Democratic Congressman’s Staff Hits Opponent For Taking “Jewish Money”

File this one under worst gaffe ever:

Mike Grimm, a G.O.P challenger to Democrat Mike McMahon’s Congressional seat, took in over $200,000 in his last filing.

But in an effort to show that Grimm lacks support among voters in the district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, the McMahon campaign compiled a list of Jewish donors to Grimm and provided it to The Politicker.

The file, labeled “Grimm Jewish Money Q2,” for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.

“Where is Grimm’s money coming from,” said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon’s campaign spokeman. “There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees.”

Not surprisingly, Nelson was fired yesterday.

Will this hurt McMahon in November ? Most likely not. He won in 2008 with nearly a 30 point margin and, this is New York City.

FILED UNDER: 2010 Election, US Politics, , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Greg says:

    This is my district.  He won easily because after Vito Fossella imploded, the rest of the party did too apparently and couldn’t manage to field a credible challenger.  The one they did was hated by a number of high level people in his own party.
    McMahon is very much a blue dog which isn’t winning him fans on the more liberal Brooklyn side, but most of the district is Staten Island and is somewhat conservative.  It’s probably what he needs to do.
    Is Grimm a credible challenger?  I have no idea, this race hasn’t been making news so I don’t know much about him.  None of the other big Democrats in the area are interested in a primary, so my plan has been to hold my nose and vote for McMahon because he’s marginally better than a Republican.  I won’t cry if he loses.

  2. Tano says:

    Why should it hurt him? He did the appropriate thing and fired the person responsible.
    You can’t be blamed for any crazy thing that one of your employees might do – though you can , and should be blamed or credited for what you do about it.