In 1990, I ran as the Conservative Party candidate for governor of New York garnering 827,000 votes, more votes by a third party candidate for this office than any other candidate in the state’s history. Encouraged by the outcome, I decided to place myself in consideration for the ’94 gubernatorial contest. For three years I traveled to every hamlet in the state in an effort to mobilize grassroots support. My message was clear and undeviating.
It is a conservative message of less government, lower taxes, reduced expenditures, and traditional social principles. I am not, by my own admission, “a wet.” My principles aren’t easily compromised and my impatience with the liberal wing in the party is often apparent. My contact with the press during this period varied from tolerable to fair. There were several outrageous commentaries, but they were few and far between. I was regarded as a somewhat odd intellectual, arguably miscast as a politician. But I was certainly not a demon — at least not yet.
My dispute with the press started before the New York State Republican convention in May 1994 when the media panjandrums decided that the race for governor should involve George Pataki, Senator D’Amato’s chosen candidate, and Governor Cuomo. This match-up was made in media heaven, a battle of titans, as it was argued at the time. It wasn’t Pataki the press actually wanted; it was D’Amato vs. Cuomo. But since D’Amato had decided not to run, his surrogate was the next best entry. Overlooked in this pugilistic synecdoche was the fact that George Pataki, a state senator from Peekskill, was running far behind in the polls among rank and file Republicans when the convention began.
In order to foster the race desired by many journalists, slanderous pieces were written about me as the front runner, attributing quotes to “unnamed sources in the Republican Party” or “high ranking officials.” Whenever I would read a newspaper account that started with “unnamed sources,” I could easily predict what would follow. To some degree this drum beat of criticism abated when I lost the nomination at the convention. Even journalists can be sympathetic to a candidate railroaded by convention organizers who studied the play book of Tammany Hall circa 1870.
The New York Times had a field day challenging the conduct of Republican leaders suggesting that the party chairman stooped to a new low in his failure to recognize the Manhattan County leader who wished to change his vote in my favor. That gesture was the first and last time an opinion was cited favorably to me, albeit the editorial suggested more about Republicans than my candidacy.
Two days after my defeat at the Republican convention (I did not obtain the vote of 25 percent of the delegates which would automatically trigger a primary), I accepted the party’s nomination for Comptroller, the state’s chief fiscal officer. That was the beginning of my harrowing experience with the press, an experience that in many ways illuminates political struggles of the moment, specifically, the undue influence of the press filter, and the ability of journalists to demonize candidates.
In July, H. Carl McCall, the incumbent who was selected for the position by members in the Assembly after Ned Regan resigned, appeared on a WAMC radio program in Albany to discuss the role of Comptroller and the upcoming campaign. Much of the discussion, however, focused on McCall’s characterization of me as a “right wing ideologue.” When the word “idealogue” was not employed, McCall used words like “fanatic,” “extremist,” or “radical.” To substantiate his charge, McCall said that I believe that Social Security should be scrapped, unemployment insurance should be eliminated, and women having abortions should be jailed. These ideas are outside the mainstream, he noted. Indeed they are, but they aren’t my ideas. Recognizing the claims as political oratory, I did not respond as there wasn’t a scintilla of evidence to substantiate the arguments and I felt slighted by the accusation.
Two weeks later Mr. McCall appeared on New York One, a New York City television station devoted to state and local matters. Once again he hammered away at the same theme. It was obvious based on these two programs and reports of others that the campaign strategy in the McCall camp was to paint me as an extremist. McCall admitted to not knowing me at all, but he was relying on his opposition research team to find nuggets of information — however distorted — to limn a portrait of his opponent.
Since New York One had back-to-back presentations, I attempted to answer the charges. In doing so I allowed my opponent to define me. “When did you stop beating your wife?” is the equivalent query to those asked of me at the time. “Isn’t it true you wish to eliminate Social Security?” “Isn’t it true you wish to abolish unemployment insurance?” For the next week I followed my rival’s appearances with great interest. Invariably he would level charges against me without any effort at substantiation. My patience with him and the press was running out.
In August, my manager said: Your denials aren’t working. He’s defining you with issues unrelated to a Comptroller’s race. You must define him. I agreed, but I insisted on documentation for every point we were about to make. Furthermore, I argued that there would not be any editorializing. We must let the McCall record speak for itself.
Since the press wouldn’t engage in the requisite research regarding claims about me, I decided to provide back-up evidence for every citation attributed to McCall. There wasn’t any sense in leaving this matter to chance. A full page ad in the New York Post appeared in August with citations and a paragraph indicating why these issues were being discussed at all. In the ad was a list of McCall’s votes in the state Senate, an open letter he wrote on behalf of Sonny Carson, a convicted felon with a history of rabble rousing, mention of his partial ownership in WLIB — a station with a well established radical tradition, and mention of a Black Congress he convened which had as its outcome the condemnation of Israel.
While the last item was the only one at all related to Jewish matters directly, that was the issue seized on by the press. Newsday, New York Post, and the Daily News editorials suggested I had raised the specter of anti-semitism. A day after these editorials, Carl McCall appeared on the steps of City Hall with prominent figures in the Democratic Party including Dov Hikind, Peter Vallone, Ruth Messinger, Mark Green, and others condemning me for inserting anti-semitism into the campaign. This was a curious assertion since only one of the matters in the ad was related to Jews and at no point was an accusation of anti-semitism made. Contrary to the view spread by the press, at no point during the campaign did I ever accuse McCall of anti-semitism. Moreover, the press accounts totally ignored the first paragraph in the ad which dealt with McCall’s unsubstantiated criticism of me. Without that background the ad seemed to be an unprovoked “preemptive strike.”
Several of the editorials condemned me for relying on a stereotype of black politicians as anti-semites. The issue that Israel was condemned at a conference McCall convened was lost in the swelter of editorial indignation. To add insult to injury, my description of the antecedents, specifically McCall’s unsubstantiated claims about me, were totally ignored by the editorial writers. Only Eric Breindel, an editor at the New York Post, investigated the evidence in my ad. He concluded that the claims were valid; in fact, he called on Carl McCall to repudiate his positions, a repudiation that was not forthcoming. On the same day Breindel wrote his column, Jack Newfield had a column about me in the New York Post entitled “the Nutty Professor,” with a series of outrageous attributions.
That was the beginning of the full court press assault. In October a McCall ad campaign was announced with a price tag of $3 million. This was a media blitz of enormous proportions. The ad itself shows a monster seemingly emerging from the primordial swamp in sepia tones. When the image is somewhat more clear it turns out to be me. A narrator says, “Herb London wants to scrap Social Security, impose criminal penalties on women who have abortions, and promote vigilantism. Herb London isn’t extreme, he’s scary.” The music in the background was eerie, like something out of the “Twilight Zone.”
Each of the assertions in the ad is false. Yet without the money to counter these claims, there was little I could do to neutralize the effect. When I appeared on the Gabe Pressman show with my rival, we were asked to provide portions of an ad. Knowing what McCall would show on air, my camp produced a counter spot indicating the distortion of my positions. My ad noted in the one segment aired that “When there were predators on the streets of Crown Heights shouting ‘Kill the Jews,’ Herb London said, ‘If the police can’t defend the people of this neighborhood they must defend themselves.'” What appeared after this attempt to put the vigilante charge in perspective were comments about my position on abortion (I am Pro-life, but I do not believe women should be jailed for abortion) and Social Security (I do not believe Social Security should be scrapped, although I do believe the pressure of the baby boomers reaching retirement age at the same time will put enormous pressure on the system). At the end of my ad the narrator says “Carl McCall is engaged in lies! lies! lies!”
When I watched the ad on the Pressman show for the first time, I realized that someone could turn his television set on as the narrator was saying “kill the Jews” and completely misunderstand why that comment was made. As a consequence, the ad was never aired, yes, it never appeared on any station at any time other than the segment which was shown on the Pressman program.
Nonetheless, I was excoriated by Bob Herbert in his New York Times column for this ad. Sheldon Silver, Assembly Speaker, said, “We must not be torn apart by the politics of division, the politics of hate, the politics of Herb London”; a New York Times editorial accused me of “bigoted tactics”; and the Daily News editors accused me of “taking the low road.” Rep. Charles Rangel argued that “Even some of his political family is fleeing for fear of being contaminated,” and words such as “venomous” and “cheap” were glibly used in conjunction with my campaign. In an unprecedented step the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) insinuated itself into a political campaign by issuing a public letter criticizing me for my ad. Excluded from the criticism was any mention of Carl McCall’s ad campaign or the fact my ad never appeared. Yet the letter was widely disseminated and used by the press as an “unbiased” assessment of my campaign.
To make matters worse a group of zealous supporters in an organization called Jews for Morality took out a full page ad in the Jewish Press asking “Is Carl McCall kosher?” The ad had several fictitious quotations about McCall. On any level the ad was irreverent and tasteless. But overlooked in the consternation it caused is the fact that no one asked me or my campaign staff to approve it. I hadn’t seen the ad until a journalist gave me a copy long after it had been published. On a New York One interview I said, “I did not see the ad before publication, did not approve it, and do not countenance its content.”
The Forward, however, noted in an editorial that “a lot of people are disappointed to see Mr. London fail to speak out strongly against this sort of thing.” The Daily News editorial noted, “London refuses to apologize for his race baiting tactics.” And a group of Democratic leaders met yet again on the steps of City Hall to denounce me for “roiling racial tensions” in what became a regularly scheduled conclave.
At no time during the month of October did any journal issue a comment about the ad affectionately known in my camp as “the monster.” Surely a Nexis-Lexis search might well have demonstrated that the statements in the McCall ad were false. When I inquired about this matter with a Times reporter he noted that since I believe Social Security might fail in the future, it is fair to assert that pri vate alternatives will be sought; ergo Social Security will be scrapped. This exercise in casuistry was reported in the newspaper of record.
At the end of the month I had my standard editorial board meeting at the New York Times. One member of the board, Michael Feinstein, proceeded to ask an arcane question about the Comptroller’s debt reform proposal. Since I am quite conversant with the issue and have a definite opinion, I answered quickly and deliberately assuming my interrogator wanted a response. But before I could complete six words, Mr. Feinstein interrupted. I listened to his comment and then I continued with my response. Once again I was interrupted. On the third such occasion, Mr. Feinstein gestured with his hand saying “C’mon, c’mon.” This was a level of disrespect I had not expected. I said calmly “if you interrupt me like that one more time you and I will have a big problem.” Yes I was irritated.
The following week was pay-back time. In an endorsement editorial for McCall, the editors said they “can find nothing in his [London’s] campaign to suggest that he has the competence or stability for the job” (my emphasis).The word “stability” jumped off the page. Was this a clinical judgment? Did it represent Mr. Feinstein’s view of me? At the end of a distinctly vitriolic editorial the by now ritualistic repudiation of my campaign tactics was cited.
As the countdown to election day neared, the press crossed the line from tactics that were unfair to personal attacks on my integrity. I was a racist, no longer the reference to race baiting. I was part of a racist disease (Charles Rangel in the New York Times). I represented the politics of bigotry (Rep. Schumer, New York Post). Any comment, however one-sided and unfair, was printed. Yet my letters to the editors were never printed, not one. And despite the fact that I was the only state-wide candidate to open a Harlem headquarters and had 48 black ministers, mostly Democrats, endorse me, this signal event was ignored in the midst of febrile denunciations.
Throughout the campaign I delivered a standard speech about the politics of inclusion arguing that the Republican Party must do more to reach out to groups that consider the party of Lincoln the party of country clubs. This speech was manifest in action. Despite admonishments to avoid campaigning in Harlem or Bedford Stuyvesant — “there aren’t votes for you there” — I made a point of speaking in those communities. Ironically that commitment did not matter to the press.
When the election was over and I lost, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times that in a political season of bad news, there was one good note, London lost as did his politics of divisiveness and hate. A Newsday editorial said I lost because I wallowed in the mud. Not one editorial pointed out that I may have lost because my message wasn’t covered, or I was outspent 8 to 1, or distortions about me weren’t exposed, or the press was complicit in the McCall campaign strategy.
As painful as this public commentary was, the event that shook me to my very core was a postcard sent to my home — and many other homes — by the McCall campaign, which had a woman behind bars and the notation: “Women prosecuted for exercising choice? That’s Herb London’s idea” (New York Times, 11/5/90). If one turns to that article in the New York Times, however, there isn’t anything to substantiate the claim that I want to put women in prison for having abortions. On the day this postcard arrived at my home, my eight year old daughter picked up the mail and read the piece. She started to cry, “Daddy do you want to put women in jail?” A rage in the pit of my stomach came cascading to my lips. That night after a debate on Channel 12 on Long Island I confronted three reporters with the postcard. They shook their heads and agreed that this form of advertising was egregious but none of them wrote a word about the matter. It died silently, even though my pain is still deeply felt.
What my campaign demonstrated is that the press is not interested in issues. I produced five white papers on Workman’s Compensation, debt reform, pension fund repayment, and other matters only to have them ignored by the journalists. In fact, in the New York Post weekly scorecard it was noted that London wrote an impressive paper on the State Insurance Fund, but my grade for the week was C because not one newspaper wrote about it. Another journalist from the Buffalo News, Jon Sorenson, said “this is great stuff; he’s only sorry he didn’t see it earlier.” Sorenson never wrote about that paper or any of the others given to him.
The hypocrisy was rampant when newspapers accused me of not addressing the real issues in the campaign and then asking me about gun control, abortion, and Social Security. On a CBS program with Jim Jensen and Marcia Kramer, I refused to answer questions about these matters noting that they weren’t relevant to the responsibilities of the Comptroller. But at the end of the program Jensen shamelessly asked, “I want to ask you about your basic philosophy. What do you think of gun control?” Ray Kerrison at the New York Post was moved to write about the “bias” of Jensen and Kramer, asking appropriately if it is fair to ask about my views on guns — why didn’t those journalists ask McCall about his advocacy of condom distribution in the schools while he was president of the New York City School Board? That question was conspicuously absent from the CBS program. The motives for most members in the press were ineffable but clear. They can tolerate some conservatives, those who buckle on social issues. However, undeviating conservatism is anathema. Moreover, I was an undeviating conservative running against a black liberal. Almost every newspaper editorial endorsing McCall made mention of the fact that he would become the first black candidate elected statewide. That gave McCall leverage in the campaign I did not have.
It was not coincidental that at the end of the campaign Representative Rangel said that contemporary racism is associated with conservative tax cuts. Here was yet another reason for linking conservatism with racism. For similar reasons Republican leaders like Senator Roy Goodman and Democratic leader Assemblyman Dov Hikind branded me an extremist and denounced my campaign tactics as a cover for their liberal voting record and political aspirations. I was the target that gave them political advantage. These comments were not lost on a press corps receptive to their argument. If the press must discriminate, then it must discriminate against the conservative candidate.
In the Old Testament it says if you take away a man’s reputation, you take away a life. In my judgment the press has engaged in life threatening behavior. Surely it is better to win than lose in political campaigns as well as life. As surely, it is the manner in which one loses that counts. I am convinced that the manner in which I have been treated by the press corps is related to deep seated prejudice against conservatism and a conspicuous denial of fair play. As one member of the New York Times editorial board asked me indignantly, “Are you accusing us of a double standard?” Yes, I am. I accuse you and the press corps of vilification, a violation of journalistic propriety, and a double standard.
Most likely these words will be dismissed as sour grapes. It would be foolhardy to say I’m not angry. Yet there is a point to be made for other candidates who are obliged to use the press as a prism for their views. If you can raise the money, ignore the press and go right to the people. If you can’t raise the money — I couldn’t — don’t run for public office. It isn’t worth the effort. There is something one shouldn’t risk — his reputation.