Politics on the Hudson

   Republican Joe DioGuardi of Ossining stopped off in Albany today as he makes his way around the state to promote his bid for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. DioGuardi said his skills as a certified public accountant are greatly needed in Congress. He served two terms as a U.S. representative in the 1980s.

   “You need an activist back there. Not someone that’s asleep,” he said.

   DioGuardi, who launched his campaign Tuesday at Grand Central Terminal in New York City, explained at length that the U.S. debt is too high and growing rapidly, and what he would do as a senator to turn that around.

   “The problem we have is that we’re spending money we don’t have, we’re borrowing from countries we don’t trust that don’t share our values,” he said.

   “That’s why you need someone like Joe DioGuardi because I went to Congress with this message in 1985 and found out that I was the first practicing certified public accountant ever elected to Congress. What does that tell you?”

   Others Republican hopefuls for the Senate seat include Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef, former Nassau County Legislator Bruce Blakeman, former White House aide David Malpass, and Bush administration adviser Dan Senor.

   DioGuardi said he would vote no on the health-care plan that’s before Congress. He could not support a bill that does not include tort reform or break the insurance-company monopoly, and that front-loads taxes, before people receive any benefits, he said.

   DioGuardi brought a lot of props with him, including art from a magazine article that depicted the debt as a ticking time bomb, a credit-card-like statement that shows an individual  taxpayer’s share of the debt, and a copy of a book he wrote in 1992, “Unaccountable Congress: It Doesn’t Add Up,” which he held up and discussed after chastising his staffers for not leaving a copy of it at the lecturn.

   He  continues to face questions about his famous daughter, Kara, who is a judge on “American Idol.”

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