Political operative Jay Golub is primarily handling the signature gathering operations for Jeff Gottlieb’s congressional campaign in Queens, but he also seems to be handling the press at this point, and earlier this morning, he repeatedly told The Politicker that the various allegations against the campaign will be responded to, just not now.
Notably one of Mr. Gottlieb’s rivals for the Democratic nomination, Assemblyman Rory Lancman, has argued not only that Mr. Gottlieb is part of a plot orchestrated to split the district’s Jewish vote, but is “one of the hackiest hacks in all of hackdom.”
“And what Lancman said about him … I respect the Assemblyman, but his comments have gotten a little too aggressive,” Mr. Golub said. “But Jeff will have a response to this in due time.”
“I mean, he’s only 6 days into this, 7 days,” Mr. Golub further explained when asked why the campaign had been publicly silent until blog reports emerged yesterday morning. “There’ll be more than enough time for him to make announcements later on.”
Mr. Gottlieb’s campaign itself came about rather suddenly. Indeed, he was collecting signatures for one of the other Democrats in the congressional race, Assemblywoman Grace Meng, up until last week. When asked what brought about Mr. Gottlieb’s abrupt decision to campaign for the race himself, Mr. Golub again urged patience.
“This is the kind of thing he’ll address after the petitioning process is over,” he said. “The one thing I can say is he looked around, looked at the candidates who are running, and thought he’d be a very good candidate.”
When asked about City & State‘s report that, according to sources, “Meng backers” attempted to recruit another Jewish candidate into the race before settling on Mr. Gottlieb, Mr. Golub again suggested Mr. Gottlieb’s answers would be coming at a later point in time.
“I really cannot comment on what the Meng campaign did or did not do,” he said. “From my contact with Jeff, he never mentioned it.”
