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For The Record But last week he wound up on the right end of a face-off with Ms. Roberts, for once a beneficiary of the idiosyncrasies of a voting system. Both of them ran for delegate seats representing the 8th Congressional District at the Democratic National Convention in August, Ms. Roberts as a representative of Sen. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Schwartz on behalf of Sen. Barack Obama. The day after the New York primary, Mr. Schwartz called us with obvious glee to report that although Ms. Roberts outpolled him by roughly 8,000 votes, it was he who would be going to Denver as a delegate. He managed that because of the proportional allocation of delegate seats based on a candidate's percentage of support in the primary. Although Mr. Obama got only 42 percent of the vote, that was enough to entitle him to three of the six delegate seats (42 percent of six is 2.52, and it was rounded upward, Mr. Schwartz said). The three Clinton seats from the 8th CD were given to the top vote-getters on her slate there: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Tom Duane, and Assemblywoman Deborah Glick. Ms. Roberts, who had the fourth-highest vote total among the Clinton reps with more than 33,000 votes, was shut out. Although Mr. Schwartz got only 25,000-plus votes, that was enough to rank him first among the Obama delegates in the district. Which was why he chortled, "Schwartz finally beat Lillian in an election." *** Reporters may believe there's still a chance that Mayor Bloomberg will throw his wallet into the presidential ring, but the endorsements of John McCain by Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggest they have their doubts, one veteran pollster said last week. The Mayor played a key behind-the-scenes role two years ago in helping Mr. Lieberman retain his seat after he lost the Democratic Primary to Ned Lamont. Mr. Bloomberg and Governor Schwarzenegger have taken similar positions on global warming, gay rights and immigration, and the California Governor last June urged Mr. Bloomberg to run for the White House. The decision of those two officials to back Senator McCain in the week leading up to Super Tuesday, Quinnipiac University polling director Mickey Carroll said Feb. 6, indicates they have concluded that Mr. Bloomberg is not going to make the run. Mr. Carroll shares that belief, saying that he thought that a Bloomberg candidacy had been based, "beyond his belief that he could be the best President," on the Republicans nominating someone other than Mr. McCain, who would draw from the same moderate and independent voters the Mayor would have counted on. *** Last week's ticker-tape parade for the Super Bowl-winning New York Giants rekindled memories for Marty Steadman, the former newspaperman who now is an adviser to the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, as it proceeded past the UFOA's offices on Broadway before stopping at City Hall. Mr. Steadman remembered the march through the Canyon of Heroes honoring General Douglas MacArthur for his distinguished service in two wars after President Truman stripped him of his command during the Korean War, and as a reporter for the Journal-American covered the parade honoring Astronaut (and later U.S. Senator from Ohio) John Glenn in 1962 after he became the first American to orbit the earth. But his fondest recollection of such ceremonies, he said, involved a smaller one that was confined to a press conference at City Hall after Yankee lefthander and bar-closer David Wells pitched a perfect game in 1998. When then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani offered him a key to the city, Mr. Steadman recalled, Mr. Wells asked, "You sure you wanna do that?" |
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