The unexpected squeaker in Suozzi/Mangano race

As of this writing early on Nov. 4, Thomas Suozzi, Democrat from Glen Cove, was still county executive. He apparently squeaked by in the polls on Tuesday. With 235,985 votes cast in the Nassau County executive’s race, Suozzi was predicted to defeat Republican challenger Ed Mangano, a 14-year county legislator, by a mere 237 votes.

All of this could change, of course. On Wednesday, absentee ballots were yet to be counted. Who knows what could happen? We won’t know for sure for a while.

The big question is: What the heck happened to Suozzi? A few years ago, he was king of Nassau, popular to the point of being seemingly invincible. But on Election Day this year, he teetered on the verge of defeat to a virtually unknown candidate.

To my mind, it is simplistic to say that voters were angry at government. Yes, many residents were mad as hell over property taxes, and they weren’t going to take it any more. But Suozzi has fought the battles that the tax-Pac crowd has wanted him to fight. He’s sought government consolidation where and when he could. He’s reduced the county workforce by 1,000 employees. He’s not a Big Government kind of guy. So, where did he go wrong?

For starters, he has never made any secret that he doesn’t really want to be county executive. He really wants to be governor. Midway through his last term, Suozzi ran an unsuccessful primary race against Eliot Spitzer, the Democrat who went on to win the 2006 gubernatorial race and subsequently crash and burn in one of the nation’s worst political sex scandals in recent memory. This year, Suozzi wouldn’t say what his future political aspirations were, but you never really believed that he wanted the county executive’s job for long. Mangano, meanwhile, ran a grassroots campaign that gave you the sense he wanted to win, he wanted to govern the county where he lives. He put up handmade signs. He got out to disaffected communities, in particular, Latino communities. He did the things that good politicians do if they really want to win.