NEW YORK—"Anti-establishment" candidate Thomas Suozzi toured Brooklyn in late March on his uphill campaign for governor. Suozzi, a Democrat who is little known in the borough, spoke with black community leaders in an effort to spread awareness of his campaign. Suozzi currently serves as Nassau County Executive. In most recent polls, he held 14 percent of the vote compared to his Democratic opponent Eliot Spitzer, the current attorney general, with 69 percent. And if the polls don't look bad enough for this underdog, he only has $5 million compared to Spitzer's $19. But this stubborn politician seems to like a fight. And he set out across Brooklyn to let people know just that.
"Some think it's an unenviable position. I'm fighting against a huge establishment, I'm fighting against the system," said Suozzi to a crowd gathered at the Akwaba Mansion in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
At 11:00 a.m., on his second stop of the day, he visited the Haitian Americans United for Progress Community Center in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. There, he shook hands and introduced himself to a dozen clergymen, social workers and community leaders from the Haitian community.
"Government and politics should look like the people they govern," said Suozzi. Haitians "were distrustful of government" for good reason, they lived under dictatorships for years, he said. Despite his knowledge of Haitian history, for some community members this was the first time they had heard of the man.
"He is addressing problems directly as he should," said Pudens Desvarieux, a 66-year-old Queens resident from Haiti who works at the community center. Although he had never heard of Suozzi before the meeting, Suozzi seemed to have swayed him.
"I believe in him," said Desvarieux.
Other locals had only heard of him because of his underdog position.
"He's an underdog because people aren't exposed to him," said Vincent Fraser, 63, a cabby originally from Jamaica who lives in Canarsie. "The more coverage he gets the better."
At his last gathering of the day, Suozzi spent a half-hour at the Akwaba Mansion in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He spoke with medical professionals about disparities in healthcare. The group agreed that in neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush, poverty and discrimination had a huge part to play in the reason for lack of healthcare.
Dexter McKenzie, chairman of the Provident Clinical Society, noted that if the establishment had solved the current problems, they wouldn't be talking about them, agreeing with Suozzi.
"I definitely agree, the problem is still around on the watch of the current guard," he said.
State Democratic leaders have urged Suozzi to back out of the race so as not to create a battle between Democrats. Suozzi refused.
Going against the party bosses is no new thing for Suozzi. After his four terms as mayor of Glen Cove, Long Island, he ran for higher office. He was the first Democratic executive to win election in Nassau County in over three decades, and upon election, set up a Political Action Committee in Albany to fund insurgent candidates like him in statewide elections.
While the two-term executive of Nassau County balanced a severely out-of-whack county budget, he also raised the ire of the biggest union in the county. In his efforts to shrink government employment numbers, he reduced their numbers by 30 percent. But while this may have been popular with some, his cost-cutting efforts created enemies.
Suozzi might have an uphill battle ahead heading toward the Democratic primary in September, but he appears to be fighting this race for keeps.
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