What the George Santos discourse is missing

Many of us in Nassau County, myself included, are disgusted by the lies that Republican congressman George Santos has been spewing on a near-daily basis. Like many others, I would like to see Santos resign.

But this isn’t about Santos. We need to begin a conspicuously absent conversation about the Democratic incompetence that led to Santos being a factor in the first place.

It’s an important discussion for Democrats to have, not least because the next George Santos may not be such a liar. The goal of Democrats should be to decisively defeat Republicans because of better ideas, not to pin hopes on sporadic scandals in order to notch victories.

The narrow focus on Santos as an unprecedented liar blurs that goal. For me, Santos’ lies just made him worse; it was his policies, which would increase inflation and put doctors in jail for giving abortions, that made him a deal-breaker. Santos shouldn’t be in office, not because he lies a lot (though that’s part of it), but simply because he’s a cruel politician.

So how did Democratic incompetence lead us to Santos? Well, in January 2022, Robert Zimmerman announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 3rd Congressional District. Zimmerman wasn’t well known, but he has been a member of the Democratic National Committee for over two decades.

Zimmerman hadn’t run a campaign since Ronald Reagan was in office, and he had lost all three of his previous elections. To call him vulnerable was an understatement. But the New York State Democratic Committee nevertheless coaxed some serious endorsements to get “their man” into office — including one from Hillary Clinton — and it worked. Zimmerman became the Democratic nominee with just 36 percent of the vote in the party’s primary.

Predictably, Zimmerman went on to lose to Santos by 7.5 percentage points. He received 40 percent fewer votes than Tom Suozzi did in defeating Santos in 2020. Most important, Zimmerman failed to expose Santos’ fraud before the election. Zimmerman claims his campaign “didn’t have the time or money” to “dig