“Everyone in this room is delusional.”

Tom, an Arte Cafe regular who claims he snuck into the private party being held there Tuesday night, is fighting for purchase around the packed bar. “It’s the Disneyland of delusion to be a Sliwa victory party,” he adds.

The crowd packed into the Upper West Side Italian restaurant on election night to celebrate Curtis Sliwa — a conservative, tough-on-crime fixture in New York City for decades, and the Republican Party’s nominee for mayor — is a comical mix of New Yorkers. Members of The Guardian Angels (Sliwa’s controversial volunteer crime prevention group) mingle in their red berets and blazers. Attendees sporting the jerseys of various New York sports franchises eye each other from across the room. Twenty-somethings who look like they may ha

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