Check out this article by Jeremy Smerd with CrainsNewYork.com that clearly outlines what the campaign has been about from the beginning.
Harry Wilson, the baby-faced, 38-year-old Republican running for state comptroller, caps 20-hour days on the campaign trail by falling asleep at his desk at 3 a.m.
His work ethic has served him well. In six months last year as a senior member of President Barack Obama's Auto Task Force, Mr. Wilson headed the team that cleaved off General Motors' underperforming assets. He helped persuade the United Auto Workers to reduce the company's crippling obligations to union retirees and pressured the board to dump its chief executive. Mr. Wilson is credited with the idea of the government's buying GM stock rather than simply giving it cash. General Motors became Government Motors, a politically toxic idea but one that gave the automaker a shot at survival.
“The country was in crisis, and the president was looking for talent,” says Mr. Wilson, who had voted for Sen. John McCain. “My country was more important to me than anything else. I think we're in the same spot now. Our state is in crisis.”
Mr. Wilson wants to restructure New York the way he did GM. He plans to turn the comptroller's office from an oversight agency into a management shop, and to use data-driven analysis to push for improvements in the quality and efficiency of state services. His professed apolitical approach and his personal trajectory have much in common with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
UP BY THE BOOTSTRAPS
Saving an American industry is the capstone on a gilded résumé. The son of working-class Greek immigrants, Mr. Wilson grew up in Johnstown, N.Y. The first in his family to go to college, he attended Harvard on scholarships and part-time jobs and returned to earn an M.B.A. A stint at Goldman Sachs led to private equity jobs and to a partnership at hedge fund Silver Point Capital, where he specialized in distressed companies. He retired at age 36. Mr. Wilson's Democratic opponent derisively calls him “Hedge Fund Harry.”
If comptroller were a job one applied for, it's easy to see why Mr. Wilson would be qualified. That is, in fact, Mr. Wilson's argument to voters: The sole manager of the state's $125 billion pension fund and the office that audits state agencies' use of taxpayer money “should be run by a professional, not a politician,” he says.
AN UPHILL CLIMB
But it's an elected position, and Mr. Wilson's ascent is by no means assured. Standing in his way is incumbent Thomas DiNapoli, 56. A Nassau County assemblyman for 20 years, Mr. DiNapoli was appointed comptroller in 2007 after the resignation of Alan Hevesi (who last week pleaded guilty for defrauding taxpayers). Mr. DiNapoli, who has a master's degree in human resources administration, says he has restored the integrity of the office and that his audits have identified $3 billion in wasteful government spending.
Last month, Mr. DiNapoli lowered the state pension fund's expected rate of return to 7.5% from 8%, tacitly acknowledging a point Mr. Wilson has been arguing for months: that overly optimistic investment return projections have artificially inflated the fund's future value. The change left the fund, on paper, with a long-term liability that Mr. Wilson still contends is vastly understated.
Mr. Wilson, who speaks so rapidly about discount rates and dividend yields that he garbles his words, argues that if the state used corporate—not government—accounting principles, the fund's 30-year projected deficit would be $43 billion to $93 billion. He says he will offer ways for the Legislature to reduce pension benefits that are equitable for workers yet also good for the state.
Though Mr. Wilson is interested in rooting out fraud, his particular concern is what he calls “outright fiscal mismanagement,” especially of the state's largest expenditures: Medicaid and education. He would recruit a financial “SWAT team” of several dozen experts to oversee a staff of 2,600, supplemented by a consultant corps of private-sector volunteers.
“That's what I've done at companies,” Mr. Wilson says. “Find people who are motivated to do the right thing.”
RACE TOUGH TO CALL
Mr. Wilson is tapping his personal fortune to outspend his opponent, whom he calls a “political hack.” Mr. DiNapoli paints Mr. Wilson as a creature of Wall Street's risky self-interest and will count on labor support to get out the Democratic vote. Polls, which have been unreliable because of the difficulty of identifying likely voters in this tumultuous year, show both candidates with low name recognition but Mr. DiNapoli leading. Gerald Benjamin, a professor of political science at SUNY New Paltz, says that the attorney general's dropping of an investigation into Mr. DiNapoli's dealings will take some of the sting out of Mr. Wilson's charges that the office is enveloped in scandal.
But Mr. Wilson's credentials and voters' willingness to balance the likelihood of a Democratic governor with the election of a Republican comptroller make the outcome entirely uncertain.
Mr. Wilson thinks the comptroller should have the power to stop irresponsible budget practices. Mr. DiNapoli disagrees, saying that such an arrangement would let legislators continue to avoid making tough decisions and would make the comptroller's office a scapegoat. But Mr. Wilson says he's willing to take the hit, even if it kills his nascent political career.
“It may be I have no interest in public life after this,” he says. “It may be I have no possibility for public life after this, after the decisions we have to make.”
If you weren't able to see Harry Wilson debate Tom DiNapoli on Monday, you can catch the rebroadcast at 11AM this Saturday and Sunday on News 12 Westchester or on News 12 Long Island at 4PM this Saturday and Sunday.
Posted by Team Wilson on 10/07 at 02:23 PM in
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In these times when it's clear to all that our state government in Albany is wildly and hopelessly dysfunctional -- and no political aspirant for any job seems to be up to the task of governing -- or even capable of talking about the task of governing, I may have experienced something akin to what happened whenRolling Stone writer Jon Landau went to a Bruce Springsteen concert in 1974 and proclaimed that he "saw Rock and Roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen." Likewise, last week, in a wonky way, I met and interviewed the individual who could be New York's future, and his name is Harry Wilson. If any one individual is capable of engineering New York State's government back to fiscal sanity and probity and even possibility, the Republican candidate for State Comptroller, Harry Wilson, will be the one to do so. Nothing less than a whirlwind to interview, he is one of the most genuine, enthusiastic and whip-smart aspirants for public office that I've come across. Wilson plans to ramp up the office of state comptroller as a primary catalyst in reforming the finances and the structure of New York State government. In a way -- his vision for the job parallels the transformation Eliot Spitzer wrought on the role of the Attorney General's office.
Below is my slightly edited interview with Harry Wilson which occurred last week over breakfast at a diner in Scarsdale near Wilson's home. (Many thanks to blogger/writer/politico Charmian Neary for setting up the interview and for her help in background and context)
DS: Tell me why you got involved and what prompted you to run for, of all political offices, state comptroller:
HW: I returned from Washington last year after finishing my work up with General Motors. (for background on Wilson's role in the Obama administration's auto industry task force see this piece by Wayne Barrett in the Village Voice.) I had left my investment firm in anticipation of the birth of our 4th daughter because I wanted to get more involved in public service and spend more time with my family. I was working like 20 hours a day pretty much since high school -- and I asked myself is this how I want to spend the next 20 years of my life. I had worked with charitable organizations but I never really had much time to give. And I wanted to spend more time and more focus on my family and public service. I have four children: 9,7, 5, and 2. I was not spending enough time with them and that's what really catalyzed my decision making process on this.
Around January of 2008 I started thinking seriously about what I was going to do -- and made the decision to leave my firm in August. I spent my time getting in quality family time, investing personal capital, doing charity work, and trying to get back into shape. I was happily doing that into early 2009 when suddenly it looked like the world was about to end -- it felt like we were about to enter a second Great Depression. My wife and I talked about this a lot and about how I could get involved and contribute. Although I was in financial services, I worked mostly with manufacturing operations and less with banks. I had this really deep skill set in restructuring companies, and I looked at the problems that Washington was wading into with the financial services sector and the auto industry. I was worried that they were going to throw a lot of money at the problem and not fundamentally try to change the structure of these industries. I was deeply concerned about the economy. Growing up, my mom was laid off from her job from time to time and it really affected us.
Don’t ask New York City Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, whether she would be a good vice president. He’s just not going there.
Following a breakfast forum in midtown Manhattan Wednesday, Wolfson deflected a flurry of questions about the possibility of President Barack Obama replacing replacing Vice President Joe Biden with Clinton on the 2012 ticket, a possibility that’s been the subject of speculation among political observers recently. The talk seemed to have died down lately, but on Tuesday night Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward reignited the chatter by suggesting the White House is talking of a possible switch.
“I don’t really have a reaction,” said Wolfson, one of Clinton’s top aides in the 2008 campaign, when asked about Woodward’s remarks. “I am focused on the business of the city.”
Wolfson, who also worked on Clinton’s successful 2000 campaign for U.S. Senate in New York, even dodged a query about whether the secretary of state (and former first lady) would make a good vice president. “I’m going to give you the same answer seven different ways to seven different iterations,” he said with a smile.
In the end, the deputy mayor suggested there’s little truth to the speculation.
“In my experience in Clinton World, there is an endless amount of speculation (about) what she is up to and what she’s doing because people are endlessly fascinated and impressed by her,” Wolfson said.
On Wednesday, Clinton, along with Obama’s top spokesman, said Woodward’s report was untrue.”I have absolutely no interest and no reason for doing anything other than just dismissing these stories and moving on because we have no time, we have so much to do, and I think both of us are very happy doing what we’re doing,” Clinton said.
During a speech at the Association for a Better New York breakfast, Wolfson said the Democratic Party is in major trouble with the upcoming midterm election.
“I’m not allowed to say that the Democrats are in big trouble, or I hear about it at home,” said Wolfson, whose wife is the chief of staff for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “So, I hope that none of you will mention to her…that I said the Democrats are in big trouble,” Wolfson said.
Wolfson didn’t do much to help the Democratic Party’s cause when he delivered a strong endorsement of two Republican candidates seeking statewide office in New York. Echoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s endorsements, Wolfson strongly recommended voters elect Harry Wilson as state comptroller and Dan Donovan as the state’s next attorney general.
(Wolfson, like the mayor, made an exception for a Democrat when he also spoke positively about Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic candidate for governor.)
Wolfson’s comments on the GOP state comptroller candidate were particularly effusive. He called Wilson, a Wall Street veteran attempting to unseat Democratic incumbent Tom DiNapoli, “extraordinary.”
“I think it is amazing that someone of his talent and his experience would run for comptroller in this state,” Wolfson said. ”I think we are very lucky to have somebody like him.”
And Wolfson pointed out that Wilson is a “real Republican, unlike other people we may know,” a clear reference to Bloomberg, a lifelong Democrat before he switched parties ahead of his mayoral run in 2001. (Bloomberg left the Republican Party in 2007 and became unaffiliated as he flirted with the possibility of running for president in 2008.)
Wolfson made another potentially controversial allegiance known during his breakfast speech, when he asked the audience: “What’s the difference between a Yankees hot dog and a Mets hot dog?”
Pause. “You can’t buy a Mets hot dog in October,” he said.
By Michael Howard Saul
Posted by Team Wilson on 10/07 at 09:46 AM in
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Long Island Congressman Peter King (R-C) endorsed businessman and restructuring expert Harry J. Wilson (R-C-I) for New York State comptroller.
"Harry Wilson is exactly the kind of professional we need in Albany to overhaul state government," said Congressman King. "His experience and skill set coupled with his deep commitment to fiscally conservative principles are desperately needed in Albany. "I'm proud to be counted among his many supporters and look forward to partnering with him to help make New York State affordable again."
"I'm honored to receive the support of Congressman King," said Harry Wilson. "From Long Island to Western New York, the concerns of New Yorkers are all the same: the people of this state are suffering from the high tax-and-spend policies that are leading us toward fiscal insolvency. I look forward to applying the business and restructuring skills I've acquired in the private sector to serving the people of New York State."
Posted by Team Wilson on 10/06 at 02:29 PM in
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New York State was left without an elected comptroller in the midst of the worst budget crisis in state history because then comptroller Alan Hevesi (D) was forced to resign after full details of his misuse of public resources became public shortly after Election Day. Now, unelected New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli (D-WFP), who is under investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for possible involvement in the State Pension Fund Scandal, is refusing to release his calendar of meetings as comptroller, despite a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request and repeated public requests for that meeting calendar, the campaign of comptroller candidate Harry J. Wilson (R-C-I) today said.
"Our unelected state comptroller is trying to run out the clock on releasing his calendar before Election Day, and he cannot be allowed to do it," said Wilson campaign manager Chapin Fay. "Like Mr. Hevesi, Mr. DiNapoli is a target in a criminal probe -- this time involving Albany's pay-to-play Pension Fund scandal -- and he is refusing to release documents the public needs to see. New York cannot risk a repeat of the Hevesi situation; Mr. DiNapoli must release his calendar of meetings."
The Wilson campaign said Mr. DiNapoli has an obligation to release his full calendar of meetings as Comptroller, and answer the following questions:
1.Have you been subpoenaed?
2.Are meetings you attended part of the Attorney General's investigation? And, if so, have any attendees at that meeting or meetings been fined by the Attorney General as a result?
3. Did you ever meet or speak with Hank Morris as comptroller, or others already fined in the Attorney General's investigation?
4.Have you ever met with placement agents - registered or unregistered - and, if so, what resulted from those meetings?
Mr. Wilson's campaign has been asking Mr. DiNapoli for months to release his calendar of meetings for his first 26 months in office, before the lucrative and highly controversial practice of "placement agents" was banned. Mr. DiNapoli boasts of "transparency" in his official government biography.
Mr. DiNapoli was controversially appointed comptroller by his legislative colleagues to fill out the term of Alan Hevesi, who is reportedly headed to prison for his involvement in a "pay-to-play" scandal involving placement agents.
Posted by Team Wilson on 10/06 at 01:43 PM in
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Tom DiNapoli tried using the usual tricks of an Albany insider and career politician when he trotted out tired one-liners attacking Harry's experience. New Yorkers are tired of politics as usual, and Mr. DiNapoli's desperate attacks fell flat. The people of New York saw clearly that Harry has the right kind of experience compared to Tom DiNapoli’s. His decades-long record of over 200 tax increases and out of control spending is what got us into this mess and we can’t afford four more years of politicians putting their faith in government instead of people.
That’s why the New York Post endorsed Harry Wilson for Comptroller, and said: “Albany needs a serious financial cop -- and Wilson couldn't have been better groomed for the task.” Read the entire endorsement by clicking here.
Harry Wilson debates Tom DiNapoli at 7PM tonight at Pace University. Watch it live on NY1 or cheer me on in person by RSVPing below:
You are invited to attend a debate for New York State Comptroller between Harry Wilson and Tom DiNapoli. This is a great chance to come out and support Harry Wilson's effort to bring fiscal responsibility and accountability to Albany.
The event is sponsored by NY1, YNN, NY1 Noticias and Citizens Union and scheduled for Monday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. at Pace University’s Schimmel Theater in Manhattan.
Posted by Team Wilson on 10/04 at 01:13 PM in
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More good news! The Rochester Business Alliance has just endorsed Harry Wilson's campaign for State Comptroller. Harry is pleased to accept this endorsement as his campaign pushes to restore fiscal responsibility to Albany.
Posted by Team Wilson on 09/30 at 12:28 PM in
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Election Day is closing in fast, and we only have little more than a month to go. We are in need of volunteers to make phone calls, door knock, email their friends, or even attend the debate on Monday. Click here to get signed up.
Posted by Team Wilson on 09/30 at 09:37 AM in
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If ever there was a time when New York needed an astute, tough-minded outsider to safeguard its cash -- as opposed to a longtime insider beholden to Shelly Silver -- this is it.
Republican Harry Wilson fits the bill to a tee, and today The Post enthusiastically endorses him for state comptroller.
New Yorkers rarely focus on this office, which acts as the state's chief fiscal watchdog and sole trustee of its $130 billion pension fund. But state finances are imploding, and the economy -- especially upstate -- is in dire straits.
Albany needs a serious financial cop -- and Wilson couldn't have been better groomed for the task.
Reared in upstate Johnstown, the son of working-class immigrants, he holds an MBA from Harvard and has experience at several top financial firms. Best of all: He's never held elected office.
His rival, by contrast, current Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, got his job in '07 when Assembly Speaker Silver tapped him to replace Alan Hevesi -- a reward for DiNapoli's 20 years of loyal service in the Legislature.
Could there be a clearer choice?
With Wilson, New York would get a true pro -- with formal training and relevant, real-world experience.
And he understands the problem: Albany continues "to ratchet up spending to placate special interests," he says. Thus, "New Yorkers bear the highest . . . tax burden in the nation," which drives away businesses, jobs and revenue.
The result: "An ever-dwindling tax base supporting an ever-increasing state government -- an unsustainable dynamic."
As an outsider, Wilson would serve as an effective check on Silver (a cinch for re-election), the next Senate boss and the next governor -- whoever that might be.
Yet, Wilson -- who helped save GM as the only Republican on President Obama's auto task force -- can also be highly effective on a bipartisan basis.
To be sure, DiNapoli is hardly the worst of the lot in Albany. Indeed, he's usefully warned of New York's dire fiscal woes for years.
But, let's face it: He's too close to Silver and part of New York's status quo.
Should Cuomo become gov, Wilson would be better able to work with the AG's plan for fiscal reform -- or stand up to him, and to Silver, should they continue down the current ruinous path.
New Yorkers who care about the state's finances, economy -- and their own pocketbooks -- should back Wilson.
Posted by Team Wilson on 09/28 at 10:10 AM in
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Thank you for participating in our $30K No Regrets on Election Day money bomb! Your contribution helped us reach our goal and you have had a direct impact on the success of this campaign. You have demonstrated that you no longer want a tax and spend career politician in charge of your tax dollars.
The people of New York are looking for someone who will bring fiscal accountability and responsibility to Albany. Not someone who is so closely tied to special interest groups and who will rubber stamp tax increases.
Thank you again for helping position us to win on November 2nd!
Posted by Team Wilson on 09/27 at 10:32 PM in
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Harry Wilson campaigning at the Sons of Italy Feast and Street Fair in Nassau County hosted by Oyster Bay Supervisor John Venditto. Pictured here is Vietnam Veteran Activist Joe Ingino, Harry and Congressman Pete King.
Posted by Team Wilson on 09/27 at 10:04 AM in
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If ever there was a time when New York needed an astute, tough-minded outsider to safeguard its cash -- as opposed to a longtime insider beholden to Shelly Silver -- this is it.