“Will O The Wisp”

This is an Open Letter to New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul.

The letter would be accompanied by a paperback copy of Robert Caro’s 1,145 page masterpiece of a biography: The Years of Lyndon Johnson: MASTER OF THE SENATE.

Dear Governor Hochul:

Most of us don’t know you. Yes, we’ve heard of you, many of us voted for you again and we elected you the State’s first woman Governor but we don’t know you.

We do know that you were Governor Andrew Cuomo’s third Lt. Governor and some of us heard that he told you he would be choosing someone else as he planned for a fourth term.

We all know why that didn’t happen but in all fairness to the big-handed Mr. Cuomo not a lot of people around the country know who their Lt. Governor is…so it’s nothing personal. Being known in that job is a challenge even if one tried as you did to appear in every single one of the 63 counties in New York State …maybe only for a couple of hours in a single afternoon.

You had no specific assignment, no specific charge, no specific area of interest or responsibility. A predecessor, Betsy McCaughey, who was George Pataki’s Lt. Governor, got so fed up with being ignored ( not easy to do with Betsy) that she stood up in protest in a great red dress during his State of the State speech – a kind of hot response and cool farewell to the position.

[For the record, She went on to oppose Pataki for Governor as a candidate of the Liberal Party and proved to be so formidable a campaigner that while she lost to Pataki, she helped Charles Schumer take the Senate seat away from Al D’Amato focusing on D’Amato’s anti-abortion position. You’ll appreciate the fact that it was D’Amato who introduced McCaughey to Pataki in the first place suggesting he make her his Lt. Governor.]

In any case the job means little unless you are focused on the Governorship and you obviously were.

Those of us in “the game” clearly admired the extraordinary speed and focus of your choreography immediately following Mr. Cuomo’s resignation. Even before being formally sworn in as Governor to finish his term, you do what you do so well…got moving…were in NYC talking to big money contributors about your need to amass a campaign war- chest for the coming election.

And within a matter of weeks you did just that – and in the process drove Attorney General Leticia James right out of a primary fight for the nomination. Perhaps she simply forgot about you as you were invisible in Albany. By the time she looked up you had closed the door on her plan to become Governor.

But we still don’t know you.

And thus we look at what has happened during your time as Governor. And what we find has caused us to contact you in this manner — concerned for the future of the State.

And in so doing, offer some suggestions for your consideration.

LEADERSHIP

Leaders must have followers or leadership does not exist.

There is no longer an impactful Republican Party in New York.

That should put a Democratic Governor working with a Democratic State Senate and Assembly in a position to pass legislation in many important areas. But as you and NYC Mayor Eric Adams both know, quite the opposite has been true.

Your effort to work closely with the Mayor impresses but is essentially meaningless at the moment. You are not being supported by your legislative majority nor is he by his City Council.

Your effort to influence the Legislature to alter the cash bail laws pushed by progressives as a way to deal with racism not crime, fell flat. In fact, it was flatly rejected.

Your nomination of a Chief Justice for the State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, was first rejected in committee by that same progressive element and then by a majority of the full State Senate.

The result is another first for you: the first Governor in the State’s history to have such a nomination rejected.

This is no place to discuss the totality of your budget proposal but you must expect major changes to be forthcoming. A Legislature that feels emboldened deals with a Governor as it wishes.

The public is taking notice. You have fallen below 40% in your popularity rating. There is a real concern that you cannot do the job.

Please accept what follows as genuine – suggestions made in the most positive manner.

LBJ

Few national leaders in America’s history were as powerful, forceful and successful as Lyndon Johnson in his years running America’s Senate.

Yes, he had the help of another Texan, Sam Rayburn leading the House to assist him, but knowing what he did and how he did it, is meaningful. It is a lesson in being knowledgeable about the people you are trying to lead. And then, using that knowledge to get the support – the votes – you need.

Like LBJ, you are essentially a professional politician. The run for the Governorship was your 14th election. You served for years in a number of elective positions within the Buffalo area, served one term in the U.S. Congress and was a Democratic official in the Upstate Democratic Party.

You know the game…but perhaps to use a sports term…the game in the minor leagues is not the same as the major leagues. Now you are in the majors and find yourself with single party rule that presents a particular set of problem just when everything should be coming up roses.

So using the LBJ approach as a model, and sticking with the sports motif, we suggest you start playing hardball with a softball approach.

Yes, your targets are generally younger with less experience and represent small slices of a full pie…nothing like a U.S. Senator. But today, politics and elected office are about having a career not simply serving a community and so each of your targets wants to succeed in a big way. So follow the Johnson model. He, with help from people like J. Edgard Hoover of the FBI, established a file on every single Senator.

He knew all about their families, what they liked to eat and drink, where they liked to have fun and how, what their special interests and ambitions were and what good they were doing in public and what they may have been doing in private.

We believe you have a staff of very reputable professionals. You can put something like this together if a serious focus is placed on the assignment and the right people are selected to carry it out.

You might get lucky in the interim.

The so-called Progressive Caucus in the NY City Council has just been broken when its 35 members were asked to sign a pledge about supporting a specific legislative agenda including climate change, expanding early childhood education and new healthcare measures and to cut the cost of policing in the city.

Twenty of them refused to sign the pledge because of that single inclusion. Polls show that crime in NYC makes such a cut ridiculous to the frightened general public.

Perhaps State Legislators will get the message.

But if not, maybe some of them will finally recognize that being concerned about the important things like climate change, decent healthcare and a way to save American education is fine but knowing how to make the changes matters.

We’d bet that not a single member of the Caucus has any idea of what makes real early childhood education a lot more than baby-sitting. If they did they might find that what exists falls far short of even good and expanding it without improving it makes no sense.

That failure to understand that just passing legislation isn’t enough if there are no practical solutions that work is what is giving you and Mayor Adams pressure you do not need – but must learn to control.

That ‘hole in the bucket’ – the inability to make what they support happen in a real life, practical, doable way – may eventually sink their movement and the influence they have exerted in New York City and State.

But perhaps not.

Caro’s book brilliantly brings us into the Senate Majority Leader’s office as he sits down with a Senator not providing the vote expected of him.

Johnson is affable, asks about his family members by name, wondering about the children in school. He asks about the Senator’s golf or tennis game, about his hobby of stamp collecting, lets the Senator know that he knows all about him. Johnson is soft – reaching out to understand what the Senator’s problem is about the vote that he is not supporting. Listens quietly, relaxed and very personal. Then as he has done once in a telephone conversation, explains why that vote is necessary, the important message it will send to the Senator’s constituents and supporters, He then mentions certain needs that those constituents have and programs that he Johnson controls that would help those constituents and how he wants the Senator to not only have that support but to take full credit for it.

And then should the Senator remain negative, Johnson tells him that he will not only not get a penny of support from the government for the rest of his term in office but that he will have to fight very hard for reelection. And then there’s the matter of what the Senator is really doing on those Wednesday nights when he is supposed to be playing doubles at the tennis club.

It all sounds fascinating and almost like a movie script to believe such things happened…but they did and they do though not with LBJ’s style – and we believe you know it.

Again, your legislators don’t have the territory or the weight of a United States Senator. But if hardball must be played…one has to know when a fastball or curve or slider or knuckleball is the right pitch at the right time.

We know you can see all of this and understand it.

We are not certain you can find your way of taking control of your Legislature not only to gain important legislation but to maintain your role as Governor.

When next we write we will forward our ideas for legislation in housing, education and healthcare for your consideration.

We hope you see this Open Letter as our attempt to assist you at a time when America and our State are facing real and very similar problems…problems that have negatively impacted every single one of the systems that are the foundation of our government.

We doubt you are familiar with the history of the Liberal Party or what it has offered to State government.

So perhaps this might be a good way to start.

With our best regards for the future,

The Liberal Party of New York.