In his last blog post, Gatemouth described Hiram Monserrate as a showboating bag of wind.  This is probably the best way to describe someone that apparently went to the John Liu School of Politics.  But Gatemouth forgot to mention that he's also a thug who believes that his previous jobs in the military and as a police officer give him a higher moral authority than mere mortals (kind of like the current Democratic nominee for Governor, only replace "previous jobs in the military and as a police officer" with "having a multi-millionaire daddy and going to Harvard"), all while not being subject to our laws (like by originally living outside of the district in which he was running and suing the NYPD for *gasp* trying to instill discipline).

The only positive about Monserrate is that even though his end is showboating and increasing his public profile, sometimes his means involve helping some people along the way.  I guess you can reverse the Machiavellian equation and say that in Monserrate's case, the means sometime justifies the ends.  In the Council, Monserrate pushed to greatly increase the NYPD patrols and brought in the DOE Fund (whom I've previously worked with and strongly suport) to make Roosevelt Avenue both safer and cleaner.  In addition, Monserrate has used his tough-guy tactics to provide plenty of pork into his district.

The problem with Sabini is that he's basically happy to collect his $80K+LuLus to do absolutely nothing except visit Albany and hang out for two or three days a week, very much like he did while in the City Council.  He's somehow convinced everyone that he's a reformer and is sick of the system that he's helped to create over the last 20 years.  I mean the guy was interim Queens Democratic Chairman when Manes killed himself.  Does it get anymore insider than that?  Sabini has had 20 years to try and reform both NYC and NYS government and has achieved NOTHING!!  In previous interviews, he's said that one of his greatest accomplishments has been designating a certain part of Jackson Heights as a historic district while in the City Council.  While this is fine and dandy, it's such an irrelevant issue when you're living in a district that suffers from lack of school space, high crime and prostitution, and deteriorating health services.  A quick glance at his Senate website (I haven't found a campaign website) shows that he's very proud of eliminating testing on religious holidays.  He's also submitted some legislation that as a minority member of the Senate, will probably not even come up for a committee vote.  Unfortunately, Sabini's entire career has been based on many minor victories.  The bottom line is that Sabini has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and securing his nice paycheck and state pension while continuing to put in the most minimum effort for his constituents.

Einstein famously said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Jackson Heights, Corona, E. Elmhurst and Woodside  has been electing John Sabini over and over and over and over, and predictably, has had the same exact dismal results each time.  It is also undoubtable that Monserrate many times uses bullying and thuggish tactics to get what he wants, best exemplified in the way he basically extorted the Mets into giving up more money in order to build their new stadium.  Although these tactics are somewhat reprehensible, the end result was that the Mets caved in and will provide additional community services and outreach.  The milquetoast-ish Sabini would have never thought to confront the Mets for fear of losing out on the chance to get some comped tickets during the season. 

As bad as Monserrate is, the energy and guerilla tactics he will bring to the State legislature, even if it is to showboat and raise his own profile, is better than continuing with the same old failing status quo that is bext exemplified by John Sabini.  On September 12, citizens of the 13th Senatorial District should  suck it up and vote for Hiram Monserrate.