Gounardes and Barkan close in on each other as prelude to closing in on Golden

Democrat hopefuls vying to defeat Marty Golden in November blasted him at their September debates leading up to the Democrat Primary

During their debate before the United Chinese Association of Brooklyn,  both Andrew Gounardes and Ross Barkan strongly condemned Golden’s record, promising that, if elected, they would each bring change to the district 

Here's Julianne McShane's take on the United Chinese Association of Brooklyn Debate held in Gravesend last week, as it appeared on the front page of this week's "Bay Ridge Courier"  ---  "The two Democrats looking to unseat Bay Ridge’s Republican state senator went toe-to-toe last week trying to prove who is more battle-tested to take on the political behemoth that is Marty Golden....   Both County-backed candidate Andrew Gounardes and upstart former journalist Ross Barkin claimed they’d been battling the eight-term incumbent for years and were therefore [each] better suited to be the Democrats’ standard bearer in November...."  (See "Golden boys: Dem candidates vying to defeat Marty blast incumbent at debate"  by Julianne  McShane,  9/5/18,  Courier Life’s Brooklyn Daily   [www.brooklyndaily.com/stories/2018/36/br-golden-election-dem-debate-2018-09-07-bk.html]).

McShane highlights Gounardes

 

Here’s how Ms. McShane used Mr. Gounardes’ own words to describe essential aspects of that candidate:   “….Machine-backed candidate Andrew Gounardes summed up the night’s fight in his closing statement at an Aug. 28 debate at the United Chinese Association of Brooklyn in Gravesend, acknowledging that he and his opponent, former journalist Ross Barkan, share similar policy platforms, and that Democratic voters should choose the candidate they think has a better chance of defeating the beleaguered incumbent in November….   ‘This campaign is about ideas, and Ross and I probably agree on 90 or 95 percent of all our ideas, so there’s not much of a difference between us,” Gounardes said. “The choice that you have to make in this room is who has the better vision and who has the better campaign to unseat Marty Golden?’…”

Then she highlighted Barkan

She then did the same vis a vis candidate Ross Barkan, as follows:   “Barkan pointed out that dislike of the incumbent was common among everyone in the room, but said that the race comes down to the candidates’ different ideas about what the district could become. He touted his status as a political outsider who could shake up the neighborhood and emphasized his support for universal healthcare, housing and accessible transportation….   ‘Everyone here agrees Marty Golden is an abomination — we don’t have to go much further than that, we know why he’s bad. But this is about offering a vision for this district,’ Barkan said. ‘We’ve got to run on ideas, we’ve got to run on a vision, we have to live our values. We cannot do things as they’ve been done before and hope for the same result, that’s not how it works.’…”

Both  Gounardes and Barkan made Golden their prime target during their debate in Gravesend

Ms. McShane made it clear that,  even though Gounardes and Barkan were debating each other,  the person who was the clear target of both debaters was incumbent State Senator Martin Golden;   with both of the Democrat aspirants claiming that they have been directly confronting Mr. Golden about his record and stands on the issues for years.