Razzle Dazzle

It Ain't Easy Being Green

By RICHARD STEIER

On Election Night last year, I spotted Mark Green across the semi-crowded Waldorf-Astoria ballroom that served as Freddy Ferrer's party headquarters and approached him to ask what he made of Mayor Bloomberg's landslide re-election over Mr. Ferrer.

Mr. Green had a pack of breath mints in his hand and his initial response was to offer me one and add, "Believe me, you need it." As I pondered whether he was venting hostility for things I'd written about him four years earlier or merely being abrasively candid, he offered a dispassionate and well-reasoned analysis of the election involving his two bitter rivals from 2001, saying that Mr. Bloomberg's money and his "successful mayoralty" had built "a mountain of good will" that no challenger could have hurdled.

His remarks were classic Green, displaying both his cool, analytical mind and the willingness to offend that has made him such a tough pill to swallow, even for those who more often than not agree with him on the issues. One colleague of mine said after his narrow defeat to Mr. Bloomberg that Mr. Green winning would have been the closest New York would get to having Jerry Seinfeld as Mayor, alluding to his penchant for puns and arch observations.

TOO SMART FOR HIS OWN GOOD?: Former Public Advocate Mark Green has resorted to slashing attacks on the record of Andrew Cuomo to close the gap in the race for the Democratic nomination for State Attorney General, despite protests that he is less likely to upset Mr. Cuomo than to make it easier for Republican nominee Jeanine Pirro to win the November election.

That may be so, but it sometimes seems Mr. Green is more at home being Newman, the character on that show with the "gotcha" mentality who seemed to exist purely to annoy and frustrate Jerry.

'Totally Controlled' She Isn't

It may be hereditary, judging by an e-mail sent last week by his daughter, Jenya, to some elected officials who are supporters of Andrew Cuomo, the front-runner in their race for the Democratic nomination for State Attorney General. The email, which included a gratuitous shot at the girth of one of the addressees, Manhattan Congressman Jerry Nadler, whom she referred to as "Big Nadler," accused them of being "totally controlled ... and therefore unfit to hold office."

Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of Jenya Green's e-mail was that it was sent at a time when her father appeared to have finally gained some momentum in his efforts to overcome Mr. Cuomo's double-digit lead in the polls, having won a New York Times endorsement that raised pointed questions about the former U.S. Housing Secretary's record in office. The last thing Mark Green needed was to have the focus in the race shift from an endorsement by a newspaper that has great influence with Democratic voters to sniping from his camp at those not backing him, who are unlikely to persuade nearly as many voters to follow their lead.

Jenya apologized, but the incident served as another reminder that her father's political career has not been as successful as perhaps it should have been because he was more intent on dispensing zingers than making friends.

It's easy to say, as he pursues his underdog run for Attorney General, that his loss in 2001 was the result of unusual circumstances: Mr. Bloomberg's $75 million expenditure during the campaign and the way the race's dynamic was changed by the events of 9/11 and the impact they had in the short term on the city's economy.

But there's no question that Mr. Green left himself vulnerable for the last-minute surge by Mr. Bloomberg from a 16-point deficit less than a month prior to the election with a series of actions that turned off potential supporters.

Several union officials said he had the same stump speech when seeking their endorsements: "I don't need you to win but I need you to govern." The implication was that he had the election in the bag from the time during the spring of 2001 that he surged to the head of the pack among the four Democratic contenders, and that labor endorsements would ultimately matter more to those unions that wanted his good will when he assumed office than it would to his fate in November.

On the Receiving End

It rubbed more than a few labor leaders the wrong way, including several who ultimately endorsed him, having learned over eight years of dealing with Rudy Giuliani that it was better to be on the good side of a jerk even if you didn't particularly like him. If they weren't thrilled by the tone Mr. Green took in his private conversations with them, his public comments weren't exactly endearing, either: at one candidates' forum he characterized Mr. Giuliani as having a "dog/hydrant" relationship with the unions. Classic Green: a clever quip that wouldn't do much to pull in votes.

The danger of such smugness was underscored when Mr. Green finished behind Mr. Ferrer in the 2001 mayoral primary. He remained the favorite to capture the runoff between the two, based on exit polls showing that minority voters were far more likely to gravitate toward him than white voters were to choose Mr. Ferrer, but Mr. Green failed to capitalize.

He didn't avidly pursue the support of the unions that had backed Peter Vallone or Alan Hevesi, the two mayoral candidates eliminated by the primary, a decision which helped cost him what had seemed the likely support of the United Federation of Teachers. And when asked whether, in the wake of 9/11, they would agree to having Rudy Giuliani remain as Mayor for three months after his term expired to ease the transition, Mr. Green said yes while Mr. Ferrer demurred.

Since Mr. Green had first emerged as the Democratic front-runner by convincing primary voters that it was he rather than Mr. Hevesi who had consistently criticized Mr. Giuliani's excessive behavior even while the Mayor was riding high in the polls, his position now seemed born of pure political calculation, wary of alienating white voters who were grateful for the Mayor's cool leadership after the World Trade Center attacks. Former Mayor Ed Koch, in backing Mr. Ferrer in the runoff, accused Mr. Green of a failure of nerve, and the issue clearly hurt him among minority voters whose resentments of Mr. Giuliani's past conduct in office transcended his 9/11 performance.

Attack Mode Backfired

Those stumbles forced Mr. Green to abandon his lofty perch as the presumptive nominee and likely winner of the November election and go on the attack.

Some of his campaign staffers met at a Brooklyn lobster house with local Democratic officials to discuss circulating a flyer of a New York Post cartoon showing Mr. Ferrer kissing the posterior of the Rev. Al Sharpton. When the meeting came to light, Mr. Green denied knowing what was discussed and refused to discipline or dismiss his staffers.

There were other moves by his campaign, however, that seemed designed to appeal to white voters by playing on apprehensions they might have about Mr. Ferrer, who would have been New York's first Puerto Rican Mayor.

Former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, a prominent Green supporter, questioned who Mr. Ferrer was getting advice from on law-enforcement issues other than Mr. Sharpton. And a TV ad raised questions about Mr. Ferrer's judgment in making budgetary decisions, concluding, "Can we afford to take a chance?"

Ally's Candor Hurt

UFT President Randi Weingarten, never a big fan of Mr. Green's, said she believed the ad had a racial subtext, even though she ultimately backed him for Mayor against Mr. Bloomberg.

Mr. Green narrowly defeated Mr. Ferrer in the runoff, but the residue of bad feelings cost him dearly in the general election, with Bronx Democrats openly declining to help his campaign. He further hurt himself when, apparently trying to overcompensate for his willingness to give an extra three months to Mr. Giuliani, he stated that he believed he could have performed just as well as the Mayor had he been in charge of the city on 9/11, a bit of presumption that did not play well with the electorate.

After his narrow election loss, Mr. Green complained that Mr. Bloomberg's astronomical spending - nearly five times what he had put into the race - was responsible.

But he knew from the outset that his Republican opponent would outspend him by a wide margin, and had still run an overconfident campaign that led to his being badly bruised - and financially depleted - by the fight for his party's nomination. It was hard to feel much sympathy for Mr. Green under the circumstances.

The Man Who Never Was

The Inner Circle's political satire the following spring mocked him with a spoof of "Wise Guys," the New York 1 show on which he was a panelist with Ed Koch and Al D'Amato. The cast member playing Mr. Koch came on stage and told the audience, "I used to be your Mayor," the D'Amato character declared, "I used to be your Senator," and the Green character stated, "I used to be your next Mayor."

The joke was so on-target that Mr. Green's wife, Deni Frand, bolted from the New York Hilton ballroom where the show was being held, reportedly in tears. (This year's show had the two leading Democratic candidates for Attorney General paired in a crime-buster skit with the incumbent, where they were billed as "Eliot Spitzer and The Unlikeables.")

Mr. Cuomo, who four years ago was cast as the Democratic Party's uninvited guest when he challenged Carl McCall for the nomination for Governor, this time has emerged as, literally and figuratively, the party's favorite son, winning the backing of most county organizations and big unions including the UFT and Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. (The Times editorial placed what would normally be a political asset in the most pejorative framework possible, stating that many of those establishment Democrats backing him "hope to reap the spoils if he wins. If that is not enough reason to think twice about voting for Mr. Cuomo, there's also the fact that he is running on a record that is less impressive than he claims.")

Cold Case Finally Chilled

It seemed someone in the Cuomo camp realized the risk of piling on when, in midsummer, Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes announced that he was no longer pursuing an investigation into the tactics of Mr. Green's supporters during the 2001 mayoral runoff with Mr. Ferrer. Given Mr. Hynes's longtime friendship with ex-Gov. Mario Cuomo, who gave him his biggest career boost when he appointed him the special prosecutor in the Howard Beach racial killing 20 years ago, dragging a five-year-old probe deep into the campaign sooner or later was bound to be viewed as a political hatchet job and become an unwanted issue for Andrew Cuomo to discuss.

Mr. Green is in a role that seems to fit him better, that of the scrappy outsider, although his slashing attacks on Mr. Cuomo have led even the two other primary candidates, Charlie King and Sean Patrick Maloney, to criticize him for providing ammunition for Republican nominee Jeanine Pirro to use in November. He has seemed immune to such barbs, insisting that truth-telling was an essential and desirable element of political combat.

'Poison' Doesn't Work

A recent poll showing him still trailing Mr. Cuomo by 13 points indicated that accusing the front-runner of allowing children to be poisoned - a charge the former Housing Secretary heatedly disputed - by not enforcing Federal rules limiting the use of pesticides at government housing projects had not won him much support.

Then the Times endorsement, which curiously only ran in its editions outside New York City, became a potential difference-maker in a race where voters have reservations about the personalities of both top contenders. It noted that Mr. Green's background, particularly his work as Consumer Affairs Commissioner under Mayor Dinkins and as Public Advocate for eight years, more closely paralleled the role of a State Attorney General than any of Mr. Cuomo's prior jobs, and praised his work in those offices while questioning his opponent's at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. When Mr. Green made few campaign appearances last week other than to take part in a debate in Westchester that Mr. Cuomo ducked, it was speculated that he was holed up on the phone trying to use the Times endorsement to raise money for a closing-week TV ad blitz.

Then his daughter sent off her e-mail, to a cadre of elected officials with a sure sense of how to work the public-relations levers, and Mr. Green's campaign was forced to engage in damage control. It didn't make his chances untenable - in the past, the complexion of other statewide races has changed dramatically in the last two weeks of a campaign - but it sure didn't help. It was a family member rather than the candidate himself committing the gaffe, but the loss of grace under pressure was reminiscent of his own meltdown five years ago.

For Mr. Green, the days between now and Sept. 12 will be a test of whether he knows how to win a tough fight, and whether part of him deep down isn't more comfortable coming up just short.