Well, it’d get the MSM’s attention, and Megan McArgleBargle is safely ensconced in DC these days. Chris Smith, in NYMag:
… De Blasio, after six months in office, has managed to shift the political polarity of the city and the state. So why stop there? The mayor has always aspired to lead not just a city but a progressive movement, and de Blasio’s bid to bring the 2016 Democratic National Convention to New York is a signal of his ambitions.
“The climate of the middle class, the destruction of people’s earning power, the inequality crisis, the crisis of income disparity, all of this is registered so deeply it’s like a radio signal that’s being sent out from all parts of the country that somehow doesn’t reach Washington, D.C.,” de Blasio said in a group interview with Salon, The Nation, and MSNBC. Liberal activists are cheering him on. “Bill de Blasio and Elizabeth Warren are the leading edge of this new wave that can transform the Democrats,” says MoveOn.org executive director Ilya Sheyman. “Income inequality will be to the 2016 Democratic primary what the war in Iraq was to the 2008 primary.”…
Last June, the longtime head of the Working Family Party’s New York operation, Dan Cantor, became the party’s national director, and he is trying to replicate the local formula of uniting labor unions and liberal activists and expand beyond the WFP’s current seven chapters.
“That’s the idea,” says Bill Lipton, who was promoted to Cantor’s spot as director of WFP New York. “We believe there’s too much corporate influence in the Democratic Party, and that’s not good for the party or America. We see this as a really significant strategy to pressure the Democrats to either be more attentive to the grassroots and fight more for working families—or they can go the way of the Whig Party.”
And what better vehicle than to have one of the WFP’s founders, now the mayor of New York City, bring the 2016 Democratic National Convention to Brooklyn, the capital of urban-hipster progressivism? Especially when the Democrats’ expected nominee has her own issues with the left wing….
Apart from scrumming for attention, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
piratedan
I don’t watch them anymore, but from my understanding, all of the Sunday shows featured the same fucking group of neo-cons that put forth the arguments to get the US into Iraq, now arguing that what Iraq needs now is more Yankee military intervention…. nary a voice of dissent was booked to offer any salient counterpoint or tether to reality.
Pogonip
Filing Workman’s Comp papers for a (fortunately minor) injury, and there are many, many papers before I can be accorded a dime since, after all, I’m not a fucking criminal bank and so will not have money thrown at me faster than I can catch it.
Can’t We the People stop squabbling about various side issues long enough to tear the rotten edifice down and build a republic in its place? Granted each voter’s pet issue is very important to him, but we will ALL benefit if we vote the bastards out and replace them with new bastards who have not had time to put down deep, rotten roots.
PurpleGirl
On my agenda: laundry and paying bills. Yeah, very exciting (not).
Hill Dweller
The gall of these f’n Republicans using the sacrifice of 4,000+ Americans soldiers to bolster their stupid advocacy for military action in Iraq.
Suffern ACE
Yeah. I believe the last time we had the convention in NY, there were protest zones and stopped traffic and Republicans staying on cruise ship hotels. I know, Brooklyn has the brand new sportsball arena that it could use, but so does Newark. I vote for holding the convention in Newark.
Mike in NC
Six months ago the Village pundits were hyperventilating about how DeBlasio would destroy NYC by driving away businesses because of crippling taxes and burdensome regulations. Sort of like how Obama was out to destroy the country.
Frankensteinbeck
Interesting viewpoint there.
some guy
didn’t WFP-New York just endorse radical communist activist Andrew Cuomo for Governor of New York? That guy is pretty hardcore, but I guess if Working families Party believes his communism isn’t a distraction then we should all just shut up and support Cuomo.
OzarkHillbilly
Ida know…. Nobody is paying attention to me here. Not even the dog, he didn’t even look at me when I got home. I’d go into Sullivan and exercise some 2nd Amendment rights, but I doubt any one would even notice. Sigh… It’s getting so one has to create a terrorist incident to get attention and where’s the fun in that?
OzarkHillbilly
@Suffern ACE:
Not me. East St. Louis. They could use the boost.
scav
While people are waiting, Happy 90th to Bernard Jordan, the D-Day runaway.
Baud
Fixed.
(And kidding)
jl
Good news on ACA aka Obamacare aka the Sinister Death Now to All Citizens because Evil! program.
Looks like that impossible mother of all policy disasters, that freedom destroying succubus is actually working as planned:
The Good Obamacare News That’s Been Flying Under DC’s Radar
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-good-news
Zifnab25
@Baud: Might be fun to see how the Republicans field it this time around. The freak flags will be flying, and I won’t be surprised in the least if the GOP gets a “Let’s re-invade Iraq! For freedom!” guy randomly stumbling into the lead.
Kropadope
@Baud: Are you kidding? Are you? Really?
(I hope it’s not an issue, that probably means something bad happened)
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: You hope.
FlipYrWhig
@Zifnab25: Bolton ’16!
Xecky Gilchrist
Wait wait wait I thought that by now if DeBlasio had been elected I’d have been blown to bits by terrorists as I took an airplane flight somewhere and all my flaming gobbets would be regretfully conceding that the Republicans were right. It hasn’t happened, and I feel cheated.
(Seriously, some goofball actually said that. Roy Edroso made fun of him for it, as is appropriate.)
Phylllis
Recovering from an 9-hour marathon to finish and upload a grant application. The upside is, I’ve had limited Internets/news exposure for the past several days. What’d I miss?
gene108
@Mike in NC:
What’s ironic is despite all the rhetoric of the Koch Brother’s about freedom and low taxes, they are happily ensconced in the high tax, high regulation, lack of “Freedom” town called New York City.
They donate to various artsy-fartsy venues like the School of American Ballet and what not and I do not think relish the idea of living in “freedom” states like Mississippi.
I really do wish when Freedom Works and the rest of their sock puppet crap machines start talking about “freedom” and low taxes, reporters would point out that their benefactors ain’t moving out of NYC despite the lack of “freedom” there.
StringOnAStick
@gene108: We were watching golf this weekend on the TV, and there was an ad for Koch Industries, you know, extolling all the great jobs they bring to the US and all their wonderful products. I knew something was up when I saw the Georgia Pacific labels and heard the patriotic music swelling. I’m also seeing a new “every meal begins with a farmer” bill board ad every few weeks at the same location, with the subtle Monsanto label in the lower right corner.
I find it curious that Koch and Monsanto are now on a campaign to try to generate goodwill towards their companies, as if something they’d done in the past made them unpopular; hmm, what could it be….
D58826
@Zifnab25: Sorry Sen Croyn of Tx has already gone there. He tweeted that ‘4500 American died in order to bring freedom to Iraq and one American president gave it away’. So the new rational for Iraq was to give the people freedom.
To call these people slime is to insult good slime.
WereBear
@gene108: This. When they flock to Mississippi to live as a Poor Black Child I’ll believe their BS.
Cervantes
@Suffern ACE: And the time before that, I recall Hizzoner Mayor Koch trying to “leverage” New York’s position as host city — but the only thing he managed to do, really, was to (further) enrage the President (JEC).
I hope de Blasio is somewhat more successful.
El Caganer
@D58826: He’s right – all it took was one president. Just why did Dubyuh sign that agreement to pull all the troops out in 2011?
nellcote
@StringOnAStick:
They’re probably lobbying the farm bill.
Diana
As a longterm resident of downtown NYC I smell lobbying. NYC has a height limit of six stories for residential and commercial buildings, with an exception for “community use.” Originally hospitals were contemplated, but then it was discovered by the zoning powers that be that hotels also qualified. Now the towers sprout among us, each built on spec by a developer and leased to a hotel operator.
Someone’s gotta fill all those new hotel rooms….and there’s no denying that the DNC would bring a lot of people with credit cards to town…
NickM
@Diana: can you explain that height restriction thing further? How can NYC have a six-story restriction on commercial or residential buildings?
RSR
of course, de Blasio and WFP both caved to Cuomo, so ah, yeahhhh
I was warned this would happen, so I haven’t been holding my progressive breath.