Election Eve

 

It's finally starting to look really possible that Zohran Mamdani will win the Democratic primary in the New York mayoral race: in its final poll before Election Day tomorrow, Emerson College's simulation of the rank choice outcome has him winning, for the first time, in the eighth round, 52-48. It's a nice illustration of how the system works, with the lowest-performing candidates dropped out and the votes distributed to voters' second and third and so on choices, until one of the candidates crosses the 50% mark:

I had a sense of how something like this could happen; Cuomo, running especially on name recognition, is mostly a first choice, more often of voters who didn't rank anybody else—he has fewer votes to pick up in the subsequent rounds. Mamdani, attractive but seen as a bit of a gamble, gets a lot of third and especially second choices behind candidates seen as safer, Adrienne Adams and Brad Lander, the best qualified by conventional measures. I can see my own vote (in the end I decided to rank Lander first) moving into Mamdani's column in the last two rounds. In that big jump putting Mamdani over the top, you can see how the cross-endorsement strategy was supposed to work.

New York Note

@zohran_k_mamdani

Los neoyorquinos latinos son el corazón de esta ciudad y merecen un alcalde que les hable directamente. Este vídeo es un esfuerzo a presentar nuestra visión a la comunidad latina, para que podamos trabajar juntos para construir la ciudad que todos merecemos. Latino New Yorkers are the heart of this city — and they deserve a mayor who will speak to them directly. This video is an effort to introduce our vision to the Latino community, so we can work together to build the city we all deserve.

♬ original sound - Zohran Mamdani

This is pretty irritating, from the New York Times Editorial Board keeping its promise not to endorse any candidates in local elections any more:

Given those polls [showing Cuomo and Mamdani dominating over the other nine candidates] the crucial choice may end up being where, if at all, voters decide to rank Mr. Cuomo or Mr. Mamdani. We do not believe that Mr. Mamdani deserves a spot on New Yorkers’ ballots. His experience is too thin, and his agenda reads like a turbocharged version of Mr. de Blasio’s dismaying mayoralty. As for Mr. Cuomo, we have serious objections to his ethics and conduct, even if he would be better for New York’s future than Mr. Mamdani.

For any voters tempted to leave both off their ballots, it is important to understand that this decision would be tantamount to expressing no preference between the two. It is similar to voting for neither major-party candidate in a traditional election. 

"We refuse to choose, because it's beneath our awesome dignity, but if you follow our example you're a moral coward. Also, you should choose the ethically challenged Cuomo." As they make clear by devoting three paragraphs to Zohran Mamdani's shortcomings, condemning his ideology, policy ideas, and inexperience, and the way he reminds them of de Blasio, and just one to Andrew Cuomo's—the issue of his weird though probably not criminal mistreatment of women, over which he resigned from the state governorship four years ago, on the advice of this same editorial board, which now seems to think that was less serious a fault than advocating a minimum wage hike or free buses, as Mamdani does.

In the first place, the argument is bullshit. It's a rank-choice vote among 11 candidates, and it is not similar to voting for neither major-party candidate in a traditional election. With the much smaller (and better informed) turnout you expect in a primary, and only Democrats voting in New York's closed-primary system, it's easy to imagine one or two of the other candidates emerging if enough people decided not to rank the two frontrunners, and if the frontrunners are as bad as the board seems to think they are, that's what the board ought to call for, instead of using this backhanded technique of pushing us in one direction.

Then, Cuomo's ethical failings aren't limited to the #MeToo moments that helped to drive him out of office. In the middle of his first term as governor, in 2013, he named what's called a "Moreland Commission" in New York to fight corruption in state government, then abruptly shut it down halfway through its 18-month appointed lifetime. It later became apparent that Cuomo and his aides had never really allowed it to function, as The Times reported:

New York Note: More Andrew

David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo, election night 2010. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images via Politico.

Governor David Paterson (who succeeded after Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign) on the radio talking about the Cuomo-Hochul situation tells some great stories about Cuomo, in particular:

When word began circulating that Spitzer (then attorney general) was going to choose Paterson (then Senate minority leader) as running mate in the 2006 gubernatorial election, which was a huge public surprise, Cuomo gave him a call: "You can't pick David Paterson, he's got all this baggage that's bound to come out, an African American is going to bring down the ticket," etc., etc. Then, after the choice was announced, he called back to say, "Don't tell David I said that!"

"Sorry," said Spitzer, "we already told him." Immediately Cuomo was on the phone to Paterson, saying, "David, David, it's not true, I never said that!"

Which was sort of a tell (how, in that case, would Cuomo have known that he was accused of saying it?). "I never trusted Andrew for anything after that," Paterson said. 

It's possible, IMO, and hinted at here, that in the 2010 campaign, which started off with Attorney General Cuomo investigating Governor Paterson over an incident in which Paterson may have pressured a woman to drop her domestic violence case against an aide of his, David Johnson, continued with President Obama asking Paterson to drop out of the governor race, and finished with Cuomo running, successfully, for governor himself, Cuomo played a pretty unsavory role in bringing about this result (LA Times reported after Paterson dropped out that Cuomo was "practicing cartwheels in Albany today"). He certainly didn't continue the investigation of Paterson, which he should have done if he really believed Paterson might have been tampering with a witness in a criminal case.

Paterson was unpopular (not with me!) and seemed likely to lose to Rudolph Giuliani in the November election (except Giuliani ended up not running), so in terms of the politics I guess it was OK that Paterson was forced out, but I do wonder about that. At this point there isn't much ill you can say about Andrew that I'm not willing to believe.

New York Note: Excelsior

 

Brouwerij Corsendonk, Turnhout, Belgium.

Just a note for the pleasure of having a scoop:

Following a lengthy statement of what sounded like his defense against a criminal case and followed by a less lengthy statement of what a great governor he's been (tbf there have been real accomplishments). And apology for "mistakes".

— CHANNEL YOUR PARANOIA (@Yastreblyansky) August 10, 2021

Excelsior!

— CHANNEL YOUR PARANOIA (@Yastreblyansky) August 10, 2021

"Excelsior!" (Higher! or Upwards!) is the official New York state motto, which he used in his peroration of thanks to New York for its heroic response to the Covid pandemic. It was weird, and it would indeed have been easy to miss the resignation bit, which had to do with how competent the lieutenant governor is (I thought he was talking about a temporary pull-back during the coming impeachment, which I think would be mandated under the state constitution) and the inevitable not wanting to be a "distraction" during this time of crisis with the Delta and all.

I'm certainly very glad, for all of us (including him!) and for the state's Democrats, who really shouldn't have to be thinking about him as we prepare for next year's election of—I hope—somebody else (on my radio, they're starting to wonder if he's planning to go on an apology tour and then run again—no! no! no!). 

And just for the fun of it, this peak New York Times fact check (caught by Matthew Yglesias):

One employee said she was concerned because she thought a vaccine had caused the characters in the film “I Am Legend” to turn into zombies. People opposed to vaccines have circulated that claim about the movie’s plot widely on social media. But the plague that turned people into zombies in the movie was caused by a genetically reprogrammed virus, not by a vaccine.

Also, some Twitter participant points out,  they turned into vampires, not zombies. BUT THAT'S NOT WHY THE EMPLOYEE SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CONCERNED. WHAT THE EMPLOYEE NEEDED TO KNOW WAS NOT THE DETAILS OF THE I AM LEGEND SCRIPT. THE EMPLOYEE NEEDED TO KNOW THAT NOBODY EVER TURNS INTO A ZOMBIE BECAUSE ZOMBIES DON'T EXIST! FFS.

It's so crazy how these people—Politifact is a frequent offender—seem to have no concept of what a fact check is meant to accomplish.

Not Good

 

Text messages from a Cuomo accuser, via Gothamist.

Do we have to talk about Andrew? I'm afraid we do, just briefly.

This case seems to me different from all the other cases from harassment to assault, in a very particular way. Not that it's worse, though it's certainly very bad and I think Cuomo should resign now and will certainly get impeached if he doesn't.

It's that it's so textbook, if I can put it that way. Like so many of us, I have to go through this annoying harassment "training" every year, sometimes the one for managers, mostly watching videos and taking quizzes cumulating with a final test where you have to score 100%. It's irritating and repetitive. The filming and acting aren't great, though I'd like to shout out a couple of actors, one terrific trans woman with the courage to look really plain and irritable and office-workery, not even slightly exotic, and the asshole who keeps asking her horribly inappropriate questions, who gets a wonderful wistful look when he's getting chewed out ("We're not allowed to joke?") that makes you see him being an asshole because he thinks assholes are probably more attractive than he is—which doesn't mean his behavior should be tolerated, it shouldn't, but allows you a glimpse of the fact that he's still human.

Covid vs. Fervid

 

Siyum haShas observances—the day everybody finishes the last page of the Talmud at the end of a seven-and-a-half year cycle—at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, 2012. Some religions really are fun, I get that. Via KVPR radio, California.

The Supreme Court's ruling in favor of two applications for "relief" from the threat of Governor Andrew Cuomo, one from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, one from the ultra-orthodox Agudath Israel organization and their Kew Gardens synagogue, that he might at some point go back to issuing restrictions on the number of people allowed to attend religious services in a given area, to 25 people for an "orange zone" and 10 people for a "red zone", even though they allowed the governors of California and Nevada to do the same thing in May and June, and even though it's not actually going to happen

In a letter to the court last Thursday, Barbara D. Underwood, New York’s solicitor general, said that revisions to the color-coded zones effective Friday meant that “none of the diocese’s churches will be affected by the gathering-size limits it seeks to enjoin.” The next day, she told the court that the two synagogues were also no longer subject to the challenged restrictions.

(yes, there's a new justice since June, and she's said to be very big on what they now call "religious freedom") is smelling as good as roast turkey to some of the usual suspects, and has got my proverbial goat:

New York note

Hick's Orchard, Middle Granville.

In somewhat pleasant news from Albany, the the eight members of the "Independent Democratic Caucus" in the State Senate have abruptly decided to abandon their unholy coalition with the Republican majority, dissolve themselves, and rejoin the Democratic Party; Andrea Stewart-Cousins will continue as minority leader and IDC chief Jeff Klein will serve as her deputy. If the indications are correct and the Democrats win the two special elections in the Bronx and Westchester on April 24, she will be the majority leader, and the first woman ever to be one of the "three (or four) men in a room" who make all the real policy decisions in this traditionally not very small-d democratic state.

They were going to do it anyway, in theory, after the special elections, but this move, in addition to making it much harder for Klein to renege on the deal (as he might want to do, House of Cards character that he is), shows a political climate that is changing pretty fast. Most or all of the IDC members were going to be primaried this year by loyal Democrats, with the support of the Working Families partioid organization, and this move shows that they're scared; anxious to start proclaiming that just because they've been voting with Republicans doesn't mean they actually are Republicans, and take some of the wind out of the challengers' sails, suggesting to me that there's a lot more wind than I expected.

Governor Andrew Cuomo is also being primaried, as you've probably heard, by the actress Cynthia Nixon (with the endorsement of my candidate of four years ago, law professor Zephyr Teachout), and seemingly scared as well. He hasn't been as terrible a governor all round as some people will tell you (his defense of environmental regulation and work on economic development in Buffalo have had real results, and his response to Trump taxation terrorism this year has been creative and good), but he's never been good enough, he's never been able to free his management from the smell of corruption, hasn't even really tried, and his pointless war against Mayor Bill de Blasio over the past four years has been particularly bad for New York City, for our terrible transportation and housing issues. He's also held responsible by many (including me) for the Republican control of the Senate—it's said he prefers it divided. The swiftness with which he has achieved the breakup of the IDC—over dinner at a Manhattan steakhouse last night, we're told—reinforces the belief, showing that he could have done it all along.

But he has done it now, and I think I know why: because we-the-people are getting better at our job, of putting the pressure on.

Anyhow,

I just gave to defeat the IDC! Join @NYWFP and help elect @WorkingFamilies Democrats: #NOIDCNY https://t.co/RHKzfKtDlT

— Smash-Mouth Liberal (@Yastreblyansky) April 4, 2018

I'm against it

What is the purpose, actually, of New York state mandating an increase in the minimum wage to $15 for fast-food workers (in restaurants belonging to chains with more than 30 outlets nationwide; about 180,000 employees in the state, the Times thinks)? I mean, that's nice, as Loomis says, I'm pleased for the workers who have been agitating for this all year, but what about everybody else? What about the home health aids, nursing assistants, and hospital orderlies? What about casino dealers, shampooers, and theater ushers? What about the dishwashers and buspersons and counter attendants in diners and coffee shops and Chinese and Mexican joints and all the food service places that aren't in the fast-food chain category? What about agricultural workers earning an average $12.15 per hour with no overtime or workers' comp? What about thousands of employees of the state earning minimum wage?

Cuomo agua para chocolate

Corporate States of America. Via Rocky Mountain Media.

Way down toward the end of last week's Times overview of the South Carolina Confederate flag epic, a telling passage on the state's business community, which has long had problems with the cult of the Lost Cause:

After the killings in Charleston, the business leaders saw their chance. The chairman of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, an old friend of Ms. Haley’s named Mikee Johnson, polled his 56 board members about the future of the flag. Everyone who responded was of the same opinion. He called Ms. Haley and told her: If she was ready to bring down the Confederate banner, they were behind her.

So was the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, the muscular association that represents giant international companies like BMW and Bridgestone Tire. Over the weekend after the shootings, its president, Mr. Gossett, urged members to draw up a strategy for finally ridding the State House of the flag.

It's not, note, that they're especially anti-slavery, not that they favor it either, or have any special beef with the confederal states' rights ideology; it's that the flag has been bad for business.

Cuomo un huracán

Image via.

We're upstate for a family function this weekend, and my seven-month-old grandnephew Mikey was there in spectacular form, this is relevant. We're using a bed that can fairly be described as difficult, and I woke up from a stupid blogging dream in which I was writing a post about some annoying New York state education policy.

The great thing about the dream was that the policy wasn't, at least not directly, Andrew Cuomo's fault, because he had resigned from the governorship and been replaced by his infant son.

No, there is no such child, as far as I know. Presumably he was inspired by Mikey. I was aware that this was a dream, and looking forward to blogging it in the morning. I'd just have to add the infant governor to the post.

Unfortunately I was not aware that the post was also part of the dream and not part of reality, so I don't know what the policy was, so this is all you'll get.

Me and Andrew

Can't get over these guys.

I've been thinking I ought to write something about Governor Cuomo's Education Tax Credit proposal, something he seems to have become mildly obsessed with:

He is putting his political energy into a proposal to enact a $150 million education tax credit program to benefit mostly private and religious schools – despite his veto lectures to lawmakers against such matters coming up after the budget.

“We know that it is justice,” Cuomo told a Jewish audience in Brooklyn on Sunday. He advised attendees to vote against lawmakers who do not support his tax credit plan.

The plan also has grown in size – from the $100 million effort he pushed in March but that did not get by the Democratic-led Assembly during budget negotiations. Critics call the program a back-door school voucher initiative that, in the end, will do more to help lower tax bills of wealthy donors to private school scholarships than it will to bolster the finances of the schools. (Buffalo News 5/18/15)

In the course of a crazy Twitter battle last night, I argued myself into the idea that it might be a little worse than that. Storify over the fold:

I for one welcome our new B-corporate masters

New David Brooks Plagiarism Watch below the fold!

Change leader: From "Take Charge of your Career Like a Boss".

Shorter David Brooks, "How to leave a mark", New York Times, January 27 2015:

Both sides at a fairly cosmic level do it: markets and governments have failed, the one because of its chronic instability and irredeemable rapacity and the other because it has been captured by special interests that don't want it to do anything, which must have been caused by some more both-sides stuff such as the takeover of the Republican Party by multinational corporations and I'm sure there must be something analogous on the Democrats' part, so obviously our angle of approach for making things better should be on the market side, involving the many nongreedy investors who simply don't care about profit. If you're wealthy enough to make a difference you should make it by investing in companies whose shareholders will allow them to compensate for the failings of government by distributing free eyeglasses to the poor and that sort of thing, and if you're not maybe you could get a job working for somebody like that, and if you're very young you may live to see government coming back in some form or other some day, so it's all good.

Busted

Gang signals? Cuomo and Silver last June, via Politics on the Hudson.

Photo caption in the Times on the arrest of Speaker Shelly Silver:

The investigation of Sheldon Silver, right, the speaker of the New York State Assembly, picked up speed after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in March abruptly shut down an anticorruption commission.

The Times and WNYC have kept repeating similar sentences in various versions of the story all morning. They are both not saying this, but are kind of forcing us to say it with this continual association of Cuomo's shutting down the Morland Commission and the feds doubling down on their investigations of Silver: that Cuomo closed the commission at least in part because it was looking too closely at Shelly.

The allegations are to my mind shocking enough:

¡Cuomo lo deseas!

Image from last September via WNYC Radio. Don't they look as if they're taking an exam and Andrew's thinking about cheating?

Governor Andrew Cuomo, fresh from his turn as Pontius Pilate in the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation review of natural gas fracking in the state—they came to the right decision, which is a really good thing, but it's evident that Cuomo's chief concern was to not be seen as making a decision at all, and instead of welcoming the ban and its protection for the health of New Yorkers and the integrity of the environment he gloomily predicted a "ton of lawsuits" that are not in fact going to take place at all—

Betrayal

Image by Mark Matcho for Vanity Fair.

Not to rub it in, Working Families, but remember last spring?

With a huge assist from Mayor de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo secured the nomination of the tiny but influential Working Families Party on Saturday — but not before the liberal party’s grassroots activists vented their frustration with the incumbent Democrat during a raucous convention.

Cuomo won the nomination after signing off on a more liberal agenda than he had previous embraced and promising to up-end the current leadership of the state Senate, all key priorities of the lefty third party.

That's when small-time WFP supporters like your correspondent began getting the emails and phone messages saying they recognized we weren't all in love with Cuomo, but that they had demonstrated a bunch of major political savvy in pressuring the Democratic governor to promise to campaign for Democratic legislative candidates.

What a difference a Tuesday makes:

New York note: Quandary

Image via Educade.

For out-of-state readers who may not be familiar with our more exotic institutions, the Working Families Party is a New York–style fusion party founded by a bunch of leaders from unions and grassroots organizations at the end of the last century (1998), which cross-lists candidates usually with the Democrats so that you can vote for the Democratic candidate with a proviso: yes, but.

As in (for my case) yes, but I don't sign onto the Democrats' utter failure to fully fund New York City schools on par with the rest of the state as demanded by the state constitution, in the terms of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit decided in 2001 and reaffirmed in the last appeal of 2006. Or, yes, but I don't trust Democrats (and Andrew Cuomo in particular), with their donors just as rich as Republicans, on environmental issues.

And we win one!

Updated below:

Breaking from the New York Times:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Sunday night outlined New York State’s mandatory quarantine policy for health care workers returning from West African nations with Ebola outbreaks , bringing the state closer into line with federal protocols and marking a significant break with the way the policy has been carried out in New Jersey.

The announcement comes after the Obama administration pressed New York to rescind its order, issued only two days ago in a joint press conference with New Jersey’s governor, Chris Christie. New Jersey officials, who stood by their decision on Sunday, have yet to explain many details of their quarantine policy. The state has come under scathing criticism for the treatment of a nurse returning from Sierra Leone, who was forced into quarantine in a hastily erected tent at a New Jersey hospital even though she had not displayed any signs of illness and tested negative for Ebola.

Earlier in the day, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the treatment of the nurse, Kaci Hickox,had been shameful and vowed that New York City would do all it could to honor the work of the health care workers here and those who go to help fight the epidemic in West Africa.

Via Funny or Die.

I still won't vote for Cuomo. Don't care for the way he buckles under pressure, even when he's buckling in the right direction. Subject to hysteria, not a steady hand like Howie Hawkins. And speaking of buckling, thanks, thanks, thanks Mayor de Blasio and President Obama for your firmness in sticking by the rational approach in the face of media and political panic. You guys are great.

Update:

Ex Africa Semper

Updated

Image from Brotha Wolf.

Continuing the rant...

Just heard some audio of Cuomo saying, "I'm old enough to remember HIV—we didn't know how HIV was communicated," implying that we're in the same situation (somewhat imaginary, because it was almost from the beginning clear that gay men were not passing HIV to their many female and straight male friends and relatives and associates whereas among straight people afflicted by AIDS, especially in Africa, the transmission was strictly between male and female sex partners and their children) in regard to Ebola.

Oh, right, HIV comes from darkest Africa too, just like those killer bees.

Fearless City: Postscript

Andy 'n' Chris: "Look how serious we are! Awesome!" But a little smile on Cuomo's lips as he contemplates the captive press, paying him attention but unable to ask him a single question about his role in Albany's corruption and secrecy. Photo by Katie Orlinsky/New York Times.

Not that fearless. I guess I spoke too soon.

Friday started off pretty well, with New York as a whole resolutely refusing to panic and Mayor de Blasio and city health commissioner Mary Bassett keeping things that way, as our own Ebola victim, Dr. Craig Spencer, remained in stable condition:

New York notes: Performativity

"Mr. Mayor, you may now kiss the candidate." Photo by Chang W. Lee, New York Times.

Woke up this morning to the alarming sound of Mayor Bill De Blasio endorsing the unspeakable immigrant-hating Kathy Hochul in New York's lieutenant governor primary over her rival candidate Tim Wu, who unlike Hochul is known to believe many of the same things as the mayor:

on Wednesday she received her biggest and most unlikely endorsement yet: from Mayor Bill de Blasio, the liberal leader of New York City, who pronounced her “a true progressive.”

“I’m proud to support Kathy,” Mr. de Blasio said, as Ms. Hochul stood by his side.

I was really taken aback for a moment, and then I realized, "Oh! He's only lying," and went back to sleep, completely reassured.