Money Bags Bloomberg Goes To Bat For Padavan

Two separate fundraisers are going on tonight to help the incumbent Frank Padavan and his challenger Councilman James Gennaro. Senate District 11 is one of the top targets to help Albany go completely blue next month and Gennaro's numbers have proven it. He currently bests Padavan by a ratio of 3:1 in a district that also has three times as many Dems as there are Republicans. With two weeks to go, both sides are still raising cash but in two very different ways.

From PolitickerNY (the new home of the NY Observer's political section):

Michael Bloomberg, who may or may not want to run for mayor on the Republican line, is helping Republican State Senator Frank Padavan catch up to his Democratic opponent in fund-raising.

Bloomberg is hosting a $1,000-per-person fund-raiser at his East Side townhouse for Padavan tonight at 5:30 p.m. Co-chairs are asked to pledge $10,000 to Padavan’s campaign, according to an email sent to supporters by one of former governor George Pataki’s fund-raisers, Jason Weingartener. The email was forwarded to me by a reader.[...]

Gennaro is also having a fund-raiser tonight at a bar on 44th Street at 7 p.m. It's hosted by environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (who has raised money for Gennaro before) and tickets are $25.

Hmm, one to ten grand versus twenty-five dollars a head, quite a difference from one another. Padavan, despite the powers of incumbency is clearly hurting on the fundraising race aspect of the campaign. Gennaro has been cruising this year and is working hard to make sure the entire district knows that their State Senator can actually stand up for priniciples and not just someone that brings home a ton of pork.

Despite his Independent status, Bloomberg has raised a lot of cash for Republicans recently and in this case, it is clearly to his advantage to keep Padavan for another term (on top of his previous 36 years) which would allow Skelos to remain in control of the Senate. Not only does that keep the State House divided and crush the possibility of reform, it denies the chance for a Democratic State Senate to stop Bloomberg from running for a third term. Promises of a Dem Majority bill to override a possible City Council decision to extend term limits must haunt the Mayor and his ambitious quest for more power.