Andrew Yang has posted a piece about leaving the Democratic Party. Like everything else he says and does, it is not particularly interesting and could have been written by David Brooks.
I’ll admit there has always been something of an odd fit between me and the Democratic Party. I’m not very ideological. I’m practical. Making partisan arguments – particularly expressing what I often see as performative sentiment – is sometimes uncomfortable for me. I often think, “Okay, what can we actually do to solve the problem?” I’m pretty sure there are others who feel the same way I do.
This is rich coming from a man whose signature policy is protecting us from a robot uprising by spending trillions a year on universal basic income. Every other problem can be solved by a smaller version of this. Practical and non-ideological, indeed.
I’ve seen politicians publicly eviscerate each other and then act collegial or friendly backstage a few minutes later. A lot of it is theatre.
I’ve also had people publicly attack me and then text or call me privately to make sure that we were still cool. It just had to be done for appearances.
To be fair, this is totally true. His distaste for this is one reason he repeatedly lost primaries. (The others being that he was not remotely qualified and did not have deep political roots.) Being successful in politics, especially for the high-profile roles he chases, does require a certain level of sociopathy, a willingness to speak out of both sides of one’s mouth and live inside a web of ever-shifting allegiances. It is probably best for the Yangs that Andrew lacks this quality. It is also probably best for the polity.
He isn’t totally crammed full of bad ideas. We’ve already covered UBI, which has a lot going for it, even if his implementation is unworkable. He’s also one of the more prominent voices advocating for electoral reforms.
The key reform that is necessary to help unlock our system is a combination of Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting, which will give voters more genuine choice and our system more dynamism. It will also prevent the spoiler effect that so many Democrats are concerned about, which is a byproduct of a two party system with a binary contest and simple plurality voting.
First-past-the-post voting is probably bad, and while I have my complaints about instant-runoff, hey, it’s an improvement. Open primaries, I genuinely have no opinion on right now, but there’s plenty of social science out there to back up his take.
Mostly, though, Yang’s post is not about any of this. It is about how great he feels being an independent.
Now that I’m not a member of one party or another, I feel like I can be even more honest about both the system and the people in it.
[…] I believe I can reach people who are outside the system more effectively. I feel more . . . independent.Perhaps it’s the nature of my upbringing, but I’m actually more comfortable trying to fix the system than being a part of it.
[…] I’ve got to say it feels really good to be building my own team. This is where I’m most at home.Recently, in an interview I commented that I wasn’t particularly driven by a desire to hold office. I’m working for impact.
Breaking up with the Democratic Party feels like the right thing to do because I believe I can have a greater impact this way.
Am I right? Let’s find out. Together.
The fiercely independent Yang, who had been a Democrat since 1995, seems to have finally found his voice. I will say he has some curious timing. If you were somebody who thought you had a lot of influence in politics, and whose signature idea was “give people money”, would you tap out right as one of the biggest giving-people-money bills in history was being negotiated? You might–if you had a book to sell.
solved it pic.twitter.com/Tfb92L3A0K
— James Frye (@JamesFrye) October 4, 2021
(Looks like you might need to click through to see the whole image. tldr; his book comes out tomorrow.)
Open thread!
trollhattan
Who?
The end.
JoyceH
I didn’t bother reading past that. When an American spells theater ‘theatre’ the pretension is too gag-worthy.
In open thread news – I just got a call that the sofa I was expecting in late November will be delivered this week! And Facebook is down so I can’t brag over there…
Ruckus
It doesn’t seem like he will be missed much…
He’s no longer a democrat so does that mean he’s gone over to the dark side, or is he just finally getting the message that no one really cares?
I never saw the point of voting for him, not in any form, way or shape. He just seems like a nothingburger. I take it from his results that a lot of people agree with me. I wonder if it was his choice or just overwhelming evidence…
Major Major Major Major
With insights like these it’s a wonder he wasn’t more popular.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: I ranked him for NYC mayor, but not highly.
Fair Economist
Who cares?
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
The Other Bob
Could the child tax credit prepayment I get every month now be considered a form of UBI? If so, shouldn’t Yang feel victorious?
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
I mean sure, he was running and didn’t seem like he wanted to burn it all down or fly planes into all the buildings…. Too soon?
Major Major Major Major
He just tweeted “my political homelessness will last 1 day”–libertarian or green? I guess I can imagine a world where he jumps to the GOP but this announcement just doesn’t feel aggrieved enough.
RepubAnon
I expect he’ll soon talk about how we can’t raise taxes on “job creators.”
matt
Why does Andrew Yang always sound like he has taken crazy pills?
SpaceUnit
Andrew Yang is a one-man circle jerk.
lowtechcyclist
He didn’t leave the party, the party left him…bereft of their votes.
jl
I’ve seen wealthy vain goofballs go into politics completely unprepared who refuse to do any homework or adjustments after initial defeats, and then give up and take their ball (which no one has any use for anyway) home in a pout.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: he also isn’t Eric Adams so that was a selling point.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
His political homelessness? He considered the democratic party to be his home, and he just walked away and has no idea where he was going next? Yeah that seems about correct for him…
Roger Moore
Open primaries don’t seem to have done much here in California, though I’ll admit we haven’t combined them with any kind of ranked choice voting. That said, I think there is a serious problem with things having gone too far for electoral reform to fix our problems, at least by itself. If we had done some of these things 50 years ago, they might have helped to keep the crazies from taking control of one of our political parties. But now that the crazies have taken control, it’s not clear to me that we can get rid of them by reducing the power of the political party. The crazy cult already exists, and we can’t will its disappearance.
MattF
The one thing I’d watch, just out of curiosity, is how Yang’s opinions will now drift in the longer term. He’s free from political constraints— and we now have many examples of people ending up in political positions that are quite different from where they started.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: No Labels is my guess. If they’ll have him.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Alison Rose
@Major Major Major Major: This would be a fun Mad Libs game.
jl
Would be interesting to do a compare and contrast between Yang, the Starbucks guy, Perot, and many other unprepared and ignorant mavericks of wealth. They were self-styled outside the box thinkers who vained their way into a sad political dog and pony show full of goofy stunts that didn’t work, improvisations that turned into pratfalls, and aimless wandering around the public stage preening over their dysfunction.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
Well sure, but that point sure didn’t seem to get him very far.
@SpaceUnit:
That’s not very nice. True. But not very nice.
@jl:
What else is he going to do, break down and cry in front of cameras? And if he did would anyone care?
Betty Cracker
@SpaceUnit: Hahaha, perfect! :)
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: oh god what if he tries to start the Math Party
Major Major Major Major
@jl: I don’t think Starbucks guy got far enough to merit inclusion…
hells littlest angel
A perfect line for his obituary.
Baud
I’m sad that the party of AOC and Joe Manchin was too stifling for Andrew Yang.
Barbara
@SpaceUnit:
That just about nails it.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: don’t forget Bernie Sanders, who he name drops in the post as the sort of outside the box figure politics needs more of.
His real problem with the party is probably that they don’t think the Democratic Party is the only thing wrong with American politics, unlike his Twitter friends.
Ken
I’ll give Yang this much: “I’m leaving the Democratic party (oh, and my book comes out tomorrow)” is infinitely more responsible than the “I knew about TFG’s secret plans to overthrow democracy eight months before the election (oh, and my book comes out tomorrow)” that we’ve come to expect from “journalists”.
Benw
Back on the Yang Gang HOO HAH HOO HAH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMOKamtpUA8
different-church-lady
Today is the day I feel totally vindicated for being wise* enough to refuse to log in to anything that wasn’t Facebook with Facebook.
*(substitute cranky and the statement still stands.)
hueyplong
[jerks awake after nodding off while reading about Yang]
jl
@Baud: ” I’m sad that the party of AOC and Joe Manchin was too stifling for Andrew Yang. ”
The poor guy is looking for a political home where he can wander around aimlessly spouting quarter-baked ideas.
Can you help him? If he can just stop noticing that no one cares about his ravings, seems a perfect fit for Baudist movement.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
My morning thread comment probably fits here.
J R in WV
Wife tells me CNN is about to report, has just teased their report, that William Shatner is going into space!!! I wonder if he actually knows what that means??
ETA: To quote a comment about,Yang? Who?
Why do random people suddenly think they can become President and fix the world? Very random in Yang’s part.
jl
@Baud: The thing I like about Baud is that it walks the walk. Calm acceptance, even understated welcome, that no one noticed.
Edit: clam changed to clam. Clam is relevant, but not the time to get into the chowder issue.
Baud
@jl:
To be a Baud! supporter, Yang would have to give up the idea of sending every American a basic income and embrace the idea of giving every American a puppy!
Ohio Mom
@jl:
That sounds like the beginning of the sort of game played on long car trips: How many (category) can you list?
Under the category of extremely long shot past president candidates I’d add: the comedian Pat Paulson, Shirley Chisholm (I adored her but that was a bit of a stunt), and Eugene Debs, for starters.
different-church-lady
@jl:
Open and shut.
different-church-lady
@Ohio Mom: Donald Trum… shit, wait, no…
jl
@Ohio Mom: You have a good game idea. Your example is different from mine, since the people you listed are like Confucius, Charlemagne, Washington Jefferson and Hamilton rolled into one compared to the Yang gang and close related political species.
Barbara
@jl: It’s kind of chilling, actually, how many guys are like Yang, persuaded that always being in the top 5% or 10% of whatever schools they attended makes them the smartest guys in the room that everyone else should listen to. Bobby Jindal comes to mind as a Republican counterpart. Even assuming that academic achievement is the sine qua non to political or policy success (highly dubious), if you are in the top 5% of a large college like Harvard, for instance, that means that there are at least another thousand people who can make the same claim just there, EVERY YEAR. The same is true for business success — there are many successful business people. Most of us aren’t that rare in our brilliance or aptitude. It’s sheer arrogance to think that you are owed the kind of deference that Yang seems to think he is entitled to.
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom:
Oh, and Harold Stassen. For most of my life I thought his name was a MAD Magazine in-joke but then I learned he was a real person.
jl
@different-church-lady: Baudists are happy as a clam under every circumstance. And as active.
But that is topic for another time.
kindness
Yang is disappointed Democrats didn’t cheer him like his employees do at Company meetings.
Clue Andrew – you are paying them to cheer for you.
Ohio Mom
@different-church-lady: Perhaps Donald Trump is the exception that proves the rule?
Certainly at the beginning of his campaign, I did not take him seriously, he did remind me of Ross Perot, a silly rich guy making a fool of himself. Ah, sweet naivety.
jl
@Barbara: I think that willingness to do some work and to adjust after an initial promising start that comes up short is also important. Willingness to examine why you failed makes up for lack of brilliance, at least to some extent. And most of us non-brilliant people understand that. Yang could not or would not.
jl
@Ohio Mom: I was never part of the Yang gang, but I took him more seriously than most, given his unexpected rise in support.
But he seemed completely oblivious to very valid criticism of his proposals, and he soon revealed a weakness in pumping out sad and inept hot takes from the top of his head and rear end with equal unwillingness to face any criticism.
So, I soon regarded him as a threat, rather than a newcomer with any promise at all.
Another Scott
For some reason, he sent me an email (I never gave him any money). Presumably it’s the same thing that’s on his site:
Yeah, no. Our system is “stuck” not because of “polarization” but because one political party allowed crazy people to take over in pursuit of minority rule.
Political parties belong to the party members and should be closed. If you want to vote in their primary and affect who their nominee is, then join the party.
No Labels will welcome him with open arms, I’m sure.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@Ruckus:
It just mean we have one more critic of the Democratic Party – while he remains silent about the GOP.
Hoodie
Andrew Yang tapped out a long time ago.
jl
@The Other Bob: “Could the child tax credit prepayment I get every month now be considered a form of UBI? If so, shouldn’t Yang feel victorious?”
I don’t think that proposal is nearly as inadequate and poorly thought out as Yang’s version of UBI. So, probably he doesn’t.
Nora Lenderbee
Door, hit, ass, etc.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Democracies are so cruel to the purists. All that dreadful compromising.
jackmac
Andrew Yang = yawn
Ohio Mom
@jl:
At one time, I might have thought that the primary season was too long but it was certainly the right length this last go-round. For two examples, we had time to let Biden win us over, and more than enough time for Yang to flash in his pan and grow dim for everyone to see.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Oh, the Baudist dropped the “T-Bird in every garage” from the party’s platform?
Old School
Yang’s new party will match his book title: Forward.
L85NJGT
Pseudo celebrity unable to raise Q score to level of primary winner, blames “system”.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
That was perfect.
Starfish
You are trying to distract me from the great Facebook tech failure by bringing me Yang, and it is not working because the great Facebook tech failure is too funny. ?
catothedog
Ah, meritocratic rule . We smart people know better, and all you riff-raff should obey us — because “science”, you moraans. It’s math, logic and universal truth.
There is no daylight between Zuck, Bezos, Musk, Yang and their ilk. It’s “divine right of kings” recycled in a new bottle.
This country will not be saved by science, but by literature.
Another Scott
@Old School: (Rassin’ frassin’ I knew I should have ®©™ed “Forward!!”)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
Spare a moment for the many Instagram and WhatsApp users who are also shut down.
(It can be a moment laughing, if you want.)
Another Scott
It just struck me who Yang reminds me of. John Hagelin of the ‘Natural Law Party’.
Since Yang has decided to set up another political party, I will regard him as a potential spoiler from here on out.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anyway
I wish people like him would talk about other structural systemic issues ignored by the media – Electoral College favors the GOP, how the GOP represents a smaller and smaller percentage of Americans, political media is silent on those issues but we need regular people to think about it more – in preparation for — more judges, merging the two Dakotas, states with 1 house rep gets only 1 senator — point out how un(d)emocratic our system is. This was the perfect time for him to do that.
debbie
He left because the Democratic Party had the nerve, the NERVE, not to nominate him. ? ?
Geminid
@Barbara: Yang came across as a nice, forward looking guy in the Democratic Presidential primaries. Once he showed at the top of New York City Mayoral polling, people looked into his record and brought back receipts. Yang had run a sort of business boot camp that placed a premium on Ivy League backgrounds but discounted HBCU applicants. Some young Black people who did attend felt marginilized. And Yang’s proposal regarding proactive reporting of potential criminals to police got a lot of pushback. A twitter wag suggested a calling it, “If you’re Karen’, you’re sharin’.” Yang’s proposal regarding mentally ill homeless people reactionary was considered reactionary,and it was.
But I have to question appraisals that consider Eric Adams inferior to Yang. Adams ran well in Black and Latino neighborhoods in the outer boroughs. I look at New Yorkers generally as alert people who know and care about their city’s political challengers. The people who voted for Adams may have their feet on the ground in a way the Manhattanite majority who voted for technocrat Garcia, and the gentrifying outer borough residents who came out strong for Wiley. And while Congressmen Jeffries and Meeks endorsed Wiley as their first choice, they endorsed Adams for second choice and they both care about their city and it’s governance.
oatler
“Performative”
Might be an article from The AV Club.
FelonyGovt
I will never forget Yang’s stroll through a “bodega” or his comment that his NYC apartment was just too small and confining for his family during the pandemic. Clueless.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Yang has some fervent followers, but not many. I do worry some about him making an independent Presidential bid some day, with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk as Campaign Co-Chairmen.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Starfish: So any consensus that Facebook POWNed itself or did they finally anger so many people they hacked to hell and beyond? The stories of Facebook employees security badges not working is hilarious.
Kay
Open primaries and ranked choice voting are this decades term limits.
There are no neat tricks to fix things easily.
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid:
A lot of Adams’s appeal, including in these communities, was that he was NOT the candidate of police reform… Garcia very damn near won, so I don’t see why you’re discounting her supporters.
I do get a kick out of how well Wiley did among the ‘gentrifiers’. But it makes sense, since her housing policies would spur even more gentrification!
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: Ranked choice voting is good! Most things are better than FPTP.
sdhays
@Major Major Major Major: I hear the “Connecticut for Lieberman” Party is recruiting.
Major Major Major Major
@jl:
LOL
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: I am not discounting Garcia’s followers so much as saying that you should not discount Adams’. But I do think Black Democrats, and their Latino cohorts in New York City, may well have their feet on the ground in a way that white liberals do not. That is a lesson I draw from last years Democratic primaries, most notable being the one in South Carolina.
Kay
@Major Major Major Major:
I liked Yang in the (national) D primary- I thought he was optimistic and likeable but IMO people have to stop searching for easy fixes. It’s hard to fix. There are a lot of earnest people- if it were easy to fix they would have done it.
He has that kind of “eureka!” thing the term limits people had. I mean come on- they thought term limits would solve corruption?
sdhays
@Baud: What did puppies ever do to you to make you want to subject them to all of America?
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: What does it mean for voters to have their feet on the ground? To vote for the eventual winner? Would Adams’s base have their feet less on the ground if he’d gotten 15%? If Garcia had won, would we be looking at the Rise Of The Trash-In-Bins-Please Voter? Just trying to figure out what you mean.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: Oh ok! Yeah totally.
Kay
@Geminid:
Couldn’t there be an easier answer than that, though? Couldn’t they have just gone with the long term, connected Dem they were most familiar with? Like voters usually do? I don’t know why we came up with an alternate, more complex reason. It just feels like a narrative.
Baud
@Kay: I agree about no neat tricks. I do like rank choice voting however, because I don’t like primaries where many people run and the winner wins with less than 50% of the vote, often much less. RCV gives a little more legitimacy to the winner, I think
sdhays
@Major Major Major Major: I agree – especially considering the shenanigans that we’re just starting to hear about out of Florida (maybe local Floridians have know about this longer) where Republicans throw people with the same/similar names onto the ballot to muddy the waters and win a plurality.
Ranked-choice voting makes gaming the vote harder.
As for open primaries – meh.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: I also think ranked choice voting is good. I could go with runoffs, but that will not fly these days. (New York formerly had a runoff if no candidate won 40% of the vote, I believe.)
Alaska will implement the Mother of All Ranked Choice Voting systems next year. Candidates for Lisa Murkowski’s Senate seat and other races will first compete in a ranked choice jungle primary. Then, the top four will advance to a ranked choice general election. This sounds like welfare for the political-industrial complex. But hey, somebody (I think Judge Cardozo) described the states as laboratories of Democracy, and this will be an interesting social science project.
L85NJGT
@Kay:
“Common sense” voters are, generally speaking, fucking morons.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: yeah a lot of people forget that Adams is a longtime machine politician.
Kay
@Baud:
I saw a presentation on it at the county Dem meeting- they also presented at the R meeting, they said. It was interesting and I would try it.
It’s anathema to Lefties but I think people actually need work. I think it’s tied to self respect and agency. I don’t think we should gve them UBI- I think we should value their work, whatever their work is. It’s all valuable. I completely believe the whole “idle hands” theory. You gotta have somewhere to go every day.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: I mean that Black voters have a realistic knowledge of and interest in the City’s and Nation’s most important problems that white liberals may not have. They also have a greater stake in addressing these problems than their more priviledged counterparts in the white Democratic community.
Starfish
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It looks like someone at Facebook screwed up. Usually, other computer people who have screwed up are sympathetic, but today the emotions run the gamut from “I am glad I did not screw up like that” to “what is Facebook? Never heard of it.”
sdhays
@Kay: I seem to recall the UBI experiment they did in Finland didn’t work out as well as planned.
Valuing all kinds of work is a good way of thinking about how to approach the problem.
Kay
@Baud:
Did you see Sherrod Brown’s visual aid at a senate hearing? “Raising children is work”
Just value everyone’s work. No need to demean all work to get there. Celebrate work! :)
i hate the public service loan program for that reason. Just stop elevating some and denigrating other- that’s not the way to get there. This is how we ended up with Donald Trump’s children.
Kay
@sdhays:
I don’t think Democrats want to be the “no work” party. Be the value all work party. It’s better.
Have you ever heard Duggan, the mayor of Detroit? “I want all the immigrants and I want everyone working”. This is a great message. It’s also respectful and offers agency and choice, which is important to people.
Baud
@Kay:
I would prefer UBI because it’s less intrusive, but mine is a minority view, and I agree that UBI is not a substitute for work.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe a lot of people knew Adams is a “machine” politician and did not consider that a dirty word. But New Yorkers are demanding folks, and Adams has to deliver if he wants a second term. You might as well wait until Adams is actually is Mayor to judge him.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: you save a lot of money if you structure it as a negative income tax tier, which also reduces some other distortions and generally makes it more like the popular EITC which is intended to help workers.
UBI only makes sense in a society even wealthier than ours IMO, where there simply isn’t enough work.
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: huh?
I meant that a lot of commenters forget that Adams has deep roots in the party and region.
Kay
@Baud:
I think Biden himself gets this so portrays the child subsidies as a way to alleviate pressure on parents not so they can not work but so they can both work and raise children and eventually get ahead. I just think there’s some reluctance on the Left to approach it so directly because they have kind of “rules of coolness” that forbids them valuing anything as conventional as a work ethic. But I value a work ethic. I admire that. I just don’t care what you do for work and I don’t want to judge its value.
sdhays
@Kay: I wonder if partly it’s that “work ethic” has been sullied the same way “patriotism” has been sullied by the right wing. Having a “work ethic” involves doing the jobs people higher up in the food chain demand without complaining just as “patriotism” involves being pro-war/anti-foreigner etc.
There’s some definition reclamation necessary.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: I took your early comment that Yang had appeal because he was not Eric Adams as a slam on Adams. Maybe I was wrong. But I’ve seen a lot of disparagement of Adams on this forum, and only two Adams defenders that I’ve noticed, so I don’t think he has a lot of fans here unaware of his political past.
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: I mean I ranked him. Not a fan though.
But no I meant that people who don’t know his history fail to understand that part of his appeal.
Ryan
I think you’re right. I think his independence is a variation on bofsiderism and his desire to remain above the fray.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: So, do you think that next time around the City will modify RCV and limit ranking to, say, two or three choices? I thought the extensive ranking in this election was confusing and unnecessary.
Major Major Major Major
@Geminid: I don’t think two makes much sense. And I don’t see the difference between three and five really, it’s not like you have to fill them all out. But I dunno. Guess there’s an issue with unnecessarily long forms.
Does changing it require a law?
At any rate the BoE really shit the bed.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: Ah. I thought there were as many choices as there were candidates. Five choices does not sound so bad.
One reason I’ve come around to RCV is that these days so many people run for any and all offices. Without RCV or runoffs, we will see more candidates winning with 30% pluralities, and I don’t think that is a good thing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid:
I’m not a NYer so I never dug too deep into the candidates, but his party switching would’ve been a mark against him in my book. Not definitive, but it would’ve been a factor in my evaluation.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: eh, a 2002 switch is fine in my book, and it’s not like he hasn’t been an active party member.
smintheus
“Please clap.”
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
2 + 2 = who the hell knows? That math party?
Yeah, there is the old line about if more people had more sense it would be more common.
Ruckus
@jl:
I’d bet that’s rather easy when one is inserted in the other….
Geminid
@Kay:Black South Carolina primary voters surely knew Biden best. They also trusted him
And they may have had a more realistic appraisal of Sanders’, Warren’s, Klobucher’s, and Buttigieg’s chances to beat trump, and they had a greater stake in beating trump than many other Democrats
After Harris dropped out, I became a Warren fan. After all, she had the best programs and plans. Now I ask myself, what was I thinking? I don’t think I had a realistic idea of her appeal to others, and I think she would have lost in November.
I am replying so late because I thought you were talking about Eric Adams, not Joe Biden.
trnc
“I didn’t really want to do that that thing that everyone rejected me for.” Bwahahahahah! Anyway, mission accomplished. We all heard the thud of your vanity campaigns.
PJ
@Geminid:
Uh, we have had two terms of De Blasio. The first term was very underwhelming, but no one of substance ran against him for the second. I don’t expect that Adams will have any real Democratic opposition unless he fucks up in a major way. He’s going to piss off the progressives, but they don’t have enough votes to make a difference citywide without a charismatic candidate, and right now they don’t have one (if they did, that person would be the Democratic candidate for mayor right now.)
Geminid
@PJ: I know New Yorkers vote Democratic in state and federal elelections by large majorities. But when it comes to City elections, are New Yorkers all that liberal?
Major Major Major Major
@PJ: Adams will of course win in a landslide because his opponent is a gang leader with sixteen cats.