Kagan vs. Krasny Redux

It looks like Alec Brook-Krasny and Ari Kagan were listening to the Appeal I placed on this blog a few weeks ago—or at least each of them belatedly came to the same conclusions that I did at the time. After going to court against each other with charges that the others’ nominating petitions were fraudulent, the two candidates for State Assmebly in the 46th District pulled back from the precipice at the last minute and agreed to drop the charges against each other. Now with Marty Levine having decided to drop out of the race, we will have two Russian candidates running against each other in the September 12 Democratic primary---and, in the absence of a credible challenger in the Republican Party, the winner is all but assured of becoming in November the first Russian-speaker to be elected to higher office in New York State. This is an exciting, uplifting milestone for the entire Russian community no matter which candidate ultimately wins.

So prosdovliyim to both candidates for having the good sense to forego the degrading nominating petition challenges that have been used so frequently to disqualify Russian candidates in the past and which reek of machine politics of both the Brooklyn and Soviet variant. Now let the sprint to the primary election get under way full throttle and let the best man win. Two things are for sure, though, neither of these guys lacks for self-confidence bordering on chutzpah, but one or the other of them is going to get a serious reality check in November. Look at the quotes each gave me the other day for a story that will run this week in Jewish Week:

Ari Kagan: “This is fantastic news, because it means I will be the first Russian-speaking assemblyman. If I can’t beat Brook-Krasny, I have no place in American politics.”

Alec Brook-Krasny: “I going to beat Kagan by 80 percent to 20 percent because I have a solid record of accomplishment and he does not.”

Looking forward to finding out who is right