Dems decry actress’s congressional candidacy
HURLEY, N.Y. » Committed area Democrats invested in a pitched effort to oust freshman U.S. Rep. John Faso in the 19th Congressional District have moved from asking Diane Neal to become one of their party’s primary election candidates to describing her as having a “Trumpian” personality.
Neal, 41, a Hurley resident and actress on two network televi- sion shows — “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “NCIS,” — announced her run on Feb. 4 following a debate in Woodstock featuring the six Democrats who are seeking their party’s nomination to challenge Faso, R-Kinderhook.
Later that week, Neal met for about two hours with a group of people at a Starbucks coffee shop, where several people say they found themselves at odds with her positions and, at times, appalled by her behavior.
“She definitely does not have a clear agenda on issues,” said Amy Dooley, a member of the New Paltz town Democratic Committee. “One story that stuck out with me (showing) how naive she was, was that she was going to withhold water from the (New York City Department of Environmental Protec- tion) if we couldn’t get them to pay for expanding the rail trail so that we could bring more tourism to our area to help the economy.”
Dooley added that “things don’t work like that” because New York City owns the water that is piped from the Ashokan Reservoir, near Neal’s home, to the city and that the city sells that water to communities along the route.
“It was kind of Trumpian how she just kind of threw out these populist type of ideas that don’t really work,” she said.
Dooley said she had attended the Starbucks meeting with an open mind, but came away seeing Neal as someone with “delusions of grandeur.”
Neal has not returned multiple calls for her response to criticisms about behavior.
However, during the Feb. 4 interview she said she expected criticism and found the six Democratic candidates to be “absolutely
right about Faso.”
Concerns about Neal’s entry into the race have been aired to Ulster County-Democratic Party secretary Ashley Dittus, who is also the party’s commissioner on the county Board of Elections. She said if Neal is getting into the race with the hope of dividing the party, she has done a better job of uniting people in paying closer attention to the six Democratic candidates.
“Just observing what she waswriting and interacting with people on social media, I got the impression that she was in way over her head and we don’t have time for it,” she said. “We don’t have time for someone who just wants to be in the papers.”
Dittus said people have voiced concerned that the 19th Congressional District is a “purple” district in which a woman candidate who portrays herself as a Democrat could siphon votes frompeople who want to see Faso defeated, but are registered with smaller parties.
“The conspiracy theory is...she can ultimately help Faso by splitting the vote from the Democratic candidate,” she said.
The six candidates for the Democratic nomination are all men.
Dittus said Neal may be getting unfair criticism because she’s hired a campaign manager from Indiana, noting that other Democratic candidates also have hired strong strategic campaign planners from out of the area.
“You hire who you think is going to do the best job for you,” she said. “I don’t think that’s going to make her look like a carpet bagger anymore than her living in Hurley only two years would.”
Neal reports having lived in the district since 2014.
New Paltz town Councilman Daniel Torres, who worked on the Democratic campaign of Zephyr Teachout in 2016, also attended the Starbucks meeting and was one of several people who noted how often Neal routinely use profanity.
“I thought that her behavior at the meeting was certainly alarming,” he said. “She was cursing, she dropped the ‘ f’ and the ‘c’ word a number of times. At one point she was yelling so loudly we were nearly thrown out of the establishment. ... At one point, she was doing a gross sexual gesture.”
Neal during the Feb. 4 interview also made some crude references, including wondering whether Trump’s “testicle hair” looked similar to the hair on his head.
Torres, who said he had not informed Neal of his position on the New Paltz Town Board or being a past Board of Education trustee, said Neal criticized local municipal officials, referring to New York City as having “a lot of the local politicians ... in their back pocket.”
Melissa Weiss, who is volunteering with the Jeff Beals campaign for the Democratic nod, was also at the Starbucks meeting, called it an “experience,” followed by a sigh of disbelief.
“I wanted to know who was going to represent me and so I really made an effort to hear from all the candidates, so, when Diane Neal threw her hat in the ring, I wanted to hear what she had to say,” she said.
“What I found was she didn’t seem to understand what the dozen or so people there had to say and didn’t seem to understand why we weren’t excited for her, about her, and about the idea that her run could bring new voices into this election,” Weiss said. “I think I was incensed most by her inability to understand the concerns of the people in the roombecause, if you don’t understand the concerns of your constituents, you have no business being in Congress.”
Weiss said if Neal was hoping to benefit from celebrity status she may be in the wrong district because there are enough famous people who have helped the community with a genuine commitment to contributing.
“There’s a lot of celebrities who live in (the 19th Congressional District) and we certainly know who’s here,” she said. “They kind of keep a low profile, but we all kind of know who lives up here. I had no idea until a couple weeks ago ... that she had been living up here.”
Weiss said she was less concerned about Neal’s use of profanity than how the interaction at Starbucks raised questions about the party effort to defeat Faso.
“People encouraged her to jump into the primary, to be one of now seven candidates,” she said. “No one was discouraging her from running in general, they were discouraging her from bypassing the primary process.”
The 19th Congressional District includes part of Rensselaer County, all of Ulster, Greene and Columbia counties, most of Dutchess County and some or all of six other counties.