Today, the nation gathers together in memorium of the countless Americans from all walks of life who lost and gave their lives on — and after — 9/11. In anticipation of this somber day, the New York GOP sent out “a kitchen-sink mailer in the hotly-contested Queens congressional special election depicting a mosque superimposed over the scarred Ground Zero site on one side, and Democrat David Weprin alongside President Barack Obama on the other.” 
 
 The incendiary flierwas sent out on behalf of Republican businessman Bob Turner who is seeking to take former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D) seat. As seen below, the front of the flier features a gold-domed mosque rising out of the ruins of the World Trade Center site with a quote from Weprin stating “I support the right of the mosque to build.” The other side places Weprin next to Obama and reads “Weprin stands with Obama — and they stand together in support of the mosque at Ground Zero”: 
 
 Registered voters in New York congressional district 9 received the mailer “in the past week, landing in the days leading up to the 10th anniversary” of the attacks. It was intended as a “chaser” piece to Turner’s TV ad that blasts Weprin for his support of Park51. Calling it “a purposeful and confrontational act of provocation,” the TV narrator says, “It’s been 10 short years. Everyone remembers. Some, though, want to commemorate the tragedy by building a mosque on Ground Zero.” 
 
 It is important to note that several Republicans like Gen. Colin Powell, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Ted Olson — whose wife died in the attacks — support the construction of the Islamic Center. They join most religious leaders, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and families of the 9/11 victims in support. ||||| New York’s 9th Congressional District isn’t the likeliest place for a national political referendum. 
 
 Vice President Al Gore won it with 67 percent of the vote in 2000, and Barack Obama carried it by 11 percentage points eight years later. It has been held by a string of high-profile Democrats — including Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) — for decades. 
 
 And yet, the special election set for Tuesday in the Brooklyn and Queens areas between state Assemblyman David Weprin (D) and businessman Bob Turner (R) — a race occasioned by the scandal and subsequent resignation of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D) — is surprisingly close, the result, many observers suggest, of the toxic national political environment and Obama’s low poll ratings. 
 
 “Obama wins no popularity contests here,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant in New York. 
 
 In a Siena College poll released late last week, Turner held a six-point edge over Weprin. Obama’s approval rating stood at 43 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. 
 
 “Certainly Obama job approval in the 40s as opposed to 50s depresses the Democratic base,” said one Democratic consultant who is monitoring the race, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the election frankly. “And in a small-turnout electorate, this has consequences.” 
 
 Republicans — and even some Democrats — are painting the race as an Obama referendum. Ed Koch, a Democratic former mayor of New York, endorsed Turner and likened the impact of his possible victory to that of Republican Scott Brown in 2010 in the special Senate election in Massachusetts. A vote for Turner, Koch said, would “register a protest against the positions of President Obama and the Republican leadership on a number of key issues.” 
 
 Even Weprin has been loath to embrace Obama. 
 
 “I will probably not refuse to endorse him, because I think I will be more effective by supporting him, but at the same time being very strongly against him on some of his policies,” he told the Jewish Press recently. 
 
 Putting all of the blame on the president, however, tells only half (or less) of the story, because the Democrats’ situation wasn’t caused by any one factor. 
 
 Although the district is Democratic territory, it is trending toward Republicans. It has a large Orthodox Jewish population that is not thrilled with Obama’s positioning on Israel, as well as large pockets of conservative Catholic voters. (It was the site of the single largest point swing between the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections; after Gore won 67 percent in 2000, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts took 56 percent in 2004.) 
 
 And Weprin is something (well) short of a star candidate, a sort of last-man-standing pick after many preferred candidates took a pass. New York’s congressional delegation is shrinking by two seats because of slower population growth than the national average over the past decade, and many Empire State political observers expect this district to be eliminated in short order. 
 
 Weprin, then, was perhaps the only man who wanted the job. But his lack of campaign skills — he guessed that the national debt was $4 trillion (it’s $14 trillion) and oddly dropped out of a debate at the last minute, citing Hurricane Irene — has created a gaffe-prone image that has further complicated Democrats’ efforts in the district. That he can be linked to the unpopular state capital of Albany — and that he voted in favor of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s legislation that legalized same-sex marriage in the state — only compounds the problem. 
 
 “It was a perfect storm of horrible,” said one Democratic operative who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly sum up the situation. 
 
 National Democrats, sensing the momentum hit the party could take if Weprin loses, have rode to the rescue in recent days — spending nearly $500,000 on television ads designed to turn the tide. 
 
 But there is genuine skepticism that the race can be saved, and an acknowledgment that a loss would create an even more complicated political environment through which Obama — and his newly announced jobs plan — would have to navigate. 
 
 Losing a seat such as this one — despite all of the reasons for such a defeat, outlined above — probably would have a chilling effect on the willingness of Democrats running in vulnerable districts and states to support any aspects of the president’s agenda between now and 2012. And that’s the last thing an embattled White House seeking political allies needs right now. ||||| As the unexpectedly heated race for Anthony Weiner’s old seat draws to a close, POLITICO has obtained a 25-year old child custody ruling that paints Democratic candidate David Weprin in a searingly negative light. 
 
 
 
 The November, 1986 document, provided by a source who asked not to be identified in any way, comes from a sealed case file in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. It is an interim ruling in a case that was, later, resolved in Weprin's favor, with the main judge handling the case later casting serious doubt on allegations made by the politician's ex-wife. 
 
 But in the ruling on Weprin’s suit for expanded custody, Justice Bruce Wright described Weprin as “heedless” of the welfare of his son, who was not yet two, and behaving in a manner that “shocks the conscience.” The judge also describes him “extremely temperamental with a short fuse” – a description backed by his “almost impossible to control” in the court-room. And the ruling describes Weprin’s behavior both as careless – he allegedly left the child with a doorman – and “obsessive”: Weprin allegedly “rushed into the toilet with the child and refused to allow [his ex-wife Roselyn] in or to come out, and [the ex-wife] was compelled to call the police before [Weprin] would exit, although the bathroom was said to be cold.” 
 
 
 
 Weprin’s ex-wife, according to the ruling, at one point recorded a conversation with Weprin’s sister-in-law. 
 
 
 
 “The sad thing is that David is fighting you instead of thinking of the baby’s welfare,” she said, describing Weprin as “like a little child ho cannot deal with certain situations.” 
 
 
 
 Whether voters will, or should, consider such judgments in the context of an incredibly acrimonious divorce – Justice Wright described relations as “warlike” – is an open question, and the outcome of the litigation casts doubts on Wright's ruling. 
 
 
 
 "Accessing court records about a child, possibly illegally, is the ultimate in dirty politics and shows how desperate Republican Bob Turner and his Tea Party allies are to distract from his plan to protect corporate tax loopholes while slashing Medicare and Social Security. Republican Bob Turner must order his staff and allies to stop engaging in these dirty tricks immediately. Voters deserve better," Weprin spokeswoman Elizabeth Kerr said in an emailed statement. 
 
 POLITICO was separately given access to a 1989 ruling by Judge Burton Sherman, the main jurist handling the case. In it, he ruled Weprin's ex-wife had a tendency to "feign and exaggerate" complaints, and that her own attempts to deny her ex-husband custody were "obsessive." A doctor had found, he wrote, that her complaints of paternal abuse had "no basis in reality." Sherman granted Weprin full custody of his son; a source close to the family said the matter later moved to a New Jersey jurisdiction, and the parents agreed to share custody. 
 
 New York readers will also note that the nine-page decision, which begins by quoting from “The Unquiet Grave” and concludes with Dickens, is not exactly an ordinary matrimonial ruling. Justice Wright was a famous and infamous Manhattan Judge – he was a hero to the defense bar and his Harlem base, and loathed by police, prosecutors, and tabloid editorialists, who called him “Turn ‘Em Loose Bruce” for the low bail he set for largely poor, black defendants. His memoir was called, “Black Robes, White Justice.” His son, Keith, now sits with Weprin in the New York State Assembly. 
 
 
 
 Wright was also known as an intellectual and a courtroom character, and those qualities come through clearly in the Weprin ruling. 
 
 
 
 Weprin’s suit for expanded custody rights was, Wright wrote, a “rather useless proceeding more out of detestation for his ex-wife than love and genuin[e] concern for the best interests, emotional and physical welfare of his son.” 
 
 
 
 And he chided both parents. 
 
 
 
 “Both parties have exhibited the arrogance of sovereignty in asserting their claims to their child, as though the little boy is a thing at auction presided over by the court,” he wrote. 
 
 
 
 Wright ruled against Weprin, and added a specific instruction that he not wake the child up or end his feeding prematurely to take his time with his son -- though the case would be resolved, three years later, in the opposite direction. 
 
 UPDATE (9/14): Decisions like this are typically sealed. But this one may have been available in the courthouse: A curious source tell me she visited the courthouse to check, and was given the file upon request.
– Not only did Anthony Weiner lose his own seat, he might have lost it for his party—in a very Democratic district, no less. Republican Bob Turner leads Democrat David Weprin by 47% to 41%, with 7% still undecided, Public Policy Polling finds. Turner’s got a 32-point lead among independents, and he’s even got 29% of Democrats behind him, leaving Weprin with less than 60% support in his own party. The poll ties Turner’s success to anti-Obama sentiment in the area, but the race is also taking a turn for the nasty: ThinkProgress reports that the GOP blanketed the district with a flier portraying a mosque rising from the ashes of Ground Zero, alongside images of Weprin and Obama, with Weprin quoted as saying, "I support the right of the mosque to build." Meanwhile, Politico leaked details of a nasty 1986 custody battle between Weprin and his ex-wife, in which Weprin is described as "heedless" of his toddler's son's welfare. And while Weprin is "something (well) short of a star candidate," writes Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post, the whole race could soon be a moot point: Many expect the district to disappear in redistricting.