Public advocate hopefuls Mark Green and Council Member Bill de Blasio will face each other. In an upset, de Blasio bested Green, the former public advocate who is trying to reclaim his seat, by a margin of 32 percent to 30 percent.

On the East Side, Green’s main base of support, de Blasio edged out his rival by 385 votes.

Council Member Eric Gioia and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel received 18 percent and 14 percent of the total vote, respectively.

Green, with wide name recognition, was expected to be in the lead, but de Blasio, who enjoys immense union support, pulled ahead. Green is trying to paint de Blasio as a political insider, tying him to the Council’s slush fund scandal. Green said that de Blasio doled out taxpayer money to nonprofits, which then donated the money back to his campaign.

For his part, de Blasio has criticized Green for being absent from city issues since he left office in 2001, after failing to beat Bloomberg in the mayor’s race that year.

For comptroller, Council members John Liu and David Yassky will face off again in the Sept. 29 run-off. Liu nearly avoided a run-off with 38 percent of the vote. Yassky, from Brooklyn, came in second with 31 percent.

Yassky was the clear favorite on the East Side, receiving 7,668 votes. East Siders’ second choice, Melinda Katz, got 3,359. When Katz failed to make it to the run-off, she endorsed Yassky.

Overall Katz got 20 percent of the city’s vote and Council Member David Weprin came in last place with 11 percent.

Liu, from Queens, is seeking to be the first Asian-American elected to citywide office. He has strong union support, including the labor-backed Working Families Party, and he is popular among minority voters. Weprin also threw his support to Liu.

While running third in the polls, Yassky leapt to second place after key endorsements from the New York Times, the Daily News and his former boss, Sen. Chuck Schumer. Yassky has pulled support from his home borough of Brooklyn and Manhattan’s liberal base.

“We’ve had a great first phase of the campaign, and now we’re going to make it count by building on our momentum over the next two weeks,” Yassky wrote in an email to supporters.

Moments after the polls closed, the general election between Thompson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg began, with both candidates lobbing blistering attacks at each other.

Thompson reiterated his claim that Bloomberg favors the wealthy, and that he overturned the will of the voters with his extension of the city’s two-term limit for local office holders. Using the slogan, “Eight is Enough,” the Democratic mayoral nominee began soliciting $8 donations.

Though Bloomberg was unopposed for the Republican nomination, he held a lavish party along the Hudson River in Manhattan. There, the mayor slammed “politics as usual,” which is part of his new ad slogan, “Progress. Not Politics.”

One sign that the mayor might not be a shoo-in for re-election were the results of several City Council elections. Backlash to the term-limit extension appeared to play a role in ousting four incumbents, with two more hanging on by a handful of votes, certain for a recount. Nearly all of the Council members who survived contentious races received less than half of the total vote. Even Council Speaker Christine Quinn only received 52 percent of the vote against two spirited challengers.

“Even though few voters voted, the ones who did spoke loud and clear in turning out and voting against incumbents,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of the good-government group, Citizens Union. “That is a loud shout to the city’s elected leadership.”

The biggest winner in Manhattan on primary night was Cy Vance, who is all but assured to be Manhattan’s next district attorney, with no Republican running for that seat. With 44 percent of the vote, Vance beat 2005 candidate Leslie Crocker Snyder and newcomer Richard Aborn.

In the East Side’s District 4, two Republicans faced off for the right to go against Council Member Dan Garodnick—an uphill battle, considering the incumbent’s popularity and the district’s Democratic lean. Ashok Chandra, a native Texan and member of the New York Young Republican Club, beat the Manhattan Republican Party’s candidate, Neal D’Alessio, 477 to 239.

“My campaign has brought a lot of people out of the woodwork; Young Republicans who in the past haven’t been Republicans. They’re very conservative about fiscal issues,” Chandra said in an interview before the primary.

Tony Avella

Mayor
If going against Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considered a long shot for Comptroller William Thompson, then Council Member Tony Avella is the longest of shots. Avella, from Queens, has spent most of his Council career as a firebrand who often casts the lone-dissenting vote on legislation. He wants to empower community boards to take a greater role in local development, pledges to increase the involvement of parents and teachers in education policy making and supports commercial rent control.

William Thompson

Mayor
When most prominent Democrats declined to take on Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Comptroller William Thompson was the last one standing, facing only Avella, a long-shot aspirant, in the primary. As comptroller, Thompson’s alternative investment strategies helped cushion the pension fund when the economy collapsed. He knocks the mayor for being overly focused on Wall Street and real estate, a strategy that he says has harmed the middle class, and he promises to diversify. He would create an independent body to study student progress, and wants to mitigate the taxes, fees and fines that he says burden small businesses.

Melinda Katz

Comptroller
In the City Council, Melinda Katz chairs the powerful Land Use Committee, which oversees all development projects that need zoning changes. That has helped her raise campaign cash from real estate interests, but Katz says she has also pushed for affordable housing, fair labor wages and buildings that fit within a community’s context. Before her Council election, she worked in the Queens borough president’s office and she was a State Assembly member. As comptroller, Katz promises to invest a portion of pension funds in successful but debt-strapped companies that do business in New York, to help spur local job creation.

John Liu

Comptroller
John Liu is a reserved City Council member from Queens, but he also has a reputation for being a pit bull during committee hearings. As chair of the Transportation Committee, he claims to be the first elected official to discover the now-infamous “two sets of books” the MTA was using. Liu promises to use his tenacity when auditing city agencies, which the comptroller must do every four years. He also wants to audit and track stimulus funds coming to the city. On pensions, Liu wants to return to traditional, low-risk, low-yield investment strategies.

David Weprin

Comptroller
David Weprin wants voters to understand that he knows the buck. The Queens Council member chairs the Finance Committee, which must pass the city’s budget. He was also Gov. Mario Cuomo’s state superintendent on banking. His position in the Council has baggage, as he was partly blamed for not catching the slush fund scandal sooner. Nonetheless, he is touting his experience and his willingness to stand up to the mayor when appropriate, as he did when opposing the term-limit extension. Weprin plans to open satellite comptroller offices that would focus on financial literacy and assistance programs.

David Yassky

Comptroller
In a field of comptroller candidates from Queens, David Yassky is the lone Brooklynite. He is also the only candidate who supports the creation of a new level of pension benefits that would ease the city’s budget woes, but that remains unpopular with unions. Yassky points to his record in the City Council, where he worked to eliminate waste in the Housing Department, assisted in closing a tax loophole used by luxury developers and supported creating gas-electric hybrid taxis. He promises to invest a small portion of pension funds into biotechnology companies and increase transparency; during the campaign, he put the city’s budget online, at www.ItsYourMoneyNYC.com.

Bill de Blasio

Public Advocate
Council Member Bill de Blasio became Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s chief antagonist during the fight to extend term limits. The successful extension ruined de Blasio’s plans to run for Brooklyn borough president, but he found a spot in the public advocate’s race. He was quickly endorsed by most of the city’s elected officials. As the city’s ombudsman, de Blasio said he would stand up to a powerful mayor when necessary and promises to work collaboratively with other elected officials to get results.

Eric Gioia

Public Advocate
This two-term Queens Council member built a network of support from unions and young professionals, winning his first term without the backing of the borough’s Democratic organization. Gioia is capitalizing on this “outsider” status in his bid to be the city’s ombudsman and is touting his effective use of publicity to drive policy change. In 2007, he went on food stamps for a week, then pushed for legislation that would put applications online. He says he will continue working to improve schools, fighting for economic justice and holding government accountable.

Mark Green

Public Advocate
Voters may remember Mark Green as the city’s first public advocate who served during the Giuliani years, when he sued the mayor for withholding information on racial profiling and police misconduct, and he served as a general foil to many administration policies. He promises to continue that “aggressive progressive” platform, standing up to City Hall and helping government better serve New Yorkers. Since his unsuccessful bid for mayor in 2001, he has been president of Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network that was owned by his real estate mogul brother, Stephen.

Norman Siegel

Public Advocate
This is civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel’s third bid for public advocate, following his unsuccessful challenge of incumbent Betsy Gotbaum in 2005. Siegel, who says the public advocate needs to be visible, a big mouth and a fighter, points to his record representing groups like the 2004 Republican National Convention protestors and West Harlem tenants in their battle against Columbia University. He plans to recruit hundreds of volunteers to be “surrogate public advocates” in each community, and create an “Institute of Advocacy” to help New Yorkers make themselves heard.

Richard Aborn

Manhattan District Attorney
Richard Aborn, a former assistant district attorney under Robert Morgenthau, stormed into the district attorney race as a dark-horse candidate. Yet his campaign has gained momentum after most of the borough’s elected officials, including Rep. Jerrold Nadler, endorsed his campaign. A gun-control advocate who was behind the federal assault weapons ban and the Brady Bill, Aborn is running on a platform of providing alternatives to incarceration, rehabilitation for nonviolent offenders and expanding the use of technology in the office.

Leslie Crocker Snyder

Manhattan District Attorney
This year, Leslie Crocker Snyder is mounting her second attempt to be Manhattan’s top prosecutor. In 2005, the former State Supreme Court judge ran against incumbent Robert Morgenthau, who had been in office since 1974. Snyder, a former assistant district attorney, was the first woman to prosecute homicides, founded Manhattan’s Sex Crimes Bureau and co-authored the Rape Shield Law. As district attorney, she would create a Second Look Bureau to address wrongful convictions and connect prosecutors to local law enforcement, civic and religious groups.

Cyrus Vance, Jr.

Manhattan District Attorney
Retiring prosecutor Robert Morgenthau chose Cy Vance, his former assistant district attorney, to be his successor. Vance, the son of President Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, has been a defense lawyer in Seattle, Wash. for most of his career, litigating white collar crimes at a national firm. He plans to develop a community-based justice model in neighborhoods to better attack problems such as domestic violence and discrimination against immigrants. If elected, Vance would tackle the criminal court backlog and form special units for mental health issues and hate crimes.

John Liu

Running for City Comptroller
By Josh Zembik

Before running for City Council, John Liu worked at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

He doesn’t have the faintest hint of a Boston accent, and he doesn’t summer at Hyannis Port, but City Council Member John Liu has a bit of Kennedy mystique coursing through him. When Liu’s family moved to the United States from Taiwan when he was 5, his father, Chang Liu, changed the son’s name from Chun to John in honor of President Kennedy. Appropriately, Chang changed his own name to Joseph, and John’s younger brothers became Robert and Edward.

Now, nearly 50 years after Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President of the United States, Liu hopes to do a little trailblazing of his own. Already the first Asian-American to be elected to legislative office in New York City, Liu is running for city comptroller.

“My dad was a big Kennedy fan,” Liu said, “and when he suggested I change my name to John, I took him up on his advice. But that’s as far as I’d dare go in terms of likening myself to President Kennedy.”

This is a story the Council member has told many times before, so much so that it’s become a joke among the city’s political insiders. But the Kennedy connection and immigrant story is perhaps one way Liu hopes to distinguish himself to Manhattan primary voters, a critical bloc being wooed by all four outer-borough candidates vying for comptroller. All of the candidates serve on the City Council, and three hail from Queens: Melinda Katz, David Weprin and Liu. The fourth candidate, David Yassky is from Brooklyn. The glut of candidates from Queens made that borough’s Democratic Party endorsement of Liu all the more notable: he won 49 votes to Katz’s six and Weprin’s three.

Prolific in his press releases, and known for asking tough questions during Council committee hearings, Liu was at first considered a public advocate contender before he became the last entrant in the comptroller’s race. He staked out a high-profile role opposing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s term limit extension bid, though the effort was unsuccessful.

He says he has great concern over the city’s financial health. Liu has suggested a small tax increase targeted at the city’s wealthy to replenish the depleted coffers; the idea has been seconded by Katz, but rejected by the other two candidates.

“New York City’s income tax simply is not progressive,” Liu said. “It tops out at about $80,000, and it doesn’t seem fair that the teacher pays the same city income tax rate as a filthy rich person like Mike Bloomberg. We should be graduating our tax rate and combining that with the need to make up the [budget] shortfalls by at least temporarily asking the very high income earners to pay a slightly higher percentage.”

As manager of the city’s financial health, the comptroller oversees city pension funds. At a June candidates’ forum, Liu and his opponents all agreed that the current system is bankrupting the city. However, while Katz has suggested investing some of the fund in successful local businesses that are strapped with debt, Liu has erred on the side of caution.

“I believe that restoring confidence in the pension fund is of paramount concern, and the way to do that is not to go into all sorts of risky investments,” he said. “There are plenty of buy opportunities in the stock market, and there should be traditional investments that get us back to the basics.”

Liu has also taken a keen interest in New York City schools. A member of the Education Committee, he has called for infrastructure and high-tech upgrades, as well as a reassessment of standardized testing. While all four candidates have criticized Bloomberg for what they see as too much emphasis on test scores, only Liu and Weprin joined Comptroller William Thompson in calling on the mayor to fire Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

“I’m for change and some level of business discipline,” Liu said. “A move like this is perhaps necessary to give things a jolt. [Klein’s] approach has outlived its usefuless.”

Liu attended New York City public schools, and graduated from SUNY Binghamton. A Flushing resident since his family moved from Taiwan, he and his wife, Jenny, have a young son, Joey.

Before running for Council, Liu worked as a manager at the financial consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he says he gained experience in oversight and rooting out waste.

Those skills have served Liu well as chairman of the Transportation Committee, which deals with the MTA, Department of Transportation and Taxi and Limousine Commission. Liu has been a major critic of the MTA, opposing fare increases and congestion pricing fees, and pushing for faster and better-appropriated bus service, especially for outerborough residents.

Although his base is among the black and Hispanic community and unions, including 1199 SEIU, DC 37 and the Transit Union, Liu has also snagged the backing of Rep. Charles Rangel. According to the latest data, Liu has a substantial fundrasing lead, pulling in $3.2 million to date, almost $1 million more than his next closest competitor, Katz.

He is proud of his fundraising edge, but knows it doesn’t make him a shoo-in.

“The only poll that counts is the one on September 15,” Liu said, referring to Primary Day. “That’s all that matters.”

Leslie Crocker Snyder

Running for Manhattan District Attorney
By Danielle Friedman

Leslie Crocker Snyder was one of two women in her Case Western Reserve University class. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

On the steps of City Hall, Leslie Crocker Snyder is flanked by nearly a dozen burly men. Many wear navy T-shirts emblazoned with “FDNY.” Snyder is polished and youthful-looking, dressed in a pinstriped pantsuit, her blond hair perfectly straight and styled. Her gaze is steady.

The group has convened on a sunny morning in July to announce that the Uniformed Firefighters Association, New York’s largest firefighters union, is endorsing Snyder for Manhattan District Attorney. It’s one of more than a dozen law enforcement organizations that have pledged support to the former Criminal and State Supreme Court judge, who is known for doling out formidable sentences.

“For 35 years, Judge Snyder’s work has made our streets safer and our city a better place to live, work and visit,” said UFA president Steve Cassidy.

The lone woman in this sea of men, Snyder began breaking gender barriers in law school, where she was one of two women in her Case Western Reserve University class. If elected to fill the well-worn shoes of current District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, the 67-year-old will become Manhattan’s first female D.A. and one of only a handful in the country.

Snyder seems at ease standing alone. She earned her tough reputation presiding over cases involving some of the city’s most dangerous criminals, including violent street gangs and mobsters; for years, her family needed 24/7 bodyguard protection. While she was lauded for helping to protect the city during some of its most tumultuous years, some critics have singled her out as ruthless. She once, now famously, told a defendant that she’d be willing to give him a lethal injection herself, a comment she says she now regrets (she’s since changed her position on the death penalty, saying she is opposed to it under any circumstances, a move her opponents have characterized as pandering to progressive Manhattan voters).

Snyder stood alone in 2005, too, when she became the first candidate in decades to challenge Morgenthau for his seat. The attempt to dethrone her former boss led Morgenthau to vilify her—he’s attacked her in the press ever since.

Now, weeks before the Democratic primary, Snyder is standing out again—this time for beating competitors Cyrus Vance, Jr. and Richard Aborn in polls by double digits. She’s also ahead in fundraising; she had raised $1.45 million by mid-July. Her campaigners have been working hard, and she believes her experience wins voters over.

All three candidates are alumni of the Manhattan D.A.’s office, and Vance has scored Morgenthau’s endorsement. The son of President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of State, Vance touts his decades as a litigator and defense attorney. Aborn drafted two major pieces of gun-control legislation and has worked as a technology consultant to law enforcement agencies. But Snyder believes her experience trumps her opponents’. She’s earned the endorsements of big names like Ed Koch and Geraldine Ferraro, and she points out that she’s been advocating for reform for four years now, while her competitors only recently stepped up.

Snyder, who grew up in New York and Baltimore, said she knew she wanted to be a criminal lawyer since the age of 5.

“My parents used to tell me that I argued about everything,” she jokes.

In 1968, she landed a job as an assistant D.A. under Frank Hogan, becoming the first woman in the office to prosecute homicides (Hogan initially told Snyder she’d need a “letter of permission” from her husband). She also founded Manhattan’s Sex Crimes Prosecution Bureau and co-wrote its Rape Shield Law, which prevents a rape victim’s sexual history from being used against her, and repealed a requirement that witnesses corroborate a victim’s testimony. She joined a private practice in 2002.

Now Snyder hopes to invigorate an office she’s said has become stale under Morgenthau, who began when Gerald Ford was president. She also hopes to build on its strengths. Her vision includes transforming the office into a more proactive one, in which assistant D.A.s form partnerships with educators, religious leaders, social service agencies, law enforcement and others, working together to prevent young people from becoming first offenders. She believes that “far too many” have been incarcerated, and that early intervention is the solution.

Other top priorities include fighting for the rights of minority groups and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, and prosecuting white-collar crime “vigorously and fairly.” She also hopes to form a so-called Second Look Bureau to examine possible wrongful convictions and learn from past mistakes. And she wants all New Yorkers to develop greater confidence in the legal system.

“People on 125th Street feel like they’re getting a very different kind of justice than people on Wall Street,” she said.

An Upper East Sider for four decades, Snyder raised two sons in the area. She and her husband, a retired pediatrician and artist, can sometimes be spotted walking their dog through the neighborhood.

Snyder has honed a tough reputation, but surely a thick skin and steely resolve are necessary for the role of top prosecutor. As for the animosity from Morgenthau, she’s not dwelling on it: she’s more interested in focusing on the positive—and on the changes she hopes to bring to the city.

“I’m looking forward,” Snyder said, “not back.”

Norman Siegel

Running for Public Advocate
By Danielle Friedman

Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer, came of age during the civil rights movement. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

On a drizzly Monday night, the Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, is buzzing. More than 100 locals have turned out for a public advocate candidate forum. Steel-drum calypso music blasts from speakers as the mostly black audience takes its seats.

Three of the five candidates vying to replace incumbent Betsy Gotbaum, who opted out of a third term, are participating. After brief introductions, they take the floor. When Norman Siegel addresses the crowd, he sounds more like a preacher than a lawyer.

“Good evening,” he booms, then smiles.

The 65-year-old holds the mike a little too close, causing his words to rattle in the speakers. He paces, getting in the audience’s face.

“Up to this point, this office has not fulfilled its potential,” he says. “When I’m public advocate, people will know who the public advocate is.”

The other candidates at the forum, Council Members Eric Gioia of Queens and Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn, offer eloquent opening remarks (the fourth Democratic candidate, Mark Green, and Republican contender Alex Zablocki said they could not participate.) The Council members are more polished, more specific. But they don’t rouse the audience like Siegel does.

While all city offices represent and serve the people, none are quite as direct as public advocate. The post is meant to provide a voice for New Yorkers. Or as Siegel describes it: to be visible, a big mouth and a fighter.

The public advocate is also next in succession for mayor, making it the second highest elected office in the city. Yet few New Yorkers know what the office is or does. Siegel plans to change this.

A high-profile civil rights lawyer and former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, Siegel says he has represented New Yorkers for 40 years. In many ways, he embodies the city. A graduate of Brooklyn College, he’s loud, outspoken and a little zany (he has mentioned organizing a doo-wop singing contest among the candidates; he grew up on the music in Brooklyn). He’s passionate and a little angry. He quotes Clint Eastwood, telling corrupt officials they can “make his day.” And he’s a dreamer. When he talks about becoming public advocate, his eyes gleam. He came of age during the civil rights movement—during law school at New York University, he spent summers in the South, fighting for equal rights—and the zeal of that era continues to propel him.

Among the candidates, Siegel is also the only non-career politician, something he often points out. Yet while his outsider status could help him, it could also serve as a disadvantage. He’s rougher around the edges than the other Democratic candidates, arguably with less name recognition. And while it’s his third bid for the office, he’s still honing his campaigning skills.

“I believe I’m the only one of the four who can transform this office,” he says, so that it “makes a huge difference in people’s lives.”

Throughout his career, Siegel has fought for outcasts and radicals, the privileged and destitute. During the Republican National Convention in 2004, he successfully lobbied to release protestors who’d been arrested and held inappropriately. He fought for public access to the steps of City Hall and the right to protest on Central Park’s Great Lawn. And he represents tenants in West Harlem in their fight against Columbia University and eminent domain. Siegel and his wife, Saralee Evans, an acting justice in the State Supreme Court for New York County, are residents of the Upper West Side. They have five grandchildren.

Siegel has far-reaching plans for the office. He hopes to recruit hundreds of volunteers to be “surrogate public advocates” in each community—every week they’d meet with residents and report back to him. He also wants to create an “Institute of Advocacy” through which he’d train New Yorkers to make themselves heard.

Other priorities include helping New Yorkers navigate the recession and improving public education and literacy for all ages. He also wants to address race relations head-on, particularly within the law enforcement community.

If a city agency isn’t serving the public, he says he’ll use the “bully pulpit,” as the office has been called, to its full advantage. He’ll embarrass whoever’s responsible via the media, and if he has to, he’ll sue.

In the latest Marist Poll, Siegel placed second to Green, who’s running for the office again after being the first to hold it in the 1990s (Green scored 39 percent of the vote, while Siegel had 16 percent). Yet Siegel has raised more money than in his previous two campaigns—$134,000 of matchable amounts, totaling more than $800,000—thanks largely to phone calls and house parties. He’ll now be able to advertise widely.

Still, Green has the advantage of name recognition. And Gioia and de Blasio have long records to show for their own public advocacy.

In the end, Siegel’s chances will, in part, come down to whether New Yorkers are ready to take a leap of faith on an outsider. Of course, if Siegel had his way, the race would likely be decided by a doo-wop sing-off. In that contest, Siegel would surely project his voice above the rest.

Gioia, an ambitious Queens Council member, has been cultivating a grassroots campaign for more than seven years. De Blasio, a Brooklyn Council member who entered the race late, has tapped into his political and union connections to build a formidable campaign. Siegel is a rabble-rousing civil rights lawyer who ran twice for the post in 2001 and 2005. And Green is running on his long history in progressive politics—and name recognition.

Each wants to succeed Betsy Gotbaum, who is leaving the office after two terms, even though the term-limit extension would allow her to run for a third. After all, despite voter confusion about the office (see sidebar), the public advocate is a citywide position, like comptroller, and is therefore considered a stepping-stone to running for mayor. And in the city charter, the public advocate is first in the line of succession.

Candidates Bill de Blasio, Mark Green, Norman Siegel and Eric Gioia, poised atop the official public advocate chair in the City Council chambers. Photo illustration by Monica Tang

But without a strong Democratic mayoral contest to draw out primary voters, the Manhattan electorate may play a crucial role in the outcome of the public advocate race. All four public advocate candidates have a claim to the Upper East and West Sides, home of the Democratic primary faithful, whether they live in the neighborhood, have secured endorsements from the local political establishment or received campaign donations from residents. And the outcome of this citywide race may very well depend on who can best leverage that connection, according to Richard Fife, a political consultant from the Upper West Side.

“It’s which candidate can best excite these people and get people motivated has the best advantage,” Fife said.

Official powers of the public advocate include presiding over Council meetings, introducing legislation and being a member of all Council committees. There is also a role in shaping development projects, through the office’s appointment to the City Planning Commission. But the day-to-day job of the public advocate usually involves troubleshooting: directing residents to public services, or pushing a city agency to remedy issues like school overcrowding, construction complaints or public safety problems. When focused on larger issues—or individuals—the public advocate can have a very public and very powerful bully pulpit.

Just ask Mark Green. Green, in his previous two terms, was a constant foil to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and named the mayor in two successful lawsuits over racial profiling and police brutality.

After leaving that office, he was the favorite to become mayor in 2001 but was defeated in a close race by Michael Bloomberg. Trying again for elected office in 2006, he was clobbered by Andrew Cuomo in the attorney general race.

Green swore off electoral politics after that defeat. He became president of liberal radio station Air America and a fixture on NY1 as a political pundit. He also co-authored a book, Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President.

But with three decades of involvement in New York’s political arena and seven campaigns under his belt (but only two wins), he is no stranger to city voters.

“I know you and you know me,” Green told members of the Upper West Side’s Ansonia Democratic Club, trying to capitalize their familiarity with him.

At the club, Green hits on the highlights of his public career: proposing 311, running the city’s Consumer Affairs agency and his propensity for being outspoken—“or abrasive, depending on whether you like me or not,” he joked to club members.

“If you think I was a successful commissioner and public advocate, If you think I was a successful progressive Democrat,” Green said, “I promise I’ll be no less effective.”

Green can rely on name recognition, but lags in fundraising. Given the city’s strict campaign finance laws, he has to tap into his old donor base instead of his family’s personal wealth. He has currently raised $268,143 for his campaign. By contrast, fundraising leader Gioia has nearly $2 million and de Blasio has $1 million.

Poor fundraising might hamper his campaign in the last leg of the primary, especially if there is a run-off election. A run-off is triggered if any one candidate fails to get a majority of the vote—a real possibility in a four-way race—and candidates need cash for a get-out-the-vote operation, television and newspaper advertisements, and campaign mailings.

“He’s been asking for money since the ‘80s,” said a campaign veteran familiar with public advocate races. “So Mark’s blessing is high name recognition. His curse, if it is one, is that voters, and especially donors, are tired of him.”

Eric Gioia, however, has cultivated a donor base for years in preparation for this race. Drawing on his experience as a successful insurgent candidate for Council, he leads the pack with $2 million from 5,558 contributions. Nearly a fifth of his total donations came from the East and West sides, according to recent campaign filings.

Without institutional support from elected officials or the Democratic Party’s local organizations, Gioia can use this volunteer base to help him get on the ballot and campaign in neighborhoods outside his native Queens.

“We have the support of real people, thousands of people on East Side and West Side,” he said.

Plus, Gioia has a knack for drawing attention to his candidacy. In 2007, he lived on food stamps for a week. Last year, he pledged to run the first carbon-neutral citywide campaign, partly through the purchase of carbon credits. That plan failed when the city Campaign Finance Board rejected his proposal to buy the costly credits with campaign donations.

Critics call these maneuvers stunts, but Gioia said they highlight a neglected problem. After his one-week food stamps challenge, he lambasted the red tape that blocks families from getting public assistance. That led him to introduce legislation that would put food stamp applications online.

“That’s both advocating with legislation and policy change to attack an issue,” he said. “You have to be creative, tough and willing to stand up, no matter what the odds.”

Gioia has certainly shown he can use the bully pulpit. When Costco announced its new East Harlem location, he took the wholesaler to task for refusing to accept food stamps. Under pressure from Gioia and other politicians, Costco reversed the policy altogether.

“We need someone who is independent, who can stand up for people, no matter who they are fighting against,” he said, “even if they are standing up against government agency or big corporations, like I have.”

The attention-grabbing campaign may be the stuff of headlines, but it has seemingly done little for legislators in Manhattan, who have mostly rallied behind Bill de Blasio. His endorsements include Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Charles Rangel, Borough President Scott Stringer and other East and West side legislators.

De Blasio’s backers say his Council record shows he can make the best use of the office.

“He’s progressive, more substantive,” said State Sen. Tom Duane, who met de Blasio when he worked in City Hall. “The public advocate position can be used to actually make policy changes and help people.”

In a Democratic primary without a strong mayoral contest at the top of the ticket, de Blasio said such endorsements will bolster his name recognition in a low- turn-out race.

“It’s been an incredible boost,” he said. “Some people told me it would be very hard to gain support in Manhattan.”

De Blasio has deep ties to these elected officials, thanks to gigs with the Clinton and Dinkins administrations. He has also worked as Rangel’s 1994 campaign manager and a Senate campaign aide for Hillary Clinton.

Supporters point to de Blasio’s ability to work both with and against the powers that be, depending on the situation. There are the various bills he championed as chair of the Council’s General Welfare Committee: legislation that banned discrimination of people with Section 8 housing vouchers, guaranteed housing for domestic violence victims and supported electronic waste recycling. But de Blasio was also one of the earliest and most vehement opponents of extending term limits, taking on both Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Working with a group of fellow Council members, good government groups, certain labor unions and the Working Families Party—which endorsed his candidacy—he organized opposition to the proposal, which failed.

“You can get the process to work effectively for you,” he said, but “sometimes the only way is to shine a light on the issue and be very public and vibrant.”

Norman Siegel, former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, would also probably call himself “public” and “vibrant.” A civil rights attorney for more than three decades, his clients include opponents of Columbia University’s West Harlem expansion and families of 9/11 attack victims.

Because the public advocate’s two main responsibilities are protecting civil rights and holding city government accountable, Siegel said he has already been doing the job.

“The many years I’ve been an advocate and civil rights lawyers gives me credibility specifically for this office,” Siegel said. “This office is unique and should have a civil rights, social justice mind-set.”

Siegel, an Upper West Sider by way of Brooklyn, ran for public advocate in 2001 against Gotbaum and several other candidates. He was able to force a runoff election with Gotbaum but did not have the cash necessary to cross the finish line. After running for the seat again in 2005,  says this will be his last bid.

“By doing it a third time, it shows I really do want this job,” he said.

That means this particular job and nothing else, he stresses, not even mayor. Siegel, who proudly embraces his outsider status, considers that an important distinction from his three opponents, all past or present elected officials.

“If you look at it from the outside, you raise substantive questions,” he said. “Insiders are not prepared to ask the tough questions.”

Siegel has also been the only candidate to criticize Gotbaum’s eight years as public advocate. That has led him to propose sweeping changes to an office he has lambasted as invisible and ineffective. To give the public advocate a larger presence in city government, he wants to create new satellite offices in each borough, train volunteers in the “art of advocacy” and develop a “social justice network.” Such plans are necessary, he said, given that most voters are unfamiliar with the actual responsibilities of the position, much less know who holds the office.

If elected, Siegel said, “No one would raise the question of who’s the public advocate and what the public advocate does. We haven’t gotten close to the potential of what this office could do.”

The Public Who?

By Zara Kessler

All public advocate candidates tend to face one common hurdle when campaigning: no one knows what the office is, or what it’s supposed to do. And that’s exactly why some critics want to get rid of it.

Officially, the public advocate is supposed to be a watchdog for the city’s officials, agencies and municipal service providers, which is why the office has been characterized as a bully pulpit. But stark differences in attitude and approach between the two officials who have held the position show that the role of city’s ombudsman is in the eye of the beholder.

While the office is only 16 years old, some form of public advocate has existed for almost two centuries, whether as the president of the Board of Alderman or, more recently, as the City Council president. When the Council president position was dissolved in the 1989 charter revision, the role of ombudsman survived, thanks to incumbent Andrew Stein, a mayoral aspirant who lobbied hard to keep the position.

“It is not the most well constructed citywide elected office because it was hatched as a result of a political deal,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of the good government group Citizens Union.

Mark Green, the first public advocate from 1994 to 2001, was a vociferous and progressive counterweight to Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Betsy Gotbaum, Green’s successor and the current public advocate, adopted a less public approach. Gotbaum defends her tenure and says she’s been the leading voice on child welfare, education and “helping the most vulnerable New Yorkers who have no place else to turn get what they need.” She says her office has received 60,000 requests for her public benefits immigrants guide. And a call from someone who was illegally denied food stamps led her to push for policy changes regarding food stamp accessibility.

But the office has been weakened due to the mayor’s control over the public advocate’s budget, which both Giuliani and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have cut repeatedly. Gotbaum believes there is a misconception about the taxpayer cost of the office, which has plummeted to $2.8 million and continues to decrease.

“It’s really important that people understand that I think you get, for less than three million dollars, a tremendous bang for your buck,” Gotbaum said.

Critics, however, argue that New York City also has a Congressional delegation, state legislators, borough presidents and City Council members to advocate on their behalf.

“There really is no way to make an argument that a public advocate is needed,” said Joseph Mercurio, a political consultant.

Hank Sheinkopf, a consultant who ran Gotbaum’s 2001 campaign, said there is a need for the office “in a city where people oftentimes get lost.” But to be effective, the office needs to be beefed up.

“They need a larger budget and more staff to do the job that they should be doing,” Sheinkopf said. “It’s very hard when you have no people.”

If the office continues to run without the staff or funds needed to make a difference in people’s lives, the argument for nixing the position could gain traction during the next charter revision. For Gotbaum, that means thousands of New Yorkers could be shut out of government in a time of need.

“To the people who say abolish this office, okay, talk to the 12,000 people that we’ve helped in a year,” Gotbaum said. “See what they think.”