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very modest. It was also on wall Street, I must say -- 52 Wall Street -- but obviously very modest, and I'm probably in shirt sleeves, and there is this Daily News reporter who really doesn't like the pomposity of this Wall Street law office that Seymour has and in my judgment is already on my side, just simply because he comes from the same milieu that I come from and not from Seymour's. And what really pissed him was: he said to Seymonr -- and he repeated it to me -- “Tell me something about your background.” And Seymour says, “Well, when my mother was enceinte [for those who are listening; pregnant] with me, she went back to the family estates in Virginia so that I could be born there, and I trace my lineage back to the Revolutionary war.” The Daily News reporter says to me, “How far can you trace your lineage?” I said, “Well, I think the best I could do is back to Ellis Island.” (laughs) And since that's as far back as he could trace his, the reporter loved it: he loved it. That was really the nature of the campaign always between Seymour and myself. I structured it that way because it was me and it was him. It wasn't a phony operation.

It was best typified by something that Seymour did, which was the following: He sends me a letter after first releasing it with the local press, which goes something like this: “The 17th Congressional district, the silk stocking district, has always been ahead of its time and always had the highest standards. And