The New York Post has a long history of antagonizing Sheldon Silver, so it should come as no surprise that in the race to succeed him the paper has taken aim at Alice Cancel, the Democratic candidate who won her nomination with the visible support of Silver’s chief Judy Rapfogel and other loyalists from Grand Street’s Truman Democratic Club.

Yesterday the Post ran an article saying that Cancel “appears to be in hiding” citing a few sources — and political opponents — who claim she has not been campaigning for the special election on April 19.

Cancel replied today with a string of tweets from her little-used handle, explaining that an unspecified illness has kept her from campaigning:

I want to state that I am not in hiding. Unfortunately, I have been sick and unable to keep to the intense campaign schedule required of all candidates participating in the special election. So simply put, I’ve been trying to balance my health needs with that of the campaign.

I am working diligently going door to door to speak to my neighbors about my qualifications and commitment to the district that I lived in for 40 years and represented, in part, for 24 years as the Democratic District Leader.

Meanwhile, in a bit of political mischief, someone has registered domain names like alicecancel.com and cancelforassembly.com and redirected those URLs to the Post article. The Post claimed not to be able to find an Alice Cancel website; I admit I could not either until the Lo-Down pointed me in the right direction: alicecancel.businesscatalyst.com.

Finally, the New York Observer today highlighted the involvement of one of Sheldon Silver’s staffers in Cancel’s campaign: Monica Guardiola, who worked as Silver’s Hispanic liaison, is Cancel’s treasurer and scheduler. But Guardiola also has her own ties to Cancel through the Lower East Side Democratic Club, where she is president and Cancel has been district leader for 26 years.

It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks whether Cancel’s opponents can credibly link her to the convicted former speaker … and whether the connection will hurt or help her on April 19.