Why Did Long Island Voters Send George Santos, Or Whatever His Name Is, To Congress?

“There’s No Law Against Lying”

In 2020 the GOP ran a vanity candidate, George Santos, against Democratic incumbent Tom Suozzi. At the time, NY-03, a swing district, included parts of 3 counties— Nassau, Suffolk and Queens— and Suozzi won all 3. District-wide, he won by over 10 points— 208,555 (55.9%) to 161,931 (43.4%) Two years later, several factors had changed. The redrawn district was slightly redder and more concentrated in Nassau County. At the top of the ticket was an incredibly unpopular accidental governor, Kathy Hochul, while Long Island congressman Lee Zeldin was her opponent. Tom Suozzi, having unsuccessfully primaried Hochul, wasn’t running for his seat again. Instead the Democrats nominated a lackluster party hack, Robert Zimmerman— a former fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign— in a primary that yielded him 9,482 votes (35.8%). His general election campaign was as pathetic a joke as his opposition research was. In 2020, Suozzi spent $2,331,302 to Santos’ $591,239. In 2022, the two candidates were more evenly matched, spending just over $3 million each. Suddenly Santos wasn’t a vanity candidate any longer and wasn’t running against a well-known and much-liked incumbent.

The incredibly sketchy finances of this election are going to be thoroughly examined by the FEC, FBI, New York Attorney General, Nassau County District Attorney, Queens County District Attorney and the House Ethics Committee. Did Sam Bankman-Fried buy a congressional seat? Did the Kremlin buy the same seat? What other shady special interests funneled money into the NY-03 campaign? Those are the most important questions in the George Santos story, but the ones that get the least attention from the media, which is obsessing over his lies instead.

• A stint as a drag queen

• His mother’s death

• A hefty salary

• A career selling yachts

• A real estate empire

• His campaign cash

• His inflated resume

• An early Wall Street career

• An animal rescue charity

• A Covid-19 diagnosis

• Ties to the Pulse nightclub shooting

• His “Jewish” heritage

• His marriage

• His criminal background

The time those lies could have been, and should have been, exposed was during the campaign when independent and swing voters were making up their minds. Zimmerman— not to mention the reliably incompetent DCCC and a lazy media looking to be spoon-fed their stories— failed spectacularly. Meanwhile, Santos rolled out endorsement after endorsement to make himself look like a normal Republican candidate. Long Island’s horribly corrupt law enforcement organizations endorsed him, one after the other.

And so did establishment politicians. Nassau’s County’s best-known Republican, former Congressman Peter King, endorsed him. Last week King wrote an OpEd for the NY Times, Why George Santos Won’t Be Able to Fake His Way Through Congress, calling on Santos to resign or for Congress to expel him and noting that there is “a potential political disaster looming for House Republicans, who run a real risk of losing their House majority because of this albatross called Santos… Republican congressional leaders must make it clear they also want him gone and quickly call for a full and complete investigation by the Ethics Committee, which has the authority to recommend expulsion. Failure to do what’s morally and politically right could cause voters across New York to punish Republican officeholders in a presidential election year because the GOP did not find a way to dump Santos.”

Kevin McCarthy not only didn’t do what King suggested, he defended Santos’ right to be in Congress and gave him two committee assignments, including one, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, where he will be privy to classified information of interest to his Russian benefactors.

And, although a handful of Republicans, overwhelmingly in swing seats that lean blue, have called on Santos to resign, members who endorsed him like Nicole Malliotakis (Staten Island) and Ronny Jackson (Amarillo) are still standing behind him.

So are well-known abnd credible-- at least among Republican voters-- Santos endorsers like former New York multi-term Governor George Pataki, former Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and the Trump regime’s in-house MAGA-gay character, Ric Grennell.

In talking with friends around the country in the last couple of weeks, I noticed that many of them had never heard of Santos— so they’re obviously not reading DWT, which has 33 stories featuring Santos between December and today— but that’s changing now. Even Fox News is covering him now, which may have evangelicals scratching their heads.

And last night Santos was the star of Saturday Night Live. Early this morning, the NY Times reported that Bowen Yang appeared as Santos in the opening sketch, and again in a desk-side segment on Weekend Update.

When Mikey Day (playing the TV analyst Howie Long) introduced a new sideline reporter with an impressive list of credentials— “Heisman Trophy winner, more championships than Tom Brady”— it turned out to be Yang in his first go-round as Santos.

Reminded of his claims that he was the first player to lead the league in rushing and passing, Yang answered: “That’s correct. I’m sort of the real Bo Jackson. And I’m proud to be the first African American quarterback to ever dunk a football.” (He also said he had attended and played sports at “the University of College.”)

He also denied that he had been a drag performer under the name Kitara Ravache. But, Yang added, “Whoever did, though, was very, very good at it and won many, many pageants.”

A few minutes later, Yang returned as Kitara Ravache, claiming the camera away from a confused Ego Nwodim (playing the sportscaster Pam Oliver).

“I’m not George,” Yang said, “I’m Kitara,” noting that his statistics in that field included 26 Death Drops, 19 Duck Walks and “infinity” Wigs Snatched, as well as “the award for tightest tuck.”

It was also “news” that Yang was interviewed by Colin Jost, who “quizzed him about his false professional and personal claims. I’m sure The Times will sooner or later expose the whole straw donor money laundering scheme that got Santos into Congress last enough to vote for Kevin McCarthy for speaker. (And, by the way, he now admits he liked dressing up in women’s clothes for fun, but still claims, falsely, that he wasn’t a drag queen.)