Friday, Jul 4, 2008
Arizona Sen. John McCain's toughest opponent in the New York primary is not George W. Bush, but the state's Byzantine process for qualifying for the ballot.
Dec 2, 1999 | John McCain was in New York recently doing what presidential candidates like to do best in the cash capital of the world -- raise money. Supporters sidled up for photos with the war hero as his two chief New York supporters looked on beaming: the glittering, blue-eyed Georgette Mosbacher, his national campaign co-chair, and the silver-haired Borough President Guy Molinari, the Republican king of Staten Island.
But far from the wooden ship models and carved moldings of the New York Yacht Club in midtown, the real campaign for New York was taking place. On a freezing cold evening in the Rosebank section of Staten Island, the biting wind blowing off the New York Harbor, Frank Peters was knocking on doors.
Comparing addresses with a pink-bound printout from the Board of Elections, Peters, a veteran whose day job is captain of the Staten Island Ferry, was bounding up stoops and ringing on door bells. Bell No. 1: No answer. Bell No. 2: Mommy doesn't speak English. Bell No. 3: No answer. Bell No. 4: Daddy's not in. Bell No. 5: A hit!
Peters utters a name from his list of registered Republicans. "That you?" he asks. "Mmm hmm" comes the reply. "My name is Frank Peters. I'm with the McCain campaign. We're trying to collect signatures to get him on the ballot."
The door is pushed shut. "No thank you."
Finally, at bell No. 6, Peters gets a yes, from a woman who knows him from work. She escorts him to a neighbor's home, where he gets two more signatures.
After half a hour, Peters has three signatures to show for his efforts. More than 500 are needed in this congressional district alone. And this effort must be repeated in each of New York's 31 congressional districts.
For the next month, the streets of New york will be peppered with people like Peters, waging an uphill battle to get McCain on the ballot in New York.
More than 40 percent of all election lawsuits in the country are filed in New York, political consultants say, because the state's election law is so Byzantine. Despite rule changes after the 1996 presidential race that ostensibly eased ballot access, it's still harder to get on the ballot in this state than in any other state in the country, with the possible exception of Virginia. Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who has the backing of New York Gov. George Pataki and the state Republican Party, with its army of experienced signature gatherers, will certainly get a spot. So will publisher Steve Forbes, who can dip into his seemingly limitless financial resources. But McCain, with sparse funds and a rag-tag group of inexperienced volunteers, might not make it.
"It will be tough, tough, tough," to get on the ballot in New York, acknowledges Mosbacher. So can McCain win without a portion of New York's 101 Republican delegates? "It will be tough, tough, tough."
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