Hey fellow Kos'ers (being Jewish, I just never cared for the term Kossack).
Sorry I haven't been so prolific, or around so much lately. I lost my job a few weeks ago. I was fired for cause, and it's a very interesting story that actually involves this site, so I will diary that for you in the next couple of weeks. I also have a book coming out in the next two months. I will definitely try to be around our community more. I love it here.
John Cahill is the GOP candidate running against Dem Eric Schneiderman for NYS Attorney General. (Sadly, Gov Cuomo and the Albany Dems have made the battle lines blurred and gray, but I still know what GOP stand for).
I wanted to tell you about a very interesting call I received yesterday afternoon "Paid for by Friends of Cahill". The phone rang from a 631 area code (Suffolk County Long Island, lots of white and lots of support for John Cahill, I would think).
The call consisted of about a half a minute of fluffy rambling generalities that evoked patriotism and doing things the right way, with no negative mentions of Dems, and no mention of the incumbent Dem Schneiderman. In other words, the call was meant to find support for Cahill, without coming across as slamming anyone, or alienating Dems in any way whatsoever. In fact, not one issue at all was brought up.
The voice even mentioned quite prominently that Cahill was indeed a Republican!
(I'm used to that fact remaining hidden in many GOP pols' ads).
So why is this noteworthy?
The caller started by introducing himself. I didn't catch his name, but he said he is a pastor at a church in Jamaica, Queens. Jamaica, Queens is my zip code too. Jamaica, Queens is West Indian and some East Indian, and mostly black, especially as one travels further south and into southeast Queens.
The caller sounded elderly, and he spoke in a very low register, very slowly, enunciating each word of fluff in a noteworthy unmistakeably ethnic accent.
In other words, the GOP candidate for Attorney General picked a black guy, a trusted elder in his community, to get the word out for him. I am sure the Cahill team just hoped to pick off as many voters as they could in the Jamaica area.
So what were the reasons this African American pastor of a church in Jamaica Queens, NYC, with a congregation most likely overwhelmingly Democratic, gave for supporting the GOP candidate for Attorney General???
He gave two reasons, stated at the end of the call:
1) Cahill will fight for justice and law and order, "without putting everyone in jail."
and
2) "I don't believe in putting all of my eggs in one basket."
Yep, those were his
compelling reasons.
I wonder what they paid him, or how much they had to give to his church?