BAY RIDGE: Ridge Dems toast Bam at convention bash

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By Will Bredderman

Brooklyn Daily

True blue Brooklynites cheered on President Obama as he accepted the Democratic nomination on Thursday, holding a mini-Democratic National Convention in GOP-controlled Bay Ridge.

Democrats packed the Longbow Pub and Pantry on Third Avenue and toasted Obama as he defended his first four years in the White House and outlined his plans for his next term.

“It was absolutely electric,” said Justin Brannan, the president of Bay Ridge Democrats, who said that President Obama’s message of national cooperation over individualism resonates with Bay Ridge’s tight-knit, middle-class community. “Everyone here looks out for one another because we know that together we are better than we are on our own. That’s what Bay Ridge is about,”

Bay Ridge, which is represented by state Sen. Marty Golden, Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, and Rep. Michael Grimm — all Republicans — has long been considered the GOP’s base of operations in Southern Brooklyn, but President Obama won the neighborhood, as well as Dyker Heights and Coney Island, in 2008 by a slim 5,000-vote margin.

Still, Bay Ridge Democrats predicted that thousands more residents will vote for Obama come November.

“I think there are actually way more Obama supporters in our neighborhood now than there were four years ago,” said resident Tara Lee Cernacek Miller.

Still, the President might have a tough fight ahead of him: Two years after voters gave Obama the keys to the Oval Office, Grimm defeated incumbent Democrat Mike McMahon on a campaign that criticized the Commander in Chief’s healthcare reform plan.

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