Lot's Happenin' Today

Busy day all around - from Denny Farrell’s endorsement to an historic Supreme Court appointment to Gay Marriage to Animal Rights and LeBron.

At 8:30 sharp in front of Rodeph Shalom where he drops off his five-year old daughter to school, I meet Denny Farrell -- chair of Assembly Ways & Means Committee and for a quarter century Chair of Manhattan County Dems -- to get his personal endorsement. He says nice things about my "history of successful advocacy" and gives me advice on how to approach some thorny problems. Then he leaves in his red convertible for Albany. Denny drives tens of thousands of miles a year alone to meet his many obligations. He's been a wise and wonderful and warm hearted friend, always with an impish twinkle in his eye. As the classic slogan for Sarah Lee put it, nobody doesn't like Denny Farrell!

Chat with Rep. Eliot Engel at 1pm at his Bronx office. We review the FBI capture of would-be terrorists planning on attacking synagogues in the Bronx . . . and the politics of the borough and of his home Ben Franklin Democratic Club.

Speaking of the Bronx, President Obama announces Sonya Sotomayor as his Supreme Court pick. Wow! She’s the perfect choice substantively and politically. She and I were acquaintances in the early 90s and I attended her swearing in as district court judge in 1992. She is unusually smart and engaging - traits she'll need as she endures the confirmation process and then years of fencing with Scalia, et al.

Then Rally with 1000+ activists at Sheraton Square, marching to Union Square to protest the California Supreme Court's approval of the Prop 8 vote against same sex marriage. I tell a bunch of reporters, "This is a motivating loss that will produce a backlash and a reversal. Eventually the tides of history will wash over the levees of discrimination."

Then onto the 84th dinner in support of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research at the Center for Jewish History on E. 15th Street. The organization has one of the largest repositories of research connected with Yiddish language and culture, much of it shipped out of Europe during the Holocaust to New York hidden in milk cans! I talk to two women who’s four grandparents met at Ellis Island . . . and see my law school friend Alan Dershowitz. We concur that we two keep irrepressibly doing what we do and he kindly offers to support me.

Onto the biggest audience I've spoken to this past month -- 150 very vocal and focused animal rights activists at the LGBT Center on West 13th Street. Rotating on and off stage are Leslie Crocker Snyder, Cy Vance and Richard Aborn for DA, Republican Alex Zablocki for PA, Bill Thompson and Tony Avella for Mayor, Scott Stringer for Manhattan Borough President. For the first time in my public life I talk about Skipper, my Irish setter as a young boy and my support for various animal rights issues. As I answer one question about dangerous bike riding on sidewalks, I'm yelled at by an intense audience member that "we don't care about bike riders!" I respond to the heckler by saying something like -- hey, I'm answering a question and don't think you should censor others.

Then to the Jim Owles Democratic Club to be interviewed (by friends for years in the gay rights movement) for their endorsement . . . and they do endorse me later that night.

And finally home by 10 pm for my campaign obsession -- Deni and I TiVo and then watch every NBA playoff game over late night dinner. I love sports and statistics and imagine a unique contest between an immovable object and an irresistible force -- LeBron and Kobe. What happens when two players each with an unmatchable “will-to-win” compete? The odds now appear against that since the Cavs just lost by two in overtime and fall behind 3-1. It looks like Orlando is a team while the Cavs are, essentially, LeBron...and was it Vince Lombardi who said, "sporting events are won by teams, not individuals"?

Sort of like campaigns.