Alam Hate Rally Backfires

All you really need to know about the difference between Democrat Rory Lancman and Republicrat Morshed Alam can be found by reading this week's community newspapers and see how each of them spent their week: Rory's law firm took on the case of dozens of Queens businesses devastated by last month's blackout in a lawsuit against Con Ed (Courier; Chronicle), and he spoke at a rally in support of Israel alongside Congressman Anthony Weiner, Councilman Jim Gennaro and other elected officials attended by over 500 people (Times Ledger), while Morshed was excoriated for playing the race card to hide his seeming inability to muster the 500 signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot from actual Democrats who actually live in the District (Tribune: "Shame on Morshed Alam for stooping to such low campaign tactics . . . Morshed Alam should be ashamed of the actions of his campaign -- and he owes Rory Lancman an apology."; Examiner: "Poking holes in Alam and Nath's charge of xenophobia is Lancman's choice for female district leader, Uma Sengupta, herself a member of the South Asian community. Her petition was also challenged [by Alam]. 'If these candidates are so concerned about South Asians having the opportunity to run for office, why did they challenge my petitions to prevent me from getting on the ballot?'"; Times/Ledger: "Seven leaders of the district's civic associations also made a joint statement defending Lancman, calling Alam's allegations "a tactic to win votes.";)

The funny (sad?) part about Alam's rally, as the Tribune reported, is that he tried to pretend it was staged by a non-political and heretofore unknown group, "The Immigrant Coalition For Democracy" (headed by, you guessed it, Alam's campaign manager), except that someone forgot to tell Alam that when you fax a press release from your campaign office, it prints out of the recipient's fax machine with the sender's identity printed on top (you guessed it again: "Alam4Assembly"). D'OH!