has been pushed by Republican leaders and conservative personalities on social media, and sometimes directly misquoted — such as the viral tweet from author and political consultant Ryan James Girdusky who transcribed the line as "I don't know why locking up criminals is so important to you.”

More crucially, a selective editing of the exchange has made it into TV ads from the pro-Zeldin super PAC Safe Together New York. After the offending Hochul line, a narrator says “of course not,” hitting the Democrat on parole and bail changes.

Hochul’s team has decried the use of the quote, with campaign spokesman Jerrel Harvey saying, “Zeldin and his far-right allies are manipulating and lying about Governor Hochul’s comments.”

Expect to hear the phrase down the stretch regardless.

— Mark Chiusano @mjchiusano

Pencil Point

Election math

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Final Point

The darkness before the election light

For every Republican and Democrat hoping for something unprecedented on Election Day … there is good news. They’re all going to get it!

Tuesday will mark the first time in our nation’s history that a total lunar eclipse will occur on Election Day, and it’s not about to become a habit. The next Election Day full lunar eclipse will occur on Nov. 8, 2394, 372 years from Tuesday. And that’s not a coincidence: Full lunar eclipses often occur every 372 years, a reality known as the Gregoriana Eclipse cycle.

And the last partial Election Day lunar eclipse, on Nov. 3, 1846, was reportedly a bit of a dud, not even noticeable to the naked eye!

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the sun and moon are on exact opposite sides of the Earth, when the Earth blocks the sun’s rays from reaching the moon, and casts it into shadow. While such eclipses are never visible all across the planet, this eclipse will be viewable across the United States, and by more than 2 billion people worldwide.

In New York, early-bird voters and election workers will have an opportunity to see the spectacle as they head to the polls, with the full eclipse beginning at 5:16 a.m. and ending at 6:41 a.m.

And while it’s not clear whether either party will experience a metaphorical political bloodbath, astronomers say it is likely we’ll experience a “blood moon.” When the Earth’s shadow covers the moon, it often creates a reddish moon rather than a 100% dark one, because some light refracted through the Earth’s atmosphere at indirect angles still reaches the moon.

No glasses or special equipment are needed to see this eclipse or protect the eyes. And it should be made clear to all that the darkness is not the fault of either party’s policies.

As for the pundits, the eclipse creates another opportunity. In 2394, The Point will be able to write: “Past results don’t guarantee future outcomes, but here’s how each party fared the last time an Election Day included a full lunar eclipse….”

— Lane Filler @lanefiller