Can Senate Republicans Turn Lew Fidler Into David Weprin? [UPDATED]

New York City Councilman Lew Fidler is kicking off his Brooklyn Senate campaign today – in Manhattan.

Instead of holding the event in his south Brooklyn district, the kickoff will be held about 10 miles away on the steps of City Hall. While that may maximize press coverage for Fidler, it has already given the Senate Republicans an excuse to do what they are expected to do throughout the race for convicted State Sen. Carl Kruger’s seat: paint Fidler as an insider, running against an outsider, Republican attorney David Storobin.

That’s something Republicans did to great effect in the congressional race last summer between Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin, the scion of a political dynasty who had run for three other separate offices in the preceding couple years, and Republican businessman Bob Turner, who scored an upset win.

Scott Reif, spokesman for the Senate Republicans, sent me an email on Sunday blasting the decision to kick off the campaign at the seat of New York City government – and tying Fidler to Weprin.

 ”Just like failed Congressional candidate David Weprin, politician Lew Fidler will kick off his insider campaign surrounded by other professional politicians, the party bosses who handed him the nomination, and the wealthy special interests who will bankroll his latest run for office, but nowhere near the hardworking men and women of the district he’s running to represent.

“It’s troubling that Mr. Fidler’s very first decision as a candidate for the New York State Senate was to move his campaign launch outside the district so he could just waltz out of his City Hall office, make this announcement and not be bothered with the give and take of an actual campaign.

“The last thing the residents of Brooklyn need after Carl Kruger resigned from the Senate in disgrace is another politician who is more comfortable with his political cronies and lobbyist friends than he is with regular people. We’re confident that voters will choose a successful small businessman who is in touch with the needs of the district; someone like David Storobin.”

Certainly, both Fidler and Weprin are both longtime pols who both will have run with the support of their county Democratic parties. Still, the races are not exactly parallel, said GOP consultant Bill O’Reilly, Turner’s campaign spokesman, who helped mastermind the strategy behind Turner’s upset victory.

O’Reilly said this race would be different because it would be centered around state issues, rather than federal ones; Israel and President Obama will be unlikely factors. O’Reilly said the Senate GOP should focus on the spate of corruption in the Brooklyn Democratic Party, which has brought a guilty plea on bribery charges by Kruger, two separate cases against Assemblyman William Boyland, and an ongoing investigation into a non-profit tied to Assemblyman/Brooklyn Democratic Leader Vito Lopez.

“It will be a very different race probably – much more Brooklyn centric. I would focus on the corruption coming out of the Brooklyn Democratic Party,” O’Reilly said. “This should be a referendum on that. How can anyone trust another if its hand-picked candidates?”

“Every election is new,” he added. “You have to be careful not to fight the last war.”

There are also clear differences between Weprin and Fidler. Weprin, who performed poorly in Brooklyn, had spent his career representing Queens. Fidler has represented his Brooklyn Council district for nearly a decade and has a strong base and strong relationships. Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch helped swing the race for Turner – but is already now backing Fidler. Russian media mogul Gregory Davidzon, who backed Turner, has endorsed Fidler. And though Fidler, like Weprin, supports gay marriage, he wasn’t in Albany for the gay marriage vote. Tempers that seethed over the vote during an election two months afterwards now may have cooled on the now-settled issue.

In a statement, Fidler campaign manager Kalman Yeger also tipped his hand as to what the Fidler strategy might be. He noted a number of controversial, possibly offensive online writings by Storobin that have come to light in recent days. A number of them have now been deleted.

“It’s not surprising that Albany Republicans don’t know what a crowd of nearly 300 community supporters from Brooklyn looks like,” Yeger said. “Lew Fidler is proud to have a record of leadership and delivering results for the people of Brooklyn that don’t have to be deleted from cyberspace.  If Mr. Storobin could get 300 community, civic and religious leaders to join him at City Hall he would too, but since he’s recently deleted most of his past blog posts, his following has shrunk.”

UPDATE:

A Democrat deeply involved in Brooklyn’s Orthodox politics, who is not involved with the Fidler campaign, emailed his own take on the Weprin-Fidler parallels: