I was flattered to read Peter Michaelis’ letter to Bedford recommending me as a write-in candidate in this year’s Town Board election. As I was deciding whether to publicly acknowledge his letter, I received a copy of an email blast from Bobbi Bittker, a member of the Town Board. The email was surprising and disappointing, especially because before receiving it, I spent a few hours with Ms. Bittker at a Halloween event and she couldn't have been nicer to me, despite having sent this vitriol just a few hours earlier.
The full email is pasted below, but I wanted to respond to her unpleasant comments:
"A completely unvetted Trump-Astorino supporting Bedford Republican is mounting a write-in campaign against Thomas Catoliato, our Town Board candidate."
I’d love to know what she means by unvetted. Isn’t that why we have elections - to allow voters to make a choice? Recall that the Democrats removed Bedford’s choice this year, and their candidate did not campaign, debate or explain to voters why he is qualified to serve.
Regarding Ms. Bittker’s reference to Trump and Astorino – what do they have to do with the Bedford Town Board, and what does she know about my voting record? Nothing and nothing. But I assume this is her standard accusation when she describes someone who is not a Democrat. Shame on her.
"Not only do we need you to show up at the polls but we need you to vote all the way down across ROW A."
How ironic that in the previous sentence she used the word unvetted to describe me yet here she instructs her audience to vote blindly across the party line without describing their qualifications or explaining why they should be elected. This is the very definition of tribal politics.
"We also need the very public support of Thomas who was appointed to the Town Board early this year to complete a vacated term, is a Democrat with our shared values and will be back on the ballot with me and Ellen in 2023."
I need to ask Ms. Bittker about the values she says Democrats share. Are those the values of Andrew Cuomo, Eliot Spitzer, Brian Benjamin, and Sheldon Silver? Simply put, I don’t get my values from my political party.
Finally, I guess congratulations are in order for Ms. Bittker and Ms. Calves, who Bittker says are already on next year’s ballot together. Who would have thought that the Democrats had anointed their candidates more than 12 months before the next election? I wonder how her audience feels about this.
With this kind of negativity from Ms. Bittker after one letter in the newspaper and a few signs, I can only imagine what she would say if she really didn’t like someone.
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