A funny thing happened on the way to the campaign trail. County Executive Tom Suozzi, who is running for his third term, and GOP candidate Legis. Ed Mangano, were joined by a third-party guy. Steve Hansen, who works in the Suozzi administration as general counsel for the Office of Consumer Affairs, is running on the Conservative line. Hansen will surely play spoiler to one candidate, and most likely his presence will sting Mangano.
There are about 10,000 registered Conservatives in Nassau County, with as many as 35,000 votes going to Conservative candidates during countywide elections.
Via Hansen's website.
Hansen’s campaign took a decidedly negative approach toward Mangano in a recent mail piece, with no mention of the incumbent county executive. The two-sided mailer quotes former President Ronald Reagan, then puts the crosshairs on Mangano, calling him, “A career politician who helped to create Nassau County’s financial mess in the first place!”
Nassau Conservative Party Chairman Roger Bogsted, who also serves as the Nassau County Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, says that it is not Mangano that the mailing targeted, but the spendthrift ways of the GOP.
“There hasn’t been a Republican in New York State who has cut spending and government in 40 years,” says Bogsted. “The Republicans have abandoned the [Ronald] Reagan philosophy of smaller government.”
A new mailer targeting Suozzi’s fiscal practices is due out this week. Its headline is a quote from Suozzi when he ran for the exec seat eight years ago, touting the importance of reducing local property taxes. The mailer also quotes a recent Press story about the sorry state of Nassau’s finances, as outlined in reports from the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority (NIFA), County Comptroller Howard Weitzman and former Director of Independent Budget Review Eric Naughton, that say Nassau is on a collision course with a financial disaster.
Bogsted says his office, which has several staffers from the Conservative Party, is the only county office that sees revenues that exceed expenses.
