Elyse Buxbaum, right, and her 11-week-old son Miles, hit the campaign trail for her husband, comptroller candidate and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, in Forest Hills on Friday.
Perched on a bench outside a Forest Hills senior center on Friday, two older men watched as a crowd – a string of reporters, a legislator, a candidate, a candidate’s wife and a very tolerant baby – gathered near the building in which they normally kick back and play midday card games with friends.
“Hey!” yelled Forest Hills senior Joe Tolciss. “What’s all this about?”
Tolciss and his friend, who identified himself as “Marty of Forest Hills,” quickly learned that the entourage hovering outside the doors of the Austin Street Self Help Senior Center, located on 69th Road just off Queens Boulevard, included the wife of Comptroller candidate and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Elyse Buxbaum, who was stumping for her husband in his race against disgraced ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer; Miles, the 11-week-old son of Buxbaum and Stringer; and Public Advocate candidate Reshma Saujani. Also in tow for a tour of two senior centers in Forest Hills was Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (D-Forest Hills), who has endorsed both Stringer and Saujani.
“I just want to tell you that Scott is a very honest man,” Buxbaum, who, for the first time, was campaigning without her husband, told told several dozen seniors gathered inside the Austin Street Self Help Senior Center. “He has a tremendous amount of integrity. He has 20 years of leadership and experience serving the public. He is a fighter for seniors, for children, for students and for women.”
Stringer’s once-strong ownership of the comptroller’s race slid when Spitzer – who, in case anyone has been living in a cave in recent years, resigned in 2008 after a prostitution scandal – threw his hat in the ring. While, according to a recent Siena College poll, New Yorkers seem to have a generally negative view of Spitzer, another poll from Quinnipiac University reported that the man still often referred to as the “love gov” has garnered 56 percent of support amongst likely voters in the Sept. 10 Democratic primary. Stringer, meanwhile, landed the backing of 36 percent of voters in the same poll.
Still, the Siena College poll released this past Monday, Aug. 12, found that 52 percent of New York City voters – and 59 percent of New Yorkers statewide – have an unfavorable view of Spitzer. Of course, those numbers are fluid – a July 25 Quinnipiac poll found Spitzer with just a four-point lead. And, if Buxbaum’s appearance – a stark contrast to the absence of Spitzer’s wife on the campaign trail – in Forest Hills is any indication, support for Stringer may very well increase.
“I didn’t know too much about Stringer, and I had been thinking about Spitzer but I’m going to really consider Stringer now,” Tolciss said.
Marty said he had already decided – he was voting for Stringer.
“I hope he wins,” Marty said. “Spitzer was a big fool in his private life.”
Whoever wins, the managing director for the Self Help communities – which runs five senior centers in Queens, Priscilla Maysonet, said she hopes the next comptroller will focus on funding for senior facilities, affordable housing, and increasing money for meals at the centers.
“We’d like them to work on baselining the budget for senior center services so every year we don’t have to do the same dance and ask for money,” Maysonet said.
The managing director said affordable housing for seniors is a particularly egregious problem facing seniors in the Forest Hills area.
“I see seniors struggling to pay their rent, which affects their ability to pay for everything else – medication, groceries,” she said.
Hevesi told seniors at the center that Stringer, who represented parts of Manhattan in the Assembly from 1992 to 2005, that the borough president repeatedly fought for Title XX funding – which goes to places like senior centers.
“Scott has a track record of fighting for that money,” he said.
The Forest Hills legislator also slammed Spitzer, saying “he didn’t do a good job when he had the opportunity.”
Like Maysonet, Saujani stressed the importance of affordable housing for seniors. Saujani is one of four major Democratic candidates running for public advocating, including Cathy Guerriero, a professor at New York University and Columbia; Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn), and state Sen. Daniel Squadron (D-Brooklyn).
“I’m planning on having a senior advocate, who would focus full-time on senior issues,” Saujani said. “I want an advocate for housing, for education, for jobs, for women and for seniors.”
By Anna Gustafson
