​No one else seems to be doing it, so let's see what 26-year-old Alex Zablocki (pictured) -- Tea Party person and Republican candidate for Public Advocate -- has been up to. He debated Democrat Bill de Blasio and Socialist Maura Deluca Monday, which didn't get much attention: In fact, Downtown Express reports, an Inside the Actor's Studio filming with Hillary Swank in the same building "drew a much bigger crowd than the would-be advocates," who were attended by less than 30 people. Zablocki, a Staten Islander, said letting cars back on the ferry was "good environmental policy," and that the best president of his lifetime was Bill Clinton...

Thank God for scrappy outsider publications, which give us the stories Big Media won't. The Epoch Times tells us Zablocki wants to make the comptroller second-in-line to mayoral power, which is generous of him, as the public advocate currently fills that role. Though generally sympathetic, the Epoch Times noticed that Zablocki "sometimes speaks in truisms," such as "it ain't over till it's over."

And our favorite neighborhood paper, the Rockaway Wave interviews the candidate, who denounces current PA Betsy Gotbaum in the past tense: "She ran the office like she wanted to run for mayor... She was very Manhattan and Brooklyn centered and she only went after high-profile issues." Conversely, Zablocki plans to put "at least" two representatives in each borough, and insists he doesn't want to run for Mayor. Dream big, kid! It ain't over till it's over!

You may read more of Zablocki's views, and those of other Republican challengers for local office, at a forum Our Town public-spiritedly provides for that purpose.