The Daily News’ Elizabeth Benjamin writes about Harold Ford (pictured left) and Kirsten Gillibrand’s battle to gain the support of New York county political bosses. Why? Because county leaders have considerable sway over the county committee members who actually vote at the state’s nominating convention. It takes 25 percent of the votes to get on the ballot. According to Benjamin, Brooklyn’s votes are worth 9.1 percent of the total. That’s quite a big chunk, which is why Ford has been courting Brooklyn boss Vito Lopez so heavily. (Lopez hasn’t been shy about encouraging Ford’s run.) But, she notes, “there’s considerable division in the Brooklyn Democratic Party.” it’s not clear Lopez would be able to promise the full block of votes.
Which is a circuitous way of saying that the Ink is all over these divisions. Our own Chris Alessi has been following the growth of a Brooklyn movement to unseat Lopez and his fellow establishment supremos, and we’ll have the full story on that later today.
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