Roberto Ramirez | The New York Observer

In The Bronx, Silver Explains Rivera's Career

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:12:24 -0400

Here’s Sheldon Silver playfully introducing Democratic County Leader Jose Rivera, also an assemblyman, at the Bronx Democratic County Dinner last night.

Silver told the crowd that Rivera was “in the Assembly for five years and he went to Albany Medical Center and the doctor told him to go on light duty. So, he went to the City Council for 13 years. And then he was all cured and he came back. Now...

Mirram's Ad Against Spitzer

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 08:59:14 -0500

Here is the negative ad done by Roberto Ramirez and Luis Miranda of the Mirram Group on Eliot Spitzer's health care spending cuts. Also finally got in touch with a spokesman for Mirram to ask, among other things, whether the commercial signaled a change in attitude towards Spitzer. Citing company policy, he offered no comment. Liz has the script here. -- Azi...

Spitzer Consultants Cut Health Care Ad

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 06:30:00 -0500

Some of the television commercials slamming Eliot Spitzer's health care spending plan were made by Roberto Ramirez and Luis Miranda, consultants who helped elect him, according to an informed reader. The ad, which I haven't seen yet, shows footage of a busy emergency room and suggests there could be long lines there if Spitzer's plan is enacted, according to my source. It's running on Channel 47. Between November 2004 and November 2005, Ramirez and Miranda, who...

Reaction

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:05:33 -0500

What did people think of Eliot Spitzer's first State of the State address? Mike Bloomberg told reporters he looked through Spitzer's speech at 8:30 a.m. this morning and "there are very few things in the speech that I could ever quibble with. They'd only be in degrees." About Ground Zero, which Spitzer said was developing at an unacceptable pace, he said, "It's coming along. Things are going well." Tom Suozzi, Spitzer's rival in the Democratic primary,...

Elsewhere: Meet the New Boss. Same As the Old Boss?

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:37:57 -0500

Roberto Ramirez's former chief of staff, now a lobbyist, is Spitzer's choice for secretary of state. Let the finger-wagging begin! Liz Benjamin, who broke the "Hevesi to resign" story last night, says the comptroller is going to have a very bad day tomorrow. She also says some Republicans are starting to talk about throwing Joe Bruno overboard. The Bond Buyer has a breakdown on the Atlantic Yards project's tax exempt bond financing (sub. req.). The Times betrayed Brooklyn,...

The Rivera Family

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:00:00 -0500

In his sophomore year at the New York Military Academy near West Point, Joel Rivera and his friends noticed something that made for an unusual sight at the campus: a limousine. “We’re like, ‘What is this?’ and keep watching—a princess from one of the countries in the Middle East or whatever. This is a girl that never had to do anything in her life for herself,” said Mr. Rivera, the baby-faced 28-year-old son of...

Did Bigotry Alone Spell Ferrer's Doom?

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

The erudite professor of practical politics, Roberto Ramirez, wasn’t wrong when he told The New York Times that the late Mayoral candidacy of Fernando Ferrer may have paved the way for a more successful Latino candidate in the future. As the failed Presidential campaign of Al Smith begat John F. Kennedy, as Percy Sutton’s attempt to break the Mayoral color line begat David Dinkins, so might Mr. Ferrer’s defeat bequeath to New York its...

Did Bigotry Alone Spell Ferrer’s Doom?

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

The erudite professor of practical politics, Roberto Ramirez, wasn’t wrong when he told The New York Times that the late Mayoral candidacy of Fernando Ferrer may have paved the way for a more successful Latino candidate in the future. As the failed Presidential campaign of Al Smith begat John F. Kennedy, as Percy Sutton’s attempt to break the Mayoral color line begat David Dinkins, so might Mr. Ferrer’s defeat bequeath to New York its...

Ramirez: 'I'm on Threshold Of My Lifelong Dream'

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 19:00:00 -0500

“I stand now at the threshold of having fulfilled a commitment that I made somewhere in 1987, that there was someone who would make a great Mayor: Fernando Ferrer,” said Roberto Ramirez, the onetime boss of the Bronx, breaking pieces off a toasted blueberry muffin with manicured fingers, careful to avoid dropping crumbs on his black turtleneck sweater. “I believe I have done everything I could possibly have done to help that happen.”

...

Ramirez: ‘I’m on Threshold Of My Lifelong Dream’

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Mike's Imaginary Salsa Ad

Fri, 28 Oct 2005 05:33:00 -0400

There's certainly something to the Ferrer campaign's contention that they're at a disadvantage when it comes to the media, one backed by Bill Lynch. Setting aside the political stances of newspaper proprietors (which shouldn't always be set aside), the delight we take in campaign follies hits Freddy harder because his staff is stretched thinner, more likely to err. Mike can afford a huge staff; others, like Anthony, work with a small staff but keep...

Frustration at Puck

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 05:52:00 -0400

Freddy gave a strong speech last night, more coherent and more passionate than Anthony's. He did sound like he'd won something. But the real result at the Puck Building -- 39.9% makes Freddy something like the Job of city politics; perhaps boils are next -- was visible on the faces of Ferrer's close aides. As the speech would up, advisor Roberto Ramirez and Ferrer's campaign lawyer, Stanley Schlein, stood by a curtain on the East Side...

Exclusive: Ferrer Loses Another Consultant

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 11:20:00 -0400

After splitting with longtime consultant David Axelrod midway through this year's campaign, Freddy is facing yet another round of turmoil over who, exactly, is shaping his message. David Doak, the veteran adman currently making English-language ads for the Democratic frontrunner, will no longer play a central role on the campaign, Democrats tell The Politicker. It's unclear whether Doak will stick around after the primary; if so, it will apparently be in a face-saving, nominal capacity. But...

Parade Fallout

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:35:00 -0400

How weird was the coverage of the Puerto Rican Day Parade? More than 200 arrests, including a bunch of gang members and two drunk cops, a stabbing, an injured police officer, and the general theme of coverage -- outside the Post -- is "a marvelous time was had by all." The real political story of the parade, too, is emerging a day late. The Sun today picks up on an El Diario report of an...

Ferrer Campaign Opens Its Office To Cinema Verite

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Until now, the race for Mayor hasn't exactly seized the public's imagination, but at least two acute political observers expect high drama by November. D. A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, whose documentary The War Room changed the way Americans view politics, have begun filming Fernando Ferrer's campaign for Mayor.

"The filmmakers made their way to Mr. Ferrer through his longtime advisor, Roberto Ramirez, and since February, the documentarians and their digital cameras have been occasional,...

The Bronx Is Burning

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:31:00 -0500

We've been watching and wondering for months as Freddy's home borough simmers. The relationship between County Leader Jose Rivera and his predecessor, Roberto Ramirez -- Freddy's top advisor -- is one of the great mysteries of city politics. And the feuds among the clans around them -- Diazes and Arroyos and Espadas, not to mention Riveras -- are Shakespearean. It had to explode under Freddy at some point, and when he appeared to switch sides...

Mulrow Trying to Block Comeback by Alan Hevesi

Sun, 25 Aug 2002 20:00:00 -0400

On a late-August morning three weeks before Primary Day, Bill Mulrow, underdog candidate for State Comptroller, surrounded himself with state union leaders in a nondescript conference room at the state A.F.L.-C.I.O. headquarters in Albany. Mr. Mulrow pulled apart his campaign schedule to be at this event, a press conference announcing the endorsement of the 2.3-million-member union. In the words of Mr. Mulrow's spokesman, "This is big."

But was it big enough to bring attention to...

West Side Story: Drawing District to Boost a Rivalry

Sun, 28 Apr 2002 20:00:00 -0400

State Senator Eric Schneiderman, a tall, tanned Democrat who is reviled by his Republican colleagues because of his energetic campaign to put them out of work, was strolling across the concourse of the state Legislative Office Building in Albany recently when a Senate staff member buttonholed him. The staffer-"one of the few Republicans left who talks to me," as Mr. Schneiderman put it-wanted to explain why Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and other state...

Smears, Smears, The Gang's All Here

Sun, 18 Nov 2001 19:00:00 -0500

Was there a more appalling election-season spectacle than that of Talk editor Tina Brown strolling into Michael Bloomberg's headquarters and pontificating about what "we" need in the coming years, and how her company's candidate of convenience could provide it? (By "we," was she speaking of the needs of the great mass of New Yorkers, most of whom live in the "outer boroughs" and "work" at "jobs" that are not necessarily celebrated in organs like...

Weinstein's United Way

Sun, 18 Nov 2001 19:00:00 -0500

By now, most of New York knows that Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein was so upset with Mark Green that, on election eve, he told friends to vote for Michael Bloomberg. The morning after Mr. Bloomberg won, the New York Post's Page Six column reported that Mr. Weinstein was enraged because the Green camp blocked his efforts to broker a last-minute peace agreement with Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and his top supporters, the Reverend...

Postcards From the Ledge

Sun, 20 Aug 2000 20:00:00 -0400

LOS ANGELES-

Dear De Blasio, Wish you were here!! All your political pals out here are saying how, despite your current status as Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign manager-and your perpetual status as the Voltaire of schmoozing-you don't wish you were here. Indeed, word at the open bar is that you wouldn't mind keeping the North American land mass between you and your demanding, micromanaging, favorites-playing candidate and this whole lot of demanding, meddling, card-playing, knife-wielding...