Residents of the 12th New York State Assembly District displayed an overwhelming show of support on election day for incumbent Assemblyman Steven Labriola, who won approximately 3-1 over Democratic opponent Ben Podgor, according to unofficial election results obtained at press time.

Liberal opponent, Robert Barca, trailed behind with approximately 1 percent of the vote.

Labriola, who filled the seat left vacant by long-time Assemblyman Phil Healey in 1996, said he had not expected to win by such a large margin. The life-long Massapequan said he attributes a great deal of his victory to the fact that he established a district office he describes as extremely responsive to the residents' needs and concerns.

"It reaffirms my belief that good government is good politics," he said.

Meanwhile, Podgor said he was disappointed with the results saying that he had hoped to win a higher percentage of votes. "I figured I was going to lose but I didn't want to lose by that margin," he said.

The 80-year-old retired lawyer and certified public accountant, said he did not believe he would run for a legislative seat in the future unless he was backed by a supportive team. "Here I was running by myself," he said. "The people who cheered me on initially didn't do a thing, so unless you have a real team you can't do anything."

Labriola, on the other hand, said he wants to send a "very big thank you to the residents of Massapequa, Farmingdale, Bethpage and Plainedge. I'm humbled by their confidence in me."

As for what he wants to accomplish this term, Labriola said while the state has to continue looking for ways to lessen the burden of taxes, he wants to focus more attention on health care, criminal justice and education reform.

"We've made significant progress in the area of taxes so it allows us to focus on other things now," said Labriola referring to the School Tax Relief (STAR) Program, which lowers property taxes for homeowners.

Labriola said that he believes that the Legislature will work on legislation that will "rein in some of the HMO abuses so that people get the health care they pay for."

Labriola added that although the state made a great deal of progress concerning criminal justice reform by passing Jenna's Law and Megan's Law, more has to be done.

"I think the Republican agenda calls for major criminal justice reform in the area of sexual assault," he said adding that he thinks legislators should aggressively pursue harsher punishments for repeat rapists and pedophiles.

Another issue Labriola said he believes the Legislature will be devoting some attention to will be educational reform.

"We're going to be focusing more on the impact of Regents standards imposed upon the district," he said. "This is something many people are concerned with and we need to watch this very closely because the Regents are putting a tremendous amount of pressure to raise standards on children. We all want higher standards but we have to make sure this is the right way to go."

Podgor said that although he wasn't sure how successful he was in getting his message out, the main issues he focused on during his campaign were health care reform and the Long Island Power Authority's (LIPA) takeover of LILCO. If elected, Podgor said he would have proposed health care reform that would require medical professionals to be responsible for the operation of HMOs as opposed to insurance companies. According to Podgor, this new brand of HMO, a concept he said he developed himself, would not involve the federal government or insurance companies.

In reference to LIPA, he said, "I think that people are being misled. I think it's a fraud." Podgor added that residents will not receive the five year's worth of reductions he said LIPA has promised.

- Jennifer Woods Alexis

Incumbent New York State Senator Charles Fuschillo won by a comfortable margin over Liberal challenger John Hagan who ran on the Democratic and Liberal Lines for the 8th District seat. Fuschillo won with an approximate 63 percent of the vote, according to unofficial election results obtained at press time.

This will be Fuschillo's first full term after having won the seat in a special election in March. The 37-year-old senator filled the vacancy left by the death of Senator Norman Levy.

Despite Fuschillo's victory, Hagan, a retired elementary school principal, said he was surprised and pleased with the election results. "Considering that he was the incumbent and funded and I was really from a third party with comparatively little money to spend, I was pleased with the results," he said.

Meanwhile, Fuschillo said in a pre-election interview, that while he is pleased with the accomplishments of the Legislature over the past two years, more needs to be done. He said he wanted to see New York State continue its tax cutting trend, as well as continue efforts to reform health care, provide more funding for schools and get tougher on crime.

Hagan said he was surprised by how much effort Fuschillo put into his campaign. "He ran quite hard. He spent a lot of money and had very good literature," he said adding that he believed Republicans might have fared better in the state had they been less complacent and involved in Presidential controversy.

Although never elected, Hagan is not new to the campaign trail. Born and raised in the Bronx, he estimates that he has run 20 times for both New York City and Nassau County offices. Hagan said he was pleased that neither he nor Fuschillo resorted to any mudslinging tactics during their campaigns and thought Fuschillo was a "promising figure" on the political scene.

Still, Hagan said that by running against Fuschillo he provided "loyal opposition," as well as gave voters an alternative. As an educator and a senior citizen, he said he could have added a little variety to a Legislature that he says has too many lawyers.

"I think if I were able to get into this campaign more I could have made a big difference," he said. Hagan added, however, that he was glad to have the opportunity to run on the Democratic line and receive what he described as respectable results at the polls.

As of press time, Fuschillo was unavailable for a post-election interview.

- Jennifer Woods Alexis

In the 3rd. Congressional District, which stretches as far northwest as Manhasset and as far southeast as Massapequa, Republican Congressman Peter King of Seaford, who also ran on the Conservative Party line, won by a large margin. He will serve a fourth term in the House of Representatives.

According to unofficial results obtained from the Nassau County Board of Elections at press time, King received approximately 64 percent of all votes. His Democratic Challenger Kevin Langberg of Plainview received approximately 35 percent of all votes, and Liberal candidate Thomas Dilavore received just under 1 percent, according to the unofficial results.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, King said that he was gratified by the election and pleasantly surprised by how large the margin was. "I look upon it as a vote of confidence to continue doing what I've been doing up until now - that is working hard and taking nothing for granted." He added that he was saddened by D'Amato's loss, whom he described as a very old and dear friend. Asked to analyze the loss, King who was with D'Amato and his supporters on election night said, "In New York state, Republicans start off a million votes behind the Democrats. There's a million more Democrats than Republicans in New York, so for a Republican to win in the first place, you have to do everything right, and you have to do something different from your opponent. In other words, you have to be pretty unusual and pretty unique. Al D'Amato was very unusual," he said, adding that the strong points that helped him get elected, such as being outspoken and controversial, worked against him this election. "After 18 years of being controversial, and 18 years of being outspoken, you make a lot of enemies. And your enemies don't forget, and the people you do favors for, the people you have helped, they often forget."

King noted that his own victory will enable him to continue "fighting hard for Long Island," for example, by continuing to win funds for breast cancer studies and beach restoration. In addition, he said, he will continue to work in a bi-partisan way on issues such as Social Security and Medicare, and to "fight to make sure New York gets its fair share." He added, "I think it's an endorsement of my policy of voting with the Republicans on key issues, but on the other hand being willing to reach out and work with Democrats when it's helpful to the district and to New York."

Langberg said Wednesday that the campaign brought to light key middle class issues. "It's always gratifying to see that the issues that were important, hopefully resonated with a lot of residents and through a lot of voters," he said, noting that his top issues include health care, campaign finance reform, preserving Social Security and Medicare, and raising school academic standards, making college tuition tax deductible. "Those are the issues that are really important to families and that's what was important to me, and what spurred me to run for Congress in the first place."

He also indicated a strong interest in the fate of the Democratic Party in Nassau County and noted that he hopes to run for office again some time in the future. "If I run in the future again, these are the issues that I'm going to be speaking about, that really relate to what's going on. I think Peter King is a fine person in his own right, but I don't think the Republican majority [in Congress] is really interested in crafting legislation that really, again relates to working families, because there's such a tilt toward the issues as it relates to southern and western states, and while these issues would be important to them as well, I don't think that they have the same level of concern to representatives down south as they do to Mr. King," he said, adding, "There's such a tilt towards the congressional leadership to the south and the west, and New Yorkers, northeastern, and major urban centers get shut out of the legislative process because the cloud is there."

- Andrea Morale

In the 6th Senatorial District, which stretches as far west as Garden City and as far east as North Massapequa and Farmingdale, Republican Senator Kemp Hannon of Garden City, who also ran on the Conservative line, won after receiving approximately 60 percent of all votes, according to the unofficial results.

Farmingdale resident Anthony Macagnone, the Democratic challenger, received approximately 36 percent. Right to Life Candidate Paul Callahan of Garden City received about 3 percent of the votes. Edna Craig of Hempstead was on the ballot on the Liberal Party line, and she received less than 1 percent of the votes, according to the unofficial results.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Hannon, who has been in office since 1989, noted that he won by a larger margin of votes than he had expected, considering the presence of third and fourth party candidates on the ballot. "The nice part was getting a chance to talk to so many of the constituents during the campaign. That's always a good experience. It gives you a sense of how well you've done, and it also gives you a sense of the agenda for the forthcoming year," he said.

He said the election was a response to the strides New York state has made over the past few years. "I think it was that we had begun to work on the economy in the state. Jobs and taxes had been part of it, and trying to improve the educational system. I think folks were responding to that. And, also, when asked about, well, how do we solve everything, I just pointed out that we're nowhere near where we need to be in terms of jobs and education, and health and all of that. We have to continue to work on them," he said. He added that voters were responding to the way he had served constituents, such as through STAR seminars and numerous traffic light installations.

He noted that in his next term, he plans to focus on such issues as health reform, the funding of education and tax cuts to spur economic growth. He added that he is looking forward to helping SUNY Farmingdale get their biotechnology research and development park constructed. (The state recently allocated $15 million dollars to the project.)

Hannon also complimented his Democratic opponent on what he described as an impressive campaign. "If you have to have an opponent, he was as good an opponent as you could have," he said of Macagnone. "He stuck to the issues. He urged people to vote, and he wanted to address the merits of the topics."

Macagnone, who said he spent only about $120 on his campaign, expressed pride in garnering 36 percent of the votes despite working with limited resources. "I'm a first-time candidate, and to be honest with you, I enjoyed the heck out of it. I met some really good people," he said. "People on Long Island, we need better HMOs - the HMOs need to be enforced more strictly - and Senator Hannon says he going to do it. So, if there's anything good about me running, maybe that's it. Senator Hannon, as I said before, he's a good man, and he cares. So, I didn't lose. I came in second. I mean, I won, I met great people, I had a great experience." He added that he appreciated the support of his wife and daughters, who were the backbone of his campaign.

He also indicated a desire to run for office again. "I hope I have another chance to run for another office, but I also hope more regular people get out and run for offices. It's a good experience. You get to meet people," he said. "People are good, and people want good for their kids, and people want good for everything. It's nice to know there are some good people out there."

Callahan was not surprised with receiving 3 percent of the votes. "That's about average where you have a situation where you don't campaign. It takes a lot of money to really undertake a campaign," he said Wednesday. He also expressed a feeling that his name on the ballot helped get out the Right to Life Party's pro-life message. "Certainly, my ideal goal would be to get elected, but the main theme of being on the Right to Life party is to keep this situation going," he said. He added that, if asked to, he would run again on the Right to Life line.

- Andrea Morale