MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“This election, groups PAC a dirty punch”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, August 12, 2012
We should all have our own super PACs, pseudo-independent hit men doing our dirty work w
hile pretending to operate entirely on their own.
“Really?” we could ask, feigning extravagant surprise. “Someone just berated my noisy neighbors? Someone just disciplined my unruly kids? Someone just punched my boss in the mouth? Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that!”
Look how well super PACs are working in politics.
A so-called independent group supporting President Barack Obama — not to be confused with the Obama campaign — accused GOP challenger Mitt Romney of almost murdering some poor laid-off steelworker’s wife. “We obviously have no control over and with people we don’t have contact with,” Obama spokesman Jay Carney said about Priorities USA, the super PAC that made the dead-wife ad.
Romney plays the arms-length slam game just as viciously, and his “independent” groups have more slime money to play it with. Without the slightest nod of coordination from the official Republican campaign, they’ve already accused Obama of hating Catholics, loathing freedom, tilting socialist, killing babies and being a fake American. And it’s only August.
In the Citizens United decision of 2010, the Supreme Court ruled these groups can smear at will and do it anonymously. What’s taking HeniPAC so long?
SUPER SLIME
1. Jones Beach music blasters
2. Clueless ATM users
3. Solo HOVers
4. Restaurant cellphone shouters
5. LIRR seat hogs
THE NEWS IN SONG
“Someone’s got it in for me/They’re planting stories in the press”
Bob Dylan
“Idiot Wind”
Only the best insult song ever.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED
Is The Mall at the Source a tear-down? Right after the Aug. 28 foreclosure auction, a new owner will have to decide…No-fedoras folo: Is this the year Montauk will be saved from hipsters – or was that battle lost three or four summers ago?…Rigid as the East Hampton Town Code is, can’t Adam
Lindenmann’s Montauk neighbors find some reg that prohibits his brightly lit 15-foot pink-penis statue?…Did you catch the Perseid Meteor shower last night? If not, LI astronomers say you missed the high point…Bad policy or bad communication? Why did St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center just come out at the bottom of New Yorkers for Patient & Family Empowerment’s new survey of hospital-visiting experiences?…Nine manhole covers stolen in Greenlawn, Northport, Huntington and Huntington Station? Someone already practicing for the 2016 Olympic discus throw?…Now that Carnegie Library has moved from Lake Street to the Sixth District Court grounds in Patchogue, will the next library move involve a Kindle and a mock-leather case…At 
$400,000, do Jay-Z and Beyonce win the 2012 Soaked Hamptons Renters Award? What would you expect to pay for August at Sandcastle, Joe Farrell’s 12-bed, 12-bath estate (with bowling alley, rock-climbing wall, disco, media room and pool house) on Halsey Lane in Bridgehampton?…Feeling nostalgic for the mob? Gianni Russo, Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather and now capo of his own wine label, is toasting friends, fans and family Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Maliblue in Lido Beach. Salute!…“Median Sale Prices Up on Long Island”? When was the last time you read a real-estate headline like that? So long ago, houses didn’t even have Great Rooms – just Pretty Good Rooms.
LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK
STUART HAYIM
Not everyone loves powerboat racers. Buzzing swimmers, sailors and the shoreline, some of these waterborne 
dragsters have egos measured in horsepower. But Stuart Hayim is working to swamp that. The world-champion powerboat racer from Sands Point, who also owns Ferrari-Maserati of Long Island — yes, the man likes speed — just broke his own 1989 record for navigating around Long Island. His new time — earned with John Tomlinson on the throttle of “Recovery” — 271 miles in 2 hours, 11 minutes. And here’s the best part: The feat is raising money for the Don Monti Memorial Research Foundation at North Shore University Hospital. That’s where Hayim was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1979 — and cured. Next, he’s hosting a Finish Line Fundraiser, Sept. 12 at his auto dealership in Plainview. Details at breakingrecords.org.
E-mail ellis@henican.com
Follow him at twitter.com/henican
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