Suffolk Closeup: Big fight for 1st Congressional District this year

The normal campaign season in eastern Long Island’s First Congressional District is still months away. But there’s George Demos in blistering attacks on Randy Altschuler as he seeks to grab the Republican nomination from Mr. Altschuler in a primary.

And there’s Mr. Altschuler, who never stopped vying for the position after narrowly losing to incumbent Tim Bishop in 2010, on constant attack against Mr. Bishop.

And there’s Democrat Bishop fighting back, focusing on Mr. Altschuler’s history of outsourcing jobs, especially to India — as is Mr. Demos.
“Comrade Altschuler” was the heading of a recent press release from Mr. Demos, a former U.S. Security and Exchange Commission prosecutor from Ronkonkoma and a former Shelter Island part-time resident. It declared that Mr. Altschuler, “in a move reminiscent of the Soviet Politburo, made a desperate attempt to throw George Demos off the primary ballot.”

Mr. Altschuler “can’t win an election because people won’t vote for someone who sent thousands of good American jobs to India.”

It quoted Mr. Demos as saying Mr. Altschuler is “feverishly” attempting to “prevent a primary election through shady backroom deals with party bosses and why he adamantly refuses to debate.”

Five-term incumbent Bishop has become a leader in Congress against outsourcing. One Bishop bill would bar federal government grants for U.S. companies that outsource call center jobs. Another, the “Outsourcing Accounting Act,” would require publicly traded companies to disclose employment figures broken down by country. “Americans deserve to know whether the jobs a company is creating are in America or overseas,” said Mr. Bishop.

And he has been demanding that the Agency for International Development suspend a program to train workers in the Philippines for jobs in English-speaking call centers.

Communication Workers of America, which represents U.S. call center employees, has been congratulating Mr. Bishop for his initiatives. Also, recent investigative journalism by the Sunday Times of London has added more fire to the outsourcing controversy by revealing how personal financial data has been culled from call centers in India and peddled on the black market.

“The Truth About Randy Altschuler” is a website set up by Mr. Demos. “Randy Altschuler made millions sending our American jobs to India,” it claims. “Now he’s using the millions he made putting Americans out of work to fund another failing campaign for Congress.” It includes statements by Mr. Altschuler like one he made in 2003 that “in India, you get a much higher standard of person” to do the work.

Mr. Altschuler seeks to downplay his creation of a company in 2000 called Office Tiger, highly active in outsourcing, which he sold in 2006, reaping millions. Instead, he stresses his current company, Cloud Blue, which specializes in recycling computers and other electronic equipment. Meanwhile, he’s been blasting Mr. Bishop for his support of the Obama administration and Democratic Party positions in general.

In the end, the contest’s hot rhetoric might not be as important as cold, hard voter numbers. The Independence Party leadership has thrown the party behind Mr. Altschuler. Its leader, Frank MacKay, describes Mr. Altschuler as “an exceptional guy, and he certainly has credentials from the private sector that I think would make him a wonderful congressman.” Mr. Bishop, in the past four elections, has run on the Independence line and it was vital two years ago when it got him 7,370 votes, He won the race by only 593 votes.

His camp insists this isn’t a fatal political setback. “Third-party lines are less important in big races where the candidates are well-known,” says Bishop spokesman Oliver Longwell.

Still, Mr. Bishop, who before being in Congress was provost of Southampton College, says of the 2012 contest: “Nothing should be taken for granted; this is not going to be a walk in the park. We’re expecting an extremely difficult race.”

It has already begun.

And Mr. Demos won’t let stand the widely reported claim that Mr. Altschuler lost by the narrowest margin in any race for Congress in 2010. He’s found a Republican in Illinois who lost by 290 votes.