Collusion

How the NY Republican Party Wins by Losing

ONE PARTY RULE

Collusion is a word in the news for the last two years regarding the Trumps, Russia and the 2016 Presidential election. It is defined as a secret agreement leading to fraudulent or illegal activity.

That situation is not our concern here.

Nor is illegality. Fraud is. We are defining fraud as deception: what looks like one thing is really another.

Our suggestion is that the Republican Party in New York State having lost the support of the majority of the public no longer chooses its candidates to win but loses elections in exchange for the Democratic Party’s agreement to share areas of law-making and political ‘spoils’- as only a one-party ruler can. As we shall see, examples abound.

There is no question that New York City belongs lock, stock and barrel to the Democratic Party. And that the Democratic Party has taken advantage and has become as corrupt as they were back at the beginning of the 20th Century when Tammany Hall ruled so completely that Republicans had to go along to get along. The imbalance and the bad government that resulted was so horrific that it helped give rise to a new third party…the Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party was formed in the mid-40’s to help elect President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a fourth term, and to work with honest Democrat leaders to help rid the Party of the corrupt influences of Tammany and its chief, Carmine DeSapio.

To do that the Liberal Party developed a dual strategy: it often backed liberal Republicans to take on Tammany candidates and when it could, would work within Democratic primary campaigns to support Democrats running against Tammany selections.

This ‘combination’ strategy- liberal Republicans and honest Democrats – worked so well that by the end of the 1950’s Tammany Hall was all but gone.

Good government seemed to be the result but time passed and in a labor-union dominated town where manufacturing and construction were paramount, the Democratic Party continued to win voters and grow increasingly more powerful producing what uncontrolled power often produces: corruption… once again.

On the Mayoral level the Liberal Party produced the votes necessary to elect Republicans to that office: first a liberal Republican John Lindsay and then a conservative Democrat turned Republican Rudolph Giuliani.

Within New York State, Republicans and Democrats shared terms of office for Governor but by the end of the 20th Century, the Democrats overwhelming controlled the State Assembly and had gotten closer than ever to a leading edge in the State Senate.

It was then that the public began to see what it meant when one party ruled so powerfully. The news was full of Democratic politicians on all levels indicted for wrongdoing; it seemed that the jails would soon be full of sitting politicians who had come to believe that they could do anything and get away with it.

To be fair a few key Republicans got caught playing the Democrat’s comfortable ‘pay to play’ approach to government. Both the leaders of the State Senate and Nassau County were convicted of favor granting. Both men are being retried as this is written.

With both the Democratic head of the State Assembly on the way to jail and the Republican head of the Senate heading that way too, Governor Andrew Cuomo, determined to control the State Legislature, supported the development of the IDC…the Independent Democratic Caucus…eight State Senators who ran and won their seats as Democrats but who banded together to vote with the Republicans on almost all issues that won Assembly support but not the support of Cuomo.

And so we see the marriage of Democrats and Republicans consummated in the most outrageous public way. The Republicans need not win elections to have an important say in government…and its spoils. And if you are Republican leadership in NY if you can win by losing, you do.

ELECTIONS OR SELECTIONS?

Here is the way one Party rule and the practice of power works in NYC today: Democrats don’t elect people to Congress, the State Senate or Assembly or the City Council. Candidates are selected by leadership and if there is opposition in a primary, Party selections win easily.

There is a handful of Republicans on the City Council and in the State Assembly and Senate. Most of Senate seats held by Republicans come from upstate New York. There are no Republicans holding Congressional seats from NYC. Republicans haven’t elected a US Senator in decades.

On the Mayoral level Republicans have chosen weak candidates currently twice surrendering the office to a man who teeters on the edge of gross incompetence encased in overwhelming ego. In 2013 they chose an enigmatic, unsmiling bureaucrat over a man-of-the-people businessman and Democrat Bill DeBlasio the last-man standing in a fierce Democratic primary campaign became Mayor easily.

Just months ago in his reelection campaign the Republican Party sat quietly and allowed a young, totally inexperienced Assemblywoman from Staten Island to become its candidate against a sitting Mayor. It was no contest.

It is clear that the Republican Party in NYC is the property of the Real Estate Board of NY. Knowing that they had the Mayor all nicely in line, they didn’t bother to win the election.

Now the race for Governor is upon us and the Republicans have again taken that approach. For the third time they have named a weak, unknown candidate to run against Andrew Cuomo. For the third time, a white Italian American Republican – a Congressman no one knew, and two County Executives with no statewide reputation for anything – against a white Italian American Governor. Anyone understanding political demographics knows that in this State the overwhelming majority of those votes will go to a Democrat.

How much does Republican State Chair Ed Cox know about Marcus Molinaro, director of exurban Dutchess County? His last candidate Rob Astorino ran Westchester County a major bedroom county to NYC. What happened in Westchester County often made news. But Dutchess County? It might as well be in the farmlands of New Jersey.

Does anyone care? No. He looks good. He sounds good. And that’s enough. Maybe out of boredom some enterprising news outlet might send an experienced reporter to that county for a few weeks just to see what exists beneath the surface of ‘nice’.

NOW WHAT?

Does any of this matter?

Can the Democratic Party recover the confidence of America in Congressional races just ahead when its largest and richest affiliate in New York is riddled with corruption, public officials in jail, and ‘pay to play’?

When a possible Democratic candidate for President has a huge slush fund of campaign money gained from corporations “doing business” with his closest subordinates convicted of crimes, what value is there in his self-serving denials of ignorance of the graft going on right under his nose?

Will anyone be able to simply suggest that little under this party-wide corruption has helped the public to better education, managed health care, economic development, new jobs, successful investments and be heard?

Not so far.

Washington. Albany. NYC. The spiral is down.