"We Are Toast"

     As is often the case with my native city of New York, the mayoral race has been a circus. With the wannabes, crooks and also-rans that had thrown their hat in the ring, one is almost surprised Wilson Fisk (a more successful and slightly less evil version of Donald Trump) isn't in the running.

     The race has come down to three men- Zohran Mamdani, the Queens assemblyman, former NY Governor Andrew Cuomo and aging vigilante Curtis Sliwa. A couple of weeks ago, indicted criminal and lame duck Mayor Eric Adams dropped out to the surprise of no one. Adams, who couldn't even be credibly defined as a Democratic centrist, saw his charges suddenly dropped by the DOJ, who didn't even pretend to hide their real reasons for doing so. Since being sworn in as mayor nearly four years ago, Adams has waged a cruel and nasty campaign opposing immigration and the homeless, even kicking them out of the subways. In other words, a stooge earning him Trump's admiration.

     Mamdani sent shock waves all over the country by handily defeating Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary last summer, forcing Cuomo to run as an Independent. But Cuomo is saddled with more baggage than JFK International. During the first year of the pandemic, he held daily press conferences and lambasted Trump for his criminal neglect of the health crisis. In 2020, Cuomo delivered a pretty convincing impersonation of a Democrat.

     Then the allegations came out. Cuomo had been sandbagging  the actual fatality numbers in nursing homes. Then the sexual harassment allegations came out. Cuomo resigned in disgrace as governor.

     Since then he's changed his tune. We started hearing stories about Cuomo reaching out to Trump for help in his Hindenburg of a campaign.  We heard similar accounts of Eric Adams reaching out to Trump administration officials, angling for a possible job (which hasn't materialized, yet) in exchange for his dropping out of the race.

     In other words, two of the three Democrats then in the race had begged Trump for succor. Surely, a deep blue city like New York can do better than that. I blame the party bosses. Old Tammany Hall's looking real good right now.

     Now Bill Ackman, a right wing billionaire, is wading into the race and he's calling on Curtis Sliwa to drop out, which he firmly refuses to do. Ackman is basically telling us that the real Republican in race is Cuomo. Which may be true. Four years ago, Sliwa got 27% of the vote in the last mayoral election. But he's still a political neophyte and he's not resonating with the voters. Ackman is saying that if Sliwa doesn't drop his vanity campaign, "we are toast". Meaning not New Yorkers but Republicans, of whom Cuomo is their unofficial standard-bearer.

 

     But Ackman isn't paying attention. Even if Sliwa drops out and every one of his voters go with Cuomo, their numbers combined still wouldn't come close to beating Mamdani. In that event, it would be a 52-42 split, according to the latest push poll numbers.

     Ackman also has obviously never heard the truism that if you give Republican voters a choice between a real Republican and a Democrat who acts like one, Republican voters will go with the real thing every fucking time.

     And machine Democrats and Republicans alike have found some common ground. They're both terrified of Mamdani moving into Gracie Mansion not because they're scared a Democrat will win but because they're scared that a real Democrat will. And they're used to having ineffectual Democratic mayors. It could be said that the last real and strong Democrat New York City has had was LaGuardia.

     Mamdani would (and will) be the leader of 8.5 million people in the nation's largest city. He's addressing homelessness, spiking rents, food insecurity, problems that have plagued the city for decades. Party bosses on both sides don't want that. The last thing they want to see is the "second toughest job in the country" being tackled by a Socialist. Because in order for Mamdani to pay for all his sweeping initiatives, he'd have to raise taxes on the 1%, of which New York City has more than its fair share. 

     With Cuomo, who hasn't a prayer of winning, they'd get the same old, same old just they did when he was in Albany.

     But New York voters generally aren't stupid. Historically, they're always been politically engaged and savvy (Giuliani and Bloomberg notwithstanding). And on November 4th, despite hysterical bloviating from Trump and Ackman, I'm sure New Yorkers will vote their conscience and do the right thing.