In New York's 7th Senate District -- VOTE!

Now's The Time For All Good Men -- And Women -- To Come To The Aid Of Community

We wanted to say something passionate, or at least witty, in the hope of getting electors of the 7th SD out of their warm beds and into the voting booths; to engage in the ultimate rite of democracy. Alas, Joye Brown of Newsday beat us to the punch.

If you live in the 7th, today is the day. [For everyone else, its merely Day Thirty-Seven!]

Get out there, for all that is dear and sacred -- if only to make a statement about Long Island's future -- and VOTE!

We're counting on you, voters of the 7th SD, so please, make your vote count. . .
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C'mon, voters, you must take the plunge
Joye Brown

Baby, it's cold outside. So cold, it's going to be hard to swap a warm (for most of us, anyway) house for a cold car.

So cold, that voters in the 7th Senate District in Nassau County are going to be tempted to stay home.

Don't do it.You'll hate yourself in the morning if you let a little bone-rattling weather get in the way.

I know; but more on that later.Today, voters could help Joseph Mondello, the new state and longtime county Republican chairman, get off to a strong start. If Republican Maureen O'Connell wins, Mondello's the man.

And that could end the reign of Jay Jacobs, the county's Democratic chairman. If Democrat Craig Johnson loses, Jacobs told me yesterday, he's toast. Voters could help Eliot Spitzer, the state's new Democratic governor. Or slay Spitzer's dream of building a Democratic Senate to push his agenda.The race is bigger than one state Senate district.

It must be to attract so many millions of dollars and not one, but two U.S. presidential contenders, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani, to Long Island in one day. Yesterday, Clinton, who stood on a stage in Elmont with just about every local Democratic bigwig imaginable, endorsed Johnson.

A few hours later, Giuliani, who stood beside his fellow Republican at a Long Island Rail Road station in Floral Park, endorsed O'Connell.The issues? For some, it will be opposition to adding a third track to the Long Island Rail Road; for others, it will be to support stem cell research.

For just about everybody else, it will be opposition to the growing property tax burden, which both candidates promise to tackle.The choice - in a special election where only about 10 percent of registered voters usually turn out - is supposed to be O'Connell versus Johnson.

But for many on this day, when the wind is supposed to make temperatures feel below zero, it will be civic duty versus creature comforts.To chill, or not to chill, that is the question.

And it's one I'd like district residents to answer with absolutely no regret.

On Sunday, I had planned to join the crowd frolicking in the Atlantic Ocean with the Long Beach Polar Bears.

It seemed like a good idea at the time."Go big or go home," my daughter told me, after I said the minimum I would do was lose the coat and run both feet into the frigid waters."

If you get sick, it's your fault," my husband chimed in, with a reminder that I was less than one week recovered from a wicked cold.

The drive to Long Beach, on a clear, sunny, bitterly cold afternoon, was easy. The same could not be said of the walk from the car to the beach.The waves were churning. The wind was blowing. The crowd was big and raucous, and growing.Then came the time to tackle the cold and the ocean, to run wild, run free with Polar Bears, young and old.

I choked. I watched everyone else go in, but stayed at the water's edge. And let the weather take me down. It's a decision I regret, but I'll have a chance to make good next year.

For voters in the 7th Senate District, however, there's just one cold day.

And only one chance.

joye.brown@newsday.com

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.