Ed Towns' Endorsement Is Still Coveted (at least by some)

A press release by the Jason Otano campaign said that Ed Towns will join today Nydia Velazquez and others to endorse Otano in his primary challenge against State Senator Mary Malave Dilan. Nothing is surprising her, since Otano's elections is widely seen as a referendum on Vito Lopez, and Vito readily admitted it to the NY Post that he can't afford to lose this one.

UPDATE: Colin Campbell is actually telling me that Ed wasn't present, and he thinks that Al Wiltshire represented him. Towns never showed up for Barron either, besides the original endorsement where he emerged late, to give his speech at the finished. At least once he chickened out from pro-Barron events after his appearance was announced, and haven't delivered a lot for his candidate. I suspect that he suffers from withdrawal symptoms.

Towns made quite a stir with his last endorsement of Charles Barron, which was seen as taking revenge in Vito. Some may now see a Towns endorsement as a liability after his association with Barron, but the reformers have even embraced Barron's endorsement in the past, so there is no reason Towns should be disqualified now.

Photo Credit: Colin Campbell

It's Sunday in the NY Post, and this often means a Vito Lopez piece... The current one is about  Nydia's attempts to take him down. "There is a loud grassroots movement aimed at bucking Lopez. But the wily veteran is nothing if not a survivor. He remains firmly in charge of the Kings County Democratic Committee and has dismissed critics as merely annoying gnats," the Post observers.

In other news, City&State caught Hamodia using a black-haired Obama photo with Ezra Friedlander. It is probably not the first time that Mr. Fridlander is getting his photos into unrelated articles, as I noticed once with Rick Perry in a Politico blog.

Never intended as current photo. City & State

Moshe Tischler's knocking Hikind off the republican ballot is far from certain.  A source told Celeste Katz that Hikind is only short by 2 signatures, and "many" remain in dispute. Gatemouth thinks that the only one for whom it really matters if Hikind has the R line, is Simcha Felder. He would be better off if Storobin won't have Hikind on the same line (Hikind's district is the heart of the Super Jewish, of course).

While Gatemouth still have Storobin on the R line as an 'if', Steven Stites, formerly with Halloran who is now speaking for Storobin, wrote me that, "The Senator defeated his Democratic challenger's frivolous challenge. He is on the ballot with 1463 valid signatures, over 400 more than the required 1000."

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