How Senator Gonzalez Spends His Money And Time!

Attack campaign

BY N. CLARK JUDD

Efrain Gonzalez Jr. has brought new meaning to the term “attack advertising” in this year’s 33rd State Senate District campaign.

The incumbent Democratic state senator dispatched a person in an elephant suit — with the face of his rival, Pedro Espada Jr., taped to his stomach — to stampede through Riverdale on Aug. 29. In this gloves-off, goofy-costumes-on campaign to keep his seat despite a looming trial on federal corruption charges in October, the stunt was intended to highlight how Mr. Espada caucused with the Republicans when he was a state senator for a neighboring district. The gregarious GOP mascot ran into a Riverdale Press reporter as she walked, coffee in hand, out of a store near on Broadway. The reporter sent the erstwhile Republican effigy to our offices, where he caused brief confusion among the advertising staff.

The electoral elephant’s appearance is the latest shot in an aggressive campaign to reelect Mr. Gonzalez, whose district includes parts of Kingsbridge, Kingsbridge Heights, Riverdale and Fieldston. His seat is in play because he will stand trial in October for allegedly stealing $400,000 of taxpayer money. He can campaign, and keep his seat, unless he’s convicted.

“That’s our way to mess with him as the Republican Sen. Espada,” Mickey Ponce, Mr. Gonzalez’s campaign manager, said between fits of chuckles.

The publicity duo that stormed The Riverdale Press claimed to be from “the Democrats up in Albany.”

But a Senate Democratic spokeswoman, Sylvina Brooks, denied her conference had any knowledge of the incident.

“We knew nothing about it,” she said. “I’m not even sure who did it, honestly.”

The Republican Party is clinging to a narrow majority in the state Senate, and this November’s elections could give the Democrats control of that house for the first time in decades. Statewide, the field is so close that rumors of a Republican or even Republican- leaning candidate with a shot at taking a Democratic seat could quickly gain attention.

Mr. Espada has previously said he caucused with the Republican Party to get more money for his district, as the Republicans were in the majority at the time.

Mr. Espada remains an ardent Democrat, though he still has no love for the county Democratic establishment.

The county Democratic organization already dispatched election lawyer Luis Sepulveda to try to get Mr. Espada thrown off the ballot on the premise that he lives in a home he owns in Mamaroneck, N.Y. rather than a Bedford Park co-op he bought last year. He survived that challenge.

Mr. Gonzalez has blanketed the neighborhood in campaign literature. Perhaps ironically, the most recent flyer tucked under car windshield-wipers trumpets that he has fought to “strengthen trade ties between the Bronx and the Caribbean, to create jobs.”

The Puerto Rico native is accused of spending taxpayer money on a cigar factory he owns — in the Caribbean.

Mr. Espada gets name recognition by sending mailers “from the desk of Pedro Espada Jr.,” that do not exhort readers to vote for him, and hosting events through his Soundview Health Center at which he hands out free fruits and vegetables.

“As far as I know, former Sen. Espada has always been a Democrat,” said Bronx County Republican Party Chairman Jay Savino. “I don’t believe he’s ever changed party.”

Although if Mr. Espada “found the error of his ways,” he’d be welcome to switch affiliations, Mr. Savino said.

As for the appropriation of his party pachyderm, Mr. Savino could say only, “I find it amusing.”

This is part of the September 4, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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