I didn’t get a chance to comment on New York’s gubernatorial primary earlier this week. But, in case any of you were going to be convinced by Matt Stoller’s lengthy piece on Cuomo and Teachout, let me beg to differ on a couple particulars. I’ll bury it since most of you don’t give two shits about the delicate details of New York politics.
Stoller makes a big deal about the amount of money Cuomo spent on the campaign, especially on TV. While it’s true that Mario’s kid spent a lot, the Cuomo ads I’ve seen are anti-Astorino ads, so those really don’t count as anti-Teachout spending. That may seem like a quibble, but I think Stoller misses the real political lesson of those ads: Cuomo is a giant chickenshit whose craven fear causes him to spend dumb money. Astorino is a fairly obscure local figure (Westchester County Executive) who has almost zero profile outside of the New York City area. Why in the hell is Cuomo spending money in Western New York on ads attacking someone most people have never heard of? Because he’s scared that a sacrificial lamb like Astorino might actually take a run at him. That level of cautiousness is almost delusional, and it’s what makes Democrats dislike Cuomo: he is so scared to do anything that he triangulates in situations where there’s no need to do it (like medical marijuana).
Stoller tries to spin Teachout’s decent showing as an example of how there’s real dissent within the Democratic party over issues, but having listened to Teachout’s campaign interviews, there was nothing radical about her. She called herself an old-fashioned Democrat and hammered home the traditional Democratic issues. Cuomo espouses most of the beliefs that Teachout has. What Teachout was trying to sell wasn’t new ideas, but the notion that, unlike Cuomo, she wouldn’t tuck tail and run away at the first sign of trouble.
I do agree with Stoller that the Working Families Party fucked up by endorsing Cuomo, but Stoller spends very little time examining what I think is another obvious lesson of the WFP debacle: Teachout was the wrong candidate. I liked her a lot more than I thought I would, but if the WFP were going to field a candidate who had a real chance to shake up the campaign, Diane Ravitch would have been the better candidate. She could have gone after Common Core in a way that could have attracted votes from disaffected Republicans, which is something that would have had Cuomo pissing his pants in fear. Instead, Cuomo is going to cruise to victory and we’re going to have to put up with four more years of wimpy triangulation. At least even the liberal New York Times is now saying what we all knew anyway: Cuomo has no chance of being President. If that’s all that Teachout accomplished, her candidacy was worth it.
Cervantes
Not sure I agree with that.
schrodinger's cat
I heard yesterday on the snooze hour from none other than Bobo, that there is more enthusiasm on the Republican side for the November elections. What exactly are they excited about or is Bobo talking through his hat as usual?
Baud
Not a New Yorker, but the lesson I wish people everywhere would take from this is that they should be organized well in advance rather than try to run a spoiler campaign with a candidate who is not ready for prime time.
Suffern ACE
Cuomo has raised a lot of money. He has to spend it somewhere. Why wouldn’t he spend it in Western New York?
Suffern ACE
@Baud: we don’t really know if Teachout was ready or not. I think you may be confusing her with Jill Stein.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Fair enough. The impression I got from others is the she had no campaign organization to speak of.
Ruviana
As a resident of the Southern Tier I saw a few Asterino yard signs, usually accompanying signs against the SAFE act or other indications of rwnj-itude and presumed he was another flavor of Paladino. Those folks loves them some crazee right wing candidates.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: it’s those organizations that require money, and the money tends to come from large donors who want things. Those organizations also include many good people, but also the types of folks who we like to mock for their corruption and how easily they can be bought or bought off. That said, if a candidate goes the purity route, he or she will be thumped.
schrodinger's cat
Thread needs Caturday kitteh
Anya
My only hope for a Cuomo humiliation and implosion is he enters the presidential race and gets clobbered by a real Dem. In this fantasy, of course Hillary will not to run which gives Cuomo the Lesser the courage to run.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Yeah, it’s tough to thread the needle. The thing about an organization is, even if it’s not strong enough to win a primary or an election, it can be strong enough to be a player, and positively influence the decisions politicians have to make. I just don’t see how ad hoc protest votes by themselves accomplish a whole lot. YMMV.
Kay
I know I sound like a broken record, but IMO Democrats are missing or dodging the corruption issue. Adopting what I consider a legalistic view of corruption and narrowing it to “actionable” or “we’re okay as long as we don’t violate a law” isn’t good enough.
I think it’s real. We’ll see I guess, but major media insisting on framing this as “liberals versus Democrats” ignores half of what she was saying. Not the Stoller piece MM linked, I think Stoller gave it the proper importance. It wasn’t wholly ideological. She’s talking about good government – specifically, she’s saying that we don’t put some popular policies in not because we’re too far Right as a country but because lawmakers are more worried about their donors and relationships with powerful people than they are about everyone else. She’s a liberal so of course the “popular policy” she’s talking about IS liberal policy, but that’s secondary to the bigger idea.
It doesn’t matter, in a way, if Democrats “recognize” it. If it’s real it will come to the fore whether they figure out how to talk about it or address it or not. I obviously think it is, so we’ll see.
schrodinger's cat
@Anya: NYT thinks she will run, they have a story about her workout routine or some such today. On a shallower note in the photograph that accompanies the story she is wearing a truly hideous necklace.
WereBear
I saw no ads and while I did get some robo calls about Teachout, they were a) a few days before the primary and b) I don’t listen to robocalls.
But I was tired of Cuomo’s wishy-washy approach to being a Democrat, so I voted for Teachout. And apparently 36% of Democratic primary voters felt the same way.
If she can get this far with no campaign to speak of…
Anya
@schrodinger’s cat: NYT is propping up Hillary hard. I hope a real Dem comes forward and saves us from HRC and her ugly pantsuits. And before the Seriousness Police jumps in, I hate Hillary “Hard-Working Americans, White Americans” Clinton for lots of ligitimate reasons.
One of the best things about living in NY is that I don’t actually have to vote for her if she’s the nominee.
beltane
I live in Vermont which is in the Plattsburgh media market. We have been getting a non-stop barrage of anti-Astorino ads for several months.
mai naem mobile
@schrodinger’s cat: hillary looks a whole whole lot better than she did as SOS. She looked like 90 when she was SOS.
OT I was listening to npr this am and this American Life is going to have a piece about private school parents taking over a piblic schoolboard and continuously cutting the budget. Looks like an interesting listen.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
He’s talking out his ass, which is SOP for the twit.
schrodinger's cat
@mai naem mobile: I kinda liked that she gave two hoots about how she looked when she was SOS, now she looks like she is trying too hard and the results are fugly.
Baud
@Kay:
The problem with the corruption angle is identifying the corrupter. For us, it’s usually industry. For right wingers, it’s liberals and minorities and unions (and sometimes industry also). It seems to me just a different angle to the same old problem of a divided electorate.
Kay
@Anya:
She’ll get a challenge from the left. I’d bet money on it. I don’t know who it will be but someone will do it. We’re just ripe for that, IMO.
Kay
@Baud:
I agree with you on unions, that’s the response from the Right, but I don’t agree with you on minorities. This is about money, and it isn’t just Teachout. There’s a “mainstream” contingent. Warren and Sherrod Brown. They’ve been holding hearings on why the US Department of Education not only didn’t sanction student loan servicers who broke the law, but set an “incentive” system to pay them more if they STOP breaking the law. Young people are an important voting bloc for Democrats. They can’t just brush this stuff off and dismiss more and more parts of the coalition as unimportant. Cuomo can ignore them and still win. Is that true nationally?
Cervantes
From a previous thread:
Here are a few earlier items, from 1988, and 1984, and 1968.
RSR
I think Teachout was late to the party, and then got double-crossed by WFP/de Blasio. (Well, not so much double-crossed by de Blasio, but his resuming his role of apparatchik–not that that was surprising.)
Will Bunch noted that Teachout/Wu didn’t seem to have much minority outreach or turnout.
I think the race was important: it showed some potential, and also revealed some flaws.
I hope the lessons can be leveraged in future races such as ousting Rahm Emanuel from the mayor’s office in Chicago.
Anya
@Kay: I hope it’s Governor O’Malley. Although, my brother-in-law, who’s very active with the Moral Mondays Movement doesn’t believe O’Malley is that liberal where it matters — workers rights. I haven’t had a chance to have a more in-depth discussions with him tho. Since he’s graduating this year, he might move to NY and “stop pussyfooting around with agitators,” as his father puts it.
Anya
I think I used a naughty word. My comment is in moderation, and I am too last to figure out what the bad word is.
Suffern ACE
@Kay: I’m really no longer interested in listening to left wing candidates who aren’t running as Democrats. I don’t think I would have considered voting for Teachout if she ran on working families, even though I’ve voted that line on the ballot whenever possible. Otherwise, I’m pretty much through listening to the great potential for left wingers outside the Democratic Party. I know there are obstacles that make it difficult for the left to organize, but it’s getting rather pathetic expecting anything from them.
They either adopt a message that “Obama has done things we want to continue, but we have some changes to make, too” or they can go home.
Kay
@Baud:
Also, I hope the lesson Democrats DON’T take is “she had no campaign organization, therefore we’re all safe”.
She had no campaign organization yet she beat the incumbent in county after county. That should scare them more, not less.
I actually think she’s quite talented as a candidate and will be back, but counting on a grim GOTV numbers game might not be a great plan for Democrats, going forward. Bush had a much superior ground organization in 2004 and by 2008 Obama had re-invented it and made it obsolete.
Baud
@Kay:
You know where I am on this. I would love to see Democrats be more assertive on these issues, but I’ve become skeptical about voters responding positively to such actions.
Baud
@Kay:
Agreed. I actually think the way they will rationalize this is that it was unique to Cuomo rather than something larger.
Kay
@Baud:
Right, but it goes two ways.
I’m not in the “you have to LEAD!” camp for political actors. Sometimes they’re in front of voters and sometimes they’re catching up and following voters and I don’t care that much which way it goes. I think both are perfectly acceptable and some of the biggest changes haven’t been driven by political actors at all.
Baud
@Kay:
I agree with that. In fact, my view is that, for Democrats, the voters should be ahead of the politicians. By the same token, as Democratic voters, we should stop being so frustrated and cynical because our politicians aren’t ahead of us on the issues. That’s the way it should be.
Kay
@Baud:
And they could be right! Obviously I’m taken with my theory so I may not be the most impartial person in the world :)
They’re already getting ready to extend it to Rahm, though, so that will be one more test. The focus there is the same. It isn’t “he’s a Right winger”. It’s “he’s bought and paid for”.
tratclif
@schrodinger’s cat: The Republicans are *always* more engaged and excited than the Democrats, but last time I looked the enthusiasm split is more like 2012 than 2010.
WereBear
@Baud: Wow. That is exactly right.
Catherine D.
@Ruviana:
Haven’t seen any Astorino signs in Tompkins county (yet), but there are plenty of Repeal SAFE signs. Obviously, you need a ginormous magazine to bag a deer.
HelloRochester
As I said over on the facefriends, one thing is certain after this primary: no matter how things turn out in November, the governor of New York is gonna be an unlikeable dick.
kindness
Not having lived in NY since the 70’s but still visit because family is there…Westchester, NYC & Long Island have oversized influence in NY politics because that is where the money is. Cuomo the Younger (really he does need a Charlie Pierce kinda nickname) is a consummate ho. He is a soldier to money & those that got it. Sadly it seems the Democratic Party in NY isn’t much different. Individuals, yes. The party itself? Essentially the Republicans my parents generation supported. Socially moderate and fiscally cheap (they prefer conservative but…).
California is fucked up in many ways but a comparative paradise on so many levels. Thank the fsm I moved.
BBA
He has almost zero profile inside the New York City area. I grew up in Westchester (I live in the City now) and I didn’t know they’d elected a wingnut CE there until he ran to challenge Cuomo. At least my hometown voted against him.
Astorino’s close ties to the Catholic Archdiocese should put to rest any notion that he’d be no worse than Cuomo. Though even then the corrupt assholes in the State Assembly, corrupt and assholish as they may be, would prevent him from doing too much damage.
Sly
Teachout did well primarily in the eastern upstate counties, and its important to note that what I mean by “well” is that she won the majority of a few thousand votes; this was an exceptionally low-turnout contest. The two major issues that drove activists in those counties were hydrofracking and common core. Much moreso the former than the latter; there has been something of a guerrilla war being waged against the major energy companies looking to exploit the shale deposits in the region and municipal governments who (rightfully) don’t trust Albany to keep those companies from ripping off locals and degrading the water tables.
Cuomo has been desperately trying to seem like he doesn’t have an opinion on the matter (“let’s wait for the studies to come in” has been his mantra since being elected), because he inherited a fracking moratorium from Gov. Patterson and is under pressure from the municipalities and activists to keep it and the energy companies to scrap it. A moratorium that just got extended by the state assembly and now depends on passage in the state senate and the governor’s signature to be implemented.
Teachout came down squarely on the side of the locals. But those few thousand votes were obliterated by NYC, where the city’s party machine backed Cuomo. This last bit, incidentally, is the only thing Stoller is right about.
There is no larger narrative to be construed from the contest, and it will change very little in state politics. At best, it’ll put pressure on Cuomo and the State Senate to pass the continuation of the fracking moratorium. Cuomo wasn’t going to get the nomination for President before the primary, and he still won’t, but he’ll still be governor. WFPs influence won’t change. De Blasio will still face the same prospects at reelection as before.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Speaking of Rahm, it seems as of Bob Fioretti is ready to run for Mayor.
That’s all I need. For him to declare. He has my vote, and I don’t know a damn thing about his platform. I’m anyone but Rahm.
Culture of Truth
She ran a bad campaign, that mostly anti-Cuomo, and not about what she would accomplish as Governor. and she lost. Progressives who wonder why they keep losing will declare it a victory. I expect those are constantly ‘disappointed’ with Obama’s many victories will be thrilled with her epic defeat.
Culture of Truth
She won Albany country, and while it’s true many state employees were previously happy with Cuomo now dislike him, don’t discount the twelve years Pataki had to stuff the civil service with his acolytes, who might vote for ZT just to piss AC off.
Uncle Cosmo
If you need a nickname for a certain Italian-American Governor of NY who is also “an unlikeable dick,” allow me to suggest Andrew Cazzo.
Cazzo is not only Italian for the male organ, it’s also slang for a total fuckup. I recall one heartwarming afternoon, freshly arrived from the USA, hanging out with a friend from Baltimore & her Italian schoolteacher husband in their flat outside Firenze along with a couple of his friends. The 3 of them were discussing politics in furious Italian as she & I talked, when suddenly one of the friends put his face in his hands & kept muttering Che cazzo, che cazzo, che cazzo… I turned to her & said, Did he just say what I think he said? She was surprised I knew the idiom. (The year before I’d bought a 5-language dictionary of obscenities & read the Italian section start to end, never dreaming I’d have use for it on my first day in the Boot…)
donald
Something I didn’t get–I live in Westchester and someone at my church is a local politician. I like her (can’t vote for her since I don’t live in her district). But she came out very strong for Cuomo and said she was worried that Teachout’s candidacy could give Astorino an outside chance of winning. The logic was that Astorino had been a ridiculous long shot for winning the county executive slot and yet he had, so any weakening of Cuomo might give him a chance at the governorship.
I didn’t catch the editorial written by the NYT but heard secondhand that they didn’t endorse Teachout. So is this the pseudo-pragmatic political argument that you always have to support the lesser of two evils in any and all situations? (With the NYT, I sometimes think they prefer evil anyway.)