Kruger Opponent Drops Out Of Race

We wanted to check in with Igor Oberman, the Russian-American attorney who announced in April that he’d be running against State Senator Carl Kruger. So when we reached out to him late last week, we were disappointed to receive a note over the weekend saying, “I have dropped out of the race. It was a hard decision but I felt a primary with Sen. Kruger would be too disruptive to the thin democratic majority in the Senate.”

We didn’t get anything else out of him, but hopefully we can pick his mind soon.

In the meantime, New York Observer has got our Oberman fill. And what we see is that Oberman appears to be getting the swing of Albany politics without even being there. How else do you explain an outsider candidate who railed against the incumbent’s unwillingness to respond to his constituent’s needs suddenly drop out by citing party allegiance and then backing the incumbent?

Oh, you didn’t know? He’s backing Kruger now:

“It wasn’t the right time to do a challenge. There is too thin of a Democratic majority right now, and with the budget the way it is it wasn’t time to go forward,” Oberman said.

Oberman insisted that no one pressured him to drop out of the race–“People always think there was some kind of backroom deal,” he said. “That wasn’t the case–” and he said he now supported Kruger’s re-election.

“I believe he is someone important to Brooklyn and the Democratic majority,” he said. “There was room at the table for another person, but at this point I would say that we need someone like him representing Brooklyn.”

Oberman told the Observer that he’s planning another political foray in the future, and that redistricting following the census results would mean more opportunities for Russian-Americans in the area. But it remains to be seen if his sudden commitment to Kruger and the “thin Democratic majority” will hurt or help him in a district where residents clamor for a choice.