Day One

THE MAYORAL PRIMARY 2021

Ready on Day One or not, here they come.

The eight serious Democratic candidates for Mayor of New York City and Democratic voters who care, are now casting their primary ballots in early voting. Primary Day is June 22.

There are thirteen additional candidates for Mayor on the Democratic side while the Republicans have but two candidates for the job.

The margin of Democrats to Republican voters is more than six to one and the Republican influence on New York is all but gone.

And to make things more interesting, this year primary voters may rank five preferences on their ballots according to their interest in the candidates. This rank choice voting is supposed to give voters a continued say in the selection of a candidate if their favorite is not chosen.

Anybody who knows anything about the endless incompetence of the NYC Board of Elections, the very worst of what political patronage jobs can be, knows that rank choice voting will be nothing but trouble. Sadly that knowledge did not reach the voting public who overwhelmingly selected this approach to the primaries several years go.

And so the barrage of TV ads, social media ads and the vapid attempt to present the candidates in a series of TV debates.

What we find is that the majority of serious candidates in both parties have little or no government experience that qualifies them to be Mayor of any city much less New York. While these deficiencies would be serious enough in a New York that existed a year or so ago, the deficiencies scream for our attention in a New York stricken with Covid, revealing the damage of the past year in what could be a crippling variety of ways.

THE ISSUES

Frankly, most of the issues that must be dealt with by a new Administration existed before the pandemic.

Schools didn’t work then, they certainly do not now.

Retail establishments were closed in neighborhoods all over Manhattan, though the De Blasio Administration never saw the shutters on the windows.

Genuinely affordable housing barely existed.

NYCHA’s troubles were endless.

Homelessness was everywhere.

And the NYPD was badly bruised by a series of incidents culminating from the Black Lives Matter marches that turned into looting parties because of stunning failures by the Police, to the State Legislature’s decision to empty Riker’s by changing the bail laws so that captured criminals were out of jail before the Police had written up the crime, to the decision to end overtime pay causing mass retirements by senior members of the Police force, to cutting the Police budget and cancelling new recruitments.

Now the shootings in NYC are daily and nightly occurrences.

And suddenly NY has become unsafe.

The pandemic has made all of this more prominent, more demanding. Add the uncertainty of when midtown office buildings will once again have people in them; when Subways will have customers, when commuter trains will be full again…and the pressure for workable answers becomes overwhelming.

THE CANDIDATES

And so it is obvious that just when we need experience and leadership the most we must search carefully to find it among the candidates running for Mayor.

Not ideas mind you because candidates’ professional staffs can come up with those even if they are nowhere near doable.

Experience and leadership is critical to understand what will work and how to make it work.

So let’s start with experience and move down the list.

On paper, Scott Stringer is the clear leader and it is he who proudly states he will be ready on Day One. And he is probably right. Some of his audits as Comptroller were brilliantly accurate, though he did little to push them once announced. A solid member of the Democratic establishment, clearly committed to Pay to Play, Stringer did little to push De Blasio into any action on anything. He did the audit, published the audit and then stepped back. A lifetime in politics and government has certainly prepared him to become Mayor.

Then why is he trailing so badly against several competitors who cannot match his experience?

Because when faced with a crisis he all but collapsed with a mewling response to charges that twenty years ago he acted like a jackass with a woman who had no interest in his desire for sex.

What man can say he hasn’t had to deal with such a situation? And what man can admit that acting like a jackass goes along with being a man in that situation?

Someone should have told Scott that sadly pleading “It was consensual” is the language of a Jeffrey Epstein or a Harvey Weinstein when faced with rape, assault and sexual trafficking charges.

In any case while experience works…a lack of leadership and ability to deal with extreme moments overwhelms it. So much for Stringer.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has become the favorite because he was a policeman for 22 years and reached the level of Captain despite his color and an attitude that refused to accept the clear racism that existed in the NYPD during those years. Not bad.

Adams is a clever politician…the most of any of the candidates. He can make things happen and can deal with the ins and outs of political leadership as he struggles to govern. He will make mistakes and he will have to learn on the job…but he seems capable of dealing with both challenges. In a city riddled with shootings, people believe a former Policeman should be able to deal with the NYPD and the public in solving problems.

The most serious question is whether or not he can find the administrative leadership in all those departments to make the changes New York needs to make…from Schools Chancellor to Police Commissioner and beyond.

New York City gave David Dinkins a chance to be its first black Mayor. A very different man than Adams, Dinkins never did surround himself with talent and four years was all he got. There is no doubt that Adams knows the history and the challenges.

Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley are two very different women in a year when there are three women seeking the office…a record.

Garcia is considered a likely winner because she brings a lifetime in government to the job as an administrator (a woman who began her career in sanitation?) and a problem solver. She appears solid, calm, assured and determined. Does she have the political experience and the knowledge to do the whole job? Would she instead be an excellent deputy Mayor for administration? Voters will decide.

Maya Wiley is an advocate who has done nothing to indicate any genuine experience in government though she may have an academic’s view of what government is supposed to be. That rarely works, is rarely practical and thankfully, very rarely gets outside of the classroom.

She appears to be the choice of so-called progressive Democrats…mostly because Stringer has collapsed and nobody really believes Dianne Morales can do the job.

Picking the lesser of three doesn’t a Mayor make…though it may make progressives feel good…a necessary component of what millennials need.

Ms Wiley is no dummy but her ideas are just that, ideas. Her problem is that she doesn’t know it.

Ray McGuire took a flyer stepping away from his lifetime in big banks to raise some money from that crowd and run. He seems like a smart and decent guy.

Shawn Donovan was accused of being nothing but a Washington-based bureaucrat and then spent millions of his Dad’s money on TV ads that proved the point.

And then there is Andrew Yang…a perfect example of how our political system has failed along with the other significant systems which are failing all around us while we keep looking for our real identity…while talking of our exceptionalism.

What was Yang doing in the Democratic Presidential debates? What experience did he bring to belong in that group? Nothing. He raised significant money from his Wall Street friends (his only genuine talent) and that was enough to qualify him to be on those stages along with Senators, Governors and a Vice President.

We spent more than an hour one top one with him many months before the Presidential primaries. The Liberal Party were looking for a candidate to run against Andrew Cuomo and were assured by associates that Yang might be the one. He had earned some genuine visibility with his idea that giving everyone $12,000 a year in an outright subsidy would help pull people out of poverty-level living.

It was a painful hour. As if we were talking in one language and he in another. We might as well have been in different rooms…in different countries. He knew nothing about government and clearly didn’t care. He only talked about his big idea and that he wanted to run for President.

Well he did get the chance and we didn’t find a candidate. He won that one.

And now he is a favorite to become New York’s Mayor…knowing no more about government but hopefully caring more about it. While he never cared enough to vote for Mayor in his 20 years as a citizen of the city, we think he will vote this time.

He is surrounded by a very smart lobbying organization which has done the best to make him sound knowledgeable…until he opens his mouth. His election would be a catastrophe.

New Yorkers have a reputation of being smart and tough. We think the latter is true but sometimes suspect the former. This is not a formidable lineup…but leadership and experience seem no longer to matter as they once did and so we get what we deserve. Let’s hope it is enough.