All Politics Is Really Local
Who says local races are dull?
Next Tuesday, we savvy, tough-minded, hip-and-not-so-hip, optimistically
pessimistic, cheerfully cranky and thoroughly saturated in noise (political and
otherwise) New Yorkers will hold a primary.
And it’s a really messy one: so many people vying for so few chairs. For a junkie like me, it’s a table groaning
with desserts.
Tip O’Neill, who first coined “All Politics is Local”, lost
his first election for Cambridge City Council.
There is a story about this in Jimmy Breslin’s “How The Good Guys
Finally Won”. After the results were
in, one of O’Neill’s neighbors, who had known him since he was a boy, told him
she hadn’t voted for him. O’Neill was
stunned. “You never asked. And people like to be asked.” After that, O’Neill always asked.
Here, we have absolutely no shortage of ask.
Last weekend, as I walked on the Upper West Side, I found
three City Council candidates within three blocks. A few minutes later, I saw a young volunteer for
a fourth literally running, phone glued to one ear, placard held aloft, to what
was presumably a more favorable location. Fortunately, he seemed to be in good
cardiovascular health.
Personal presence isn’t enough in the modern age. My (paper)
mailbox is filled with glossy post-cards (note to political
consultants—mailboxes often contain unpleasant things like bills, so this may
not be the best medium.) And, I am
bombarded with emails, every single one of them on a first name basis with me,
urging me to stand with, and contribute to, Helen, Bill, Ken, Scott, Mark, Mel,
etc.
One aspirant even managed to wish me Happy New Year, Happy
Rosh Hashanah, and L’Shana Tovah all in the same email, which at least shows me
he has a crack staff with an ethnic thesaurus.
Had a handsome family picture in it (note to crack staff—one of the
family members appears to be wearing what looks like a Christmas sweater.) And, there are the phone calls, many of which
appear as hang-ups on my answering machine.
Another candidate (out of respect, I will not mention a name) has called
almost every day for the past two weeks, urging me to make up my mind. I hate to break it to him, but if he doesn’t
stop I will make up my mind. And then there is the “anyone but Quinn” phone
bank. Those folk are really serious:
Bashar Assad, if it doesn’t work out in Syria, there’s always a home for you.
Of course, those are the Democrats, and as this is a
Democratic town, that’s where most of the action is. But, let us not ignore the GOP, because they
have their own primary. True, there
aren’t a lot of registered Republicans, so, for most races, it’s a little like The Flying Dutchman, the ghost ship
doomed to sail for eternity without ever making port. However, we have a habit of electing, or at
least seriously considering, Republicans for Mayor. That makes the GOP primary where the fun is: the redoubtable Joe Lhota faces off against
the ill-tempered-but-charitable George MacDonald (the founder of the Doe Fund),
and the jolly supermarket and oil billionaire, John Catsimitides. Watching one of their debates, you get the
impression that John and Joe don’t like each other, and George doesn’t like
anyone. This dyspepsia is so great, that
one night, when I was overtired and perhaps mildly hallucinating, I envisioned
the three as malevolent balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Joe might be optimistic these days, because not only is he
highly likely to win his primary, but he has an excellent chance of facing a beatable
candidate. De Blasio, the most liberal of
the legitimate contenders, is on a tear right now; one poll has him at over
40%, which is the threshold for avoiding a runoff. DeB’s politics may be conventional, but he
has a secret sauce: his son Dante’s Afro.
The kid is far better looking than his Dad and a complete star. Quinn and Thompson just don’t have visuals
like that.
But, speaking of visuals, I would like to insert a less than
subtle poke at Lhota; I applaud you for being tech savvy, but I am not
thrilled with the Joe popup ads on my favorite baseball sites. Not only are they arresting in a bad way (I
think that’s where my Macys Balloon dream came from) but you are intruding in
private space. Leads me to believe you
might be a secret Red Sox fan.
Still, Primary Day is next Tuesday, so choices have to be
made. If you are looking for a Syncopated Politics endorsement of any of the
candidates (I know they are all clamoring for one) we don’t do that here. That is both a principled and practical
stance. I have decided on only one vote
so far, and that because one of the candidates running for Manhattan Borough
President is probably my favorite politician in the entire city: a dedicated,
hard-working, impossibly energetic public servant.
For everyone else, I continue to grapple, and especially
with the big kahuna, the Mayor’s race. In
search of answers I have done my own informal poll and found some interesting
trends. Among the “smart and
accomplished women” demographic (I have a thing for smart and accomplished
women) I found a lot less sympathy for Christine Quinn than I expected. There seems to be a consensus that they
really want a first woman Mayor, but maybe Quinn is not that woman. As for de
Blasio, one friend seemed to sum up what I was hearing “I met de Blasio
once. Nice guy, approachable. But I think he's left of where I've ended up
in my old age.” And Thompson doesn’t
fire anyone up, although he got an interesting endorsement from someone I
respect; “crazy race. Vote
Thompson. An adult.”
That “adult” comment resonates with me, because my gut tells
me that that the missing piece in this election is Mike Bloomberg. And I think that is a mistake. Mike Bloomberg was an adult and a good mayor,
just not someone you were going to be emotionally involved with. Mike Bloomberg’s policies are things that
many people would like to see continued.
Tweak them, fix the errors, get rid of some of the overreach, but keep
the core.
Yet Bloomberg is spurned or largely ignored. The Republicans generally praise Bloomberg,
but they do it in a way (“remember the bad old days before Rudy?”) that can be
offensive to Democrats.
The Democrats, on the other hand, use Bloomberg as a foil on
stop and frisk, on charter schools, and as a club to beat Quinn over the head on
her vote to extend term limits. The
Democrats don’t want to be Bloomberg, but it’s not clear what they do want to
be.
So, for the moderate Democrat (New York style moderate) that
tends to decide mayoral elections, both sides seem a little remote.
What is going to happen on Tuesday, and in November? I don’t know, but I will make two
predictions:
The first is that Quinn made an error in judgment. She could easily have said, “yes, even though
we didn’t always agree, we worked together, and I’m proud of the things we accomplished.
My vision is to build on that and improve it.”
Instead, she squandered her chance to be Bloomie’s bridge.
The second is that Lhota, who has a very winnable general
election race, could punt it away. The Times reports that David Koch (a genuine
philanthropist but also of the hard-right billionaire Koch family) and his wife
have just donated nearly $300,000.00 to a new pro-Joe PAC “New Yorkers For
Proven Leadership.” Its first big ad buy
is one featuring Joe as Rudy’s right hand man.
A Lhota, Rudy, Koch team?
That may be a bridge too far.
And I was having such a good time…..
MM
