#JOURNALISM: A friend writes:

Curtis Sliwa’s coverage of this election from his perch at WABC-Radio illustrates a couple of things:

1. That age, experience, and knowledge of history MATTER….deeply
and that

2. What they **used to** preach at Columbia J School is so true: You have to GO THERE. You have to see everything from ground level, you have to walk the streets, you have to wear out your shoes, you have to keep your eyes and ears open.

Sliwa, aged 68 (and 3/4), is the only talking head I know of who was skeptical of a Zeldin victory and his analysis this morning outlining how he arrived at that prediction is full of concrete, ground-level anecdote and knowledge of New York gubnatorial races past.

To any one I know who’s “getting up there” or is “up there” and worrying that you are irrelevant: The eternal verities ARE the eternal verities. Krime Wave Kathy Hockum won, he says, because she salted money all over upstate and then brought a ferocious old-fashioned, door-knocking ground game to “hipster millenial” (Curtis’s term) neighborhoods in Brooklyn. He saw both of these strategies in action with his own eyes because he’s not afraid of hard work and because he’s insatiably curious. His body is a wreck. He still lives with the effects of being hit in the gut at close range by a Mafioso’s exploding bullet, but he is driven by his soul.

So do not be intimidated. OWN your time on the planet with the arrogance it deserves. Sliwa does everything with a “listen to me” swagger and he gets so much air time at top-rated WABC that he jokes “ABC” stands for “Always Broadcasting Curtis.” They’ve ceded him so much air time because of predictions like this.

And, well, don’t get cocky.

Related: Salena Zito: Trump’s shadow loomed over Pennsylvania’s Republican bloodbath. She, too, actually talks to people.