Seven Distinctions Between Elections
A Democrat Abandoned,
Is That Right or Wrong?
By Henry J. Stern
November 6, 2009
The World Series victory and the Yankee parade truncated public rumination over the quirky 2009 mayoral election.
We say ‘quirky’ because this contest differed in a number of ways from all other contests for the New York City mayoralty.
First, one candidate set an all-time spending record for a local election, reportedly exceeding $100,000,000.
Whether the same result would have been reached if he spent half that sum is hard to tell, but from Bloomberg’s POV, why take the chance. If he did, he would be denounced with equal vehemence for spending $50 million on the campaign. In for a penny, in for a pound. And the money he spends goes back into the local economy, so people can keep their jobs and feed their families.
The spending reminds me of a story I heard many years ago about John Wanamaker, a department store magnate from Philadelphia who at one time had a store which occupied a huge building on Broadway and Ninth Street. Mr. Wanamaker was once told that half the money he spent on advertising was wasted. “I know that,” he replied, “but I can never tell which half.”
Second, the contrast between the public profiles of the two candidates was enormous. Bloomberg created a multi-billion dollar corporation, which he named for himself. Thompson was a mid-level functionary in Brooklyn politics until he was elected Comptroller eight years ago. In that office, he did not make waves. He was named for his father, who was a distinguished judge in an era when race was a greater obstacle to advancement than it is today.
Third, very few Democratic elected officials felt any particular affinity for Thompson. Most gave him nominal support, because they felt it was their duty as Democrats. A handful jumped to Bloomberg. The elite in both parties did not view Thompson as a competitive candidate, just as Thompson paid little heed to Councilman Tony Avella in the Democratic primary. The support the Comptroller did receive came largely from true believers on the left and unions and individuals who hated Bloomberg. Although he had given public employees generous increases over the years, he could never make them happy campers. By and large, Democrats burnished their credentials for party loyalty by endorsing Thompson, without actually doing anything much to assist him.
Fourth, although there was ample fault to find with Bloomberg (inevitable after eight years of friction with groups disaffected by the multiple decisions a mayor is required to make) the term limits maneuver in particular struck at his reputation for decency and fairness. There was also certain carelessness with regard to the feelings of others, which all but disappeared during the campaign.
That being said, there was considerable good in his honest, competent, professional and innovative administration. The public health and environmental advances were particularly noteworthy. The parks prospered. Although Thompson had not done anything wrong that his predecessors had not also done (despite the negative commercials), he had no record of achievement to compare with what Bloomberg had accomplished, both in business and in public life.
Fifth, the issue of race, although suppressed by both sides in a political campaign, is always present. It is demonstrated in an analysis of the vote by neighborhoods. There have been four black-white contests in recent years: The Koch-Dinkins Democratic primary in 1989, Dinkins v. Giuliani in general elections in 1989 and 1993, and Bloomberg v. Thompson in 2009.
We have an African-American President who won a substantial white vote, and an African-American governor who is yet to be tested at the polls. Even though there are substantial black and white constituencies who follow the adage, “Vote your own”, elections in New York City are decided by the people in the middle, Asians, Latinos and open minded people of all races, who make their choice on the basis of their opinions on the merits of the candidate, or as Dr. King said, “the content of his character.”
Sixth, the polls were as off the mark as they have ever been. Our theory of why that happened is as follows: many voters were for Bloomberg, but when they heard he would win by a large margin they voted for Thompson to punish the mayor over term limits and campaign spending, and to curb what they saw as his pride. Years ago, there was a strong tendency for black candidates to poll better than they actually ran in the election, because whites did not want to admit their prejudice to a pollster. In 2009, the reverse occurred, the white candidate polled better than he ran. Perhaps his last commercial broke the camel’s back. Did the polls encourage or discourage minority voting? Probably neither, but how can you measure that?
Seventh, there was an unprecedented wave of anti-incumbent sentiment. People are upset by the flailing economy, in which enormous profits on Wall Street coexist with rising unemployment, and they resent political corruption which appears to be all too common. They want change, and they punish even those who tried to prevent the evils they deplore. This is shown particularly by the unexpectedly close vote in Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi’s race for a third term.
BEYOND THE ELECTION, and on to next week in Albany:
Many years ago, when I was in summer camp, we used to sing a song, which is supposed to have originated with cockroaches sitting on a toothpick in a bathtub. The chorus was “When the log rolls over, we will all be dead.” I didn’t make this up; that is what the kids sang, sometimes over and over. The melody escapes me.
The awareness shown by the roaches has not been demonstrated by public officials who are reluctant to acknowledge the financial crisis which is now upon us. The State legislature is set to meet Tuesday, and the Senate Democrats, who include the most distasteful of the legislators, surrounded by sanctimonious sheep, did not even want to listen to their own Democratic governor present his plea for the budget reductions which fiscal insufficiency require to avert insolvency.
Enjoy the weekend.
StarQuest #616 11.06.2009 1013wds
Friday, November 06, 2009
Thursday, November 05, 2009
The Voters' Verdict
Take Him Down a Peg,
But Keep Him Mayor,
Because He Serves Us
Better Than The Rest
By Henry J. Stern
November 5, 2009
On E-day plus two, we are still cogitating about the voters’ choices for 2009. We came across a new phrase today: ‘Wednesday morning quarterback” (Credit goes to Jonathan Martin, writing in Politico). The words define a seer in reverse, someone who masticates on the results of an election held Tuesday, telling the world what the candidates should have done, and explaining why the voters acted as they did.
Wednesday morning quarterbacks have the time-honored gift of 20-20 hindsight, to use another sports idiom. Some of what they say is true or close to it, some is reasonable supposition, and some comes from their highly personal vision of reality, which is unlikely to be shared by anyone else.
In that vein, several of today’s news stories deal with the regret of some Democrats that others did not support Thompson enthusiastically, or in a few cases, not at all. They fixate on the theme that Thompson was only five points down and, if these people had known that, he might have won, or at least narrowed the gap. They question the holdouts’ loyalty to the Democratic Party.
What the fault-finders forget, or never knew, is that many of these Democrats held back because they honestly felt that, compared to Bloomberg, Thompson was not qualified to be mayor. Party loyalty prevented them from saying so, but did not require them to use their political capital promoting a candidate whose ability they seriously doubted. Although Thompson is more articulate and less-gaffe prone than Governor David Paterson, he is miles below President Obama in oratory, writing skill, and analytic ability. In his eight years as Comptroller, he did better than the State Comptroller, but initiated few matters of substance, and scarcely warned about impending fiscal disaster.
In the Democratic primary September 15, Thompson won the nomination over Councilman Tony Avella by a 3-1 vote margin, not too high against an underfinanced unknown. Congressman Anthony Weiner, an early contender, wisely decided not to remain in the contest after months of pre-campaigning. Weiner realized that a racially-polarizing race against Thompson for the nomination would leave the Democratic Party badly split and unable to unite against Bloomberg. Weiner is 45 years old and Thompson is 56. Men, too, have biological clocks when they are in the business of politics. BTW, Bloomberg is 67 – he was first elected at 59.
This morning, we find the campaign for mayor in 2013 already under way. Bill de Blasio, public advocate elect, met with Mayor Bloomberg at a downtown coffee shop. The purpose of the photo op was to show that, despite political differences, the two men were on speaking terms and would work together when they agreed on an issue.
The breaking bread was in contrast to the other city-wide winner, John Liu, whose conduct was described in the lead story in this morning’s Times. We quote:
“But tellingly, when the mayor tried to meet with John C. Liu, the Democratic comptroller-elect, Mr. Liu said he could not find time on his schedule, a highly unusual slight. Later Mr. Liu told a reporter ‘A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City.’”
This display of rudeness by Mr. Liu is likely to be repeated. Rule 16-J is “Nobody does it once.” Liu has succeeded, however, in making de Blasio look reasonable. And courteous. Perhaps Liu will shift gears and abide by norms of behavior. Time will tell.
In 2013 there will be a host of mayoral candidates. We assume that term limits will be restored. That is certainly the will of the public at this time. Congressman Weiner will have the advantage of not being directly involved in the fiscal disaster that is likely to impact of New York City and New York State. The recession cannot end soon enough for the city and the state to escape the consequences of reduced income from taxation and expanding demand for social services. Mayor Bloomberg told us he sought a third term because of his unique ability to deal with acute financial problems. Those abilities will now be put to the test, starting with the mayor’s preliminary budget which is due on January 16, about ten weeks from today.
During the campaign, Mayor Bloomberg was repeatedly denounced for his third-term ploy; criticism which found some traction with voters. But that issue is essentially over, or at least referred to a new Charter Revision Commission to which Ronald Lauder has been promised a mayoral appointment. That makes sense, it is better to have him inside the tent than outside the tent. And the mayor can appoint as many other people as he likes. The Charter Commission should do the comprehensive 18-month review of city government that the mayor promised in January 2008 in Queens. They should separate out the issue of term limits, and are required to submit their proposal to the City Clerk by September 5, sixty days before Election Day, November 2, in order for it to appear on the ballot in 2010, which would be desirable.
The far larger issue facing city government at this time is the budget deficit. The budget is structurally out of balance, and the city is committed to spending more than it is likely to receive. Tuesday’s election results in the state of New Jersey, and in Westchester and Nassau counties, demonstrated voter aversion to high taxes and a preference for lower levels of taxation and government spending, goals usually identified with Republicans. Both de Blasio and Liu ran to Mayor Bloomberg’s left, with the support of public employee unions whose demands for annual increases regardless of available revenues would obviously make it more difficult, if not impossible, to reduce any taxes. The controversy next year is more likely to focus on which taxes and fees should be increased.
Elections usually have a cathartic effect. They are intended to provide a fresh start, a cleansing of government. Sometimes new officials are elected, and those who remain may get a clearer sense of the desires of their constituents, if they are not totally captive to the desires of their lobbyists.
The Republican minority on the City Council increased this year from three to five. Three Republicans are from Queens and two are from Staten Island. We do not know off-hand if there are any Blue Dog Democrats in the council. Our suspicion is that there are some, but they are closeted. The role of the county leaders in dominating the members from their borough will also be re-examined in the light of setbacks to the party organizations in Brooklyn and Queens.
The Council can be divided into borough delegations: Manhattan councilmembers never listened to their county leader, and Staten Island has only one Democrat, so the mainland borough of the Bronx, historically allied with Queens since the days of Stanley Friedman and Donald Manes, could exert more influence. It is not long, however, on talented candidates for leadership positions. Nonetheless, people sometimes rise to the occasion.
The Bronx is divided into five dynasties, Most numerous are the Riveras, two assemblymembers (father and daughter) and the City Council majority leader; (son) the Serranos, the father in Congress and the son a state senator; the Diazes, the father-senator and the son-borough president, and the Espadas—the father is the majority leader of the state senate, the son was a legislator but was voted out twice. The son also lost out on a $120,000 appointive office, so he will have to go back to work at the Soundview health center along with his father and several brothers. There is one matrilineal dynasty, Councilwoman Helen Diane Foster succeeded her father, Rev. Wendell Foster, in his West Bronx council seat.
I had the opportunity to serve nine years (1974-83) as a Councilman at Large from Manhattan, elected on the Liberal line. During my first years, six of my colleagues were indicted for various alleged misdeeds. We quote Rule 29-T: “The trouble is, the charges are true.” The Ione defense is that elected officials are subject to closer scrutiny than members of the general public. That is true, but the scrutiny is often justified.
In general, where they have a choice, people will vote for the better candidate, just as juries, much more often than not, decide on reasonable verdicts. We believe that the people are basically decent, but it is difficult to escape the spider web of intrigue and favoritism which infests government. If you have the time, follow the trial of former Senator Joseph Bruno, the former majority leader of the state senate (now replaced by Pedro Espada), who stoutly denies any wrongdoing. Assemblymembers McLaughlin and Seminerio of Queens recently left public office, and who can say that the only ones guilty are the ones that were caught.
That is the kind of behavior by elected officials we have generally not endured in New York City government in recent years, except for the chronic corruption of building inspectors. But just as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is also the price of good government. It is also the price of an apartment free of roaches. The good guys cannot rest in their efforts, because there are barbarians at the gate. In New York State, they are sometimes in the chamber.
StarQuest #615 11.05.2009 1544wds
But Keep Him Mayor,
Because He Serves Us
Better Than The Rest
By Henry J. Stern
November 5, 2009
On E-day plus two, we are still cogitating about the voters’ choices for 2009. We came across a new phrase today: ‘Wednesday morning quarterback” (Credit goes to Jonathan Martin, writing in Politico). The words define a seer in reverse, someone who masticates on the results of an election held Tuesday, telling the world what the candidates should have done, and explaining why the voters acted as they did.
Wednesday morning quarterbacks have the time-honored gift of 20-20 hindsight, to use another sports idiom. Some of what they say is true or close to it, some is reasonable supposition, and some comes from their highly personal vision of reality, which is unlikely to be shared by anyone else.
In that vein, several of today’s news stories deal with the regret of some Democrats that others did not support Thompson enthusiastically, or in a few cases, not at all. They fixate on the theme that Thompson was only five points down and, if these people had known that, he might have won, or at least narrowed the gap. They question the holdouts’ loyalty to the Democratic Party.
What the fault-finders forget, or never knew, is that many of these Democrats held back because they honestly felt that, compared to Bloomberg, Thompson was not qualified to be mayor. Party loyalty prevented them from saying so, but did not require them to use their political capital promoting a candidate whose ability they seriously doubted. Although Thompson is more articulate and less-gaffe prone than Governor David Paterson, he is miles below President Obama in oratory, writing skill, and analytic ability. In his eight years as Comptroller, he did better than the State Comptroller, but initiated few matters of substance, and scarcely warned about impending fiscal disaster.
In the Democratic primary September 15, Thompson won the nomination over Councilman Tony Avella by a 3-1 vote margin, not too high against an underfinanced unknown. Congressman Anthony Weiner, an early contender, wisely decided not to remain in the contest after months of pre-campaigning. Weiner realized that a racially-polarizing race against Thompson for the nomination would leave the Democratic Party badly split and unable to unite against Bloomberg. Weiner is 45 years old and Thompson is 56. Men, too, have biological clocks when they are in the business of politics. BTW, Bloomberg is 67 – he was first elected at 59.
This morning, we find the campaign for mayor in 2013 already under way. Bill de Blasio, public advocate elect, met with Mayor Bloomberg at a downtown coffee shop. The purpose of the photo op was to show that, despite political differences, the two men were on speaking terms and would work together when they agreed on an issue.
The breaking bread was in contrast to the other city-wide winner, John Liu, whose conduct was described in the lead story in this morning’s Times. We quote:
“But tellingly, when the mayor tried to meet with John C. Liu, the Democratic comptroller-elect, Mr. Liu said he could not find time on his schedule, a highly unusual slight. Later Mr. Liu told a reporter ‘A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City.’”
This display of rudeness by Mr. Liu is likely to be repeated. Rule 16-J is “Nobody does it once.” Liu has succeeded, however, in making de Blasio look reasonable. And courteous. Perhaps Liu will shift gears and abide by norms of behavior. Time will tell.
In 2013 there will be a host of mayoral candidates. We assume that term limits will be restored. That is certainly the will of the public at this time. Congressman Weiner will have the advantage of not being directly involved in the fiscal disaster that is likely to impact of New York City and New York State. The recession cannot end soon enough for the city and the state to escape the consequences of reduced income from taxation and expanding demand for social services. Mayor Bloomberg told us he sought a third term because of his unique ability to deal with acute financial problems. Those abilities will now be put to the test, starting with the mayor’s preliminary budget which is due on January 16, about ten weeks from today.
During the campaign, Mayor Bloomberg was repeatedly denounced for his third-term ploy; criticism which found some traction with voters. But that issue is essentially over, or at least referred to a new Charter Revision Commission to which Ronald Lauder has been promised a mayoral appointment. That makes sense, it is better to have him inside the tent than outside the tent. And the mayor can appoint as many other people as he likes. The Charter Commission should do the comprehensive 18-month review of city government that the mayor promised in January 2008 in Queens. They should separate out the issue of term limits, and are required to submit their proposal to the City Clerk by September 5, sixty days before Election Day, November 2, in order for it to appear on the ballot in 2010, which would be desirable.
The far larger issue facing city government at this time is the budget deficit. The budget is structurally out of balance, and the city is committed to spending more than it is likely to receive. Tuesday’s election results in the state of New Jersey, and in Westchester and Nassau counties, demonstrated voter aversion to high taxes and a preference for lower levels of taxation and government spending, goals usually identified with Republicans. Both de Blasio and Liu ran to Mayor Bloomberg’s left, with the support of public employee unions whose demands for annual increases regardless of available revenues would obviously make it more difficult, if not impossible, to reduce any taxes. The controversy next year is more likely to focus on which taxes and fees should be increased.
Elections usually have a cathartic effect. They are intended to provide a fresh start, a cleansing of government. Sometimes new officials are elected, and those who remain may get a clearer sense of the desires of their constituents, if they are not totally captive to the desires of their lobbyists.
The Republican minority on the City Council increased this year from three to five. Three Republicans are from Queens and two are from Staten Island. We do not know off-hand if there are any Blue Dog Democrats in the council. Our suspicion is that there are some, but they are closeted. The role of the county leaders in dominating the members from their borough will also be re-examined in the light of setbacks to the party organizations in Brooklyn and Queens.
The Council can be divided into borough delegations: Manhattan councilmembers never listened to their county leader, and Staten Island has only one Democrat, so the mainland borough of the Bronx, historically allied with Queens since the days of Stanley Friedman and Donald Manes, could exert more influence. It is not long, however, on talented candidates for leadership positions. Nonetheless, people sometimes rise to the occasion.
The Bronx is divided into five dynasties, Most numerous are the Riveras, two assemblymembers (father and daughter) and the City Council majority leader; (son) the Serranos, the father in Congress and the son a state senator; the Diazes, the father-senator and the son-borough president, and the Espadas—the father is the majority leader of the state senate, the son was a legislator but was voted out twice. The son also lost out on a $120,000 appointive office, so he will have to go back to work at the Soundview health center along with his father and several brothers. There is one matrilineal dynasty, Councilwoman Helen Diane Foster succeeded her father, Rev. Wendell Foster, in his West Bronx council seat.
I had the opportunity to serve nine years (1974-83) as a Councilman at Large from Manhattan, elected on the Liberal line. During my first years, six of my colleagues were indicted for various alleged misdeeds. We quote Rule 29-T: “The trouble is, the charges are true.” The Ione defense is that elected officials are subject to closer scrutiny than members of the general public. That is true, but the scrutiny is often justified.
In general, where they have a choice, people will vote for the better candidate, just as juries, much more often than not, decide on reasonable verdicts. We believe that the people are basically decent, but it is difficult to escape the spider web of intrigue and favoritism which infests government. If you have the time, follow the trial of former Senator Joseph Bruno, the former majority leader of the state senate (now replaced by Pedro Espada), who stoutly denies any wrongdoing. Assemblymembers McLaughlin and Seminerio of Queens recently left public office, and who can say that the only ones guilty are the ones that were caught.
That is the kind of behavior by elected officials we have generally not endured in New York City government in recent years, except for the chronic corruption of building inspectors. But just as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is also the price of good government. It is also the price of an apartment free of roaches. The good guys cannot rest in their efforts, because there are barbarians at the gate. In New York State, they are sometimes in the chamber.
StarQuest #615 11.05.2009 1544wds
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Is 50,000 Enough
Mayor's Race Not As Tight
As It Appeared Last Night
By Henry J. Stern
November 4, 2009
When corporations report profits or losses today, the emphasis is not only on how much money they made or lost, but also on whether they ‘beat the street’.
That refers to the comparison between the predictions of stock analysts and the actual earnings of the corporation.
By that standard, the election result last night was not a victory for Mayor Bloomberg. He won by five points, whereas the latest Marist poll had him up by twelve. However, it was not a defeat. For one thing, he was re-elected as Mayor for the next four years, through December 31, 2013 if he chooses to stay.
For another thing, he survived a major backlash against the use of the City Council to over-ride two referenda which provided an eight-year maximum term for city elected officials. It is intrinsically unjust, in a democracy, for the executive and legislative branches to conspire to set aside decisions made by the whole public.
Whether or not such a maneuver is technically legal, it is a serious violation of the principle that government depends on the consent of the governed. This was combined with a $100 million campaign, in which the playing field was far from level. The juxtaposition of changing the charter and spending a fortune on the campaign caused considerable resentment among large numbers of ordinary people whose sense of fairness, perhaps learned in the playground, was affronted by these machinations.
There was widespread agreement that the mayor had done a good, honest job of running the city. The comparison with state government and Albany weighs heavily in the city’s favor. His supporters, who disapproved of his actions on term limits, did not believe that they should give up the progress the city had made in order to punish the mayor. The election came out well; enough people deserted the mayor for him to feel properly chastened, but not enough abandoned him so as to deprive the city of his generally well-regarded services. BTW, surprisingly, the Republicans won two more Council seats, going from three to five out of 51.
In perspective, the mayor’s victory margin of more than 50,000 votes was healthy. A look at past mayoral elections will show us how close many of them have been, usually when there is a strong challenge on the Republican, Liberal or Independent lines to counter the Democrats’ overwhelming lead in registration.
The sense of victory was tempered, however, by the inaccurate predictions of honest and reputable pollsters. It would be fascinating to learn why people said they were voting for Bloomberg and then voted for Thompson. Did they change their minds in the last two days? Or were the wrong people in the sample? If anyone is embarrassed, it should be the pollsters, not the candidates or the public who were misled by the reports. Something unusual happened, but what? Thompson would probably have been helped if the voters thought the result would be closer, just as Giuliani was impaired in 1989 by predictions in polls that he would be defeated by Dinkins by a substantial margin, which turned out not to be true.
Mayor Bloomberg won yesterday’s election by 50,342 votes, or 4.6% of the electorate. Here are the results in some prior mayoral races. In 1989, twenty years ago, when Rudy Giuliani first ran for mayor, he lost to David Dinkins by 47.080 votes, a margin of 2.5%. The number of votes cast was much larger in 1989 than in 2009. Four years later, in 1993, Giuliani defeated Mayor Dinkins, then an incumbent, by a margin of 53,581, or 3.0 per cent.
The first mayor in the 20th century to win a third term, Fiorello LaGuardia, was opposed in the 1941 election by Democrat William O’Dwyer, at the time district attorney of Kings County. LaGuardia won, with 1,186,518 votes, or 52.4%. O’Dwyer received 1,054,235 votes, or 46.6%. O’Dwyer was elected mayor in 1945 and re-elected in 1949, but he lasted only eight months into his second term when serious legal problems arose relating to his conduct in office. He was suddenly appointed by President Truman as Ambassador to Mexico. When President Eisenhower succeeded Truman in January 1961, he appointed a new ambassador, but O’Dwyer lingered in the Latin republic until 1960, finding the climate more salubrious.
In 1941, the total number of votes cast for mayor was 2,262,369. By 2009, sixty-eight years later, the total mayoral vote had declined to 1,100,649. That total is LESS THAN HALF the number of votes cast in the LaGuardia – O’Dwyer contest, which took place one month before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In those earlier days, it was not politically incorrect to say who attacked us, nor did we blame ourselves for inducing the attack.
The 1940 census reported the population of New York City to be 7,454,995. The most recent estimate from the City Planning Commission, as of July 1, 2009, gives the population of New York City as 8,363,710. That is an increase of 908,715, or 12.1%, over sixty-nine years. Over approximately the same time, 1941 to 1969, the decline in votes cast for mayor was 51.4%. During that period, the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18, which resulted in an even larger voter pool, so the decline in voting is even more striking. We know many residents today are not American citizens, but are still shocked at the deep decline in votes cast.
PRESS COVERAGE ON THE ELECTION
The mayoral election yesterday has been widely reported in the daily press. Several excellent articles have appeared, and we link here to a few of them, which provide useful background material about the contests.
The front page of the Daily News is striking, but not all that clear as to its meaning. A large, smiling picture of Mayor Bloomberg, is surrounded by a caption, “Hey, Mike, you won again, so now repay the voter’s trust YOUR LAST SHOT TO DELIVER” The last five words appearing in huge type. An editorial on p26 contains this exhortation:
“This is not a time for standing pat or for taking satisfaction in consolidating past gains, substantial as those have been. This is a time for fresh boldness, unfettered by political sail-trimming.”
That sounds good, but the mayor will be surrounded for four years by people who are out for his job. He cannot expect succor from hungry Democrats, who have now lost full five straight mayoral elections in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Maybe the way the party chooses its candidates, with each man or woman pretending to be further left than the others, leaves something to be desired in terms of appeal to the entire electorate. When there is a moderate Republican as an alternative, the rush in one direction may be counterproductive.
StarQuest #614 11.04.2009 1125wds
As It Appeared Last Night
By Henry J. Stern
November 4, 2009
When corporations report profits or losses today, the emphasis is not only on how much money they made or lost, but also on whether they ‘beat the street’.
That refers to the comparison between the predictions of stock analysts and the actual earnings of the corporation.
By that standard, the election result last night was not a victory for Mayor Bloomberg. He won by five points, whereas the latest Marist poll had him up by twelve. However, it was not a defeat. For one thing, he was re-elected as Mayor for the next four years, through December 31, 2013 if he chooses to stay.
For another thing, he survived a major backlash against the use of the City Council to over-ride two referenda which provided an eight-year maximum term for city elected officials. It is intrinsically unjust, in a democracy, for the executive and legislative branches to conspire to set aside decisions made by the whole public.
Whether or not such a maneuver is technically legal, it is a serious violation of the principle that government depends on the consent of the governed. This was combined with a $100 million campaign, in which the playing field was far from level. The juxtaposition of changing the charter and spending a fortune on the campaign caused considerable resentment among large numbers of ordinary people whose sense of fairness, perhaps learned in the playground, was affronted by these machinations.
There was widespread agreement that the mayor had done a good, honest job of running the city. The comparison with state government and Albany weighs heavily in the city’s favor. His supporters, who disapproved of his actions on term limits, did not believe that they should give up the progress the city had made in order to punish the mayor. The election came out well; enough people deserted the mayor for him to feel properly chastened, but not enough abandoned him so as to deprive the city of his generally well-regarded services. BTW, surprisingly, the Republicans won two more Council seats, going from three to five out of 51.
In perspective, the mayor’s victory margin of more than 50,000 votes was healthy. A look at past mayoral elections will show us how close many of them have been, usually when there is a strong challenge on the Republican, Liberal or Independent lines to counter the Democrats’ overwhelming lead in registration.
The sense of victory was tempered, however, by the inaccurate predictions of honest and reputable pollsters. It would be fascinating to learn why people said they were voting for Bloomberg and then voted for Thompson. Did they change their minds in the last two days? Or were the wrong people in the sample? If anyone is embarrassed, it should be the pollsters, not the candidates or the public who were misled by the reports. Something unusual happened, but what? Thompson would probably have been helped if the voters thought the result would be closer, just as Giuliani was impaired in 1989 by predictions in polls that he would be defeated by Dinkins by a substantial margin, which turned out not to be true.
Mayor Bloomberg won yesterday’s election by 50,342 votes, or 4.6% of the electorate. Here are the results in some prior mayoral races. In 1989, twenty years ago, when Rudy Giuliani first ran for mayor, he lost to David Dinkins by 47.080 votes, a margin of 2.5%. The number of votes cast was much larger in 1989 than in 2009. Four years later, in 1993, Giuliani defeated Mayor Dinkins, then an incumbent, by a margin of 53,581, or 3.0 per cent.
The first mayor in the 20th century to win a third term, Fiorello LaGuardia, was opposed in the 1941 election by Democrat William O’Dwyer, at the time district attorney of Kings County. LaGuardia won, with 1,186,518 votes, or 52.4%. O’Dwyer received 1,054,235 votes, or 46.6%. O’Dwyer was elected mayor in 1945 and re-elected in 1949, but he lasted only eight months into his second term when serious legal problems arose relating to his conduct in office. He was suddenly appointed by President Truman as Ambassador to Mexico. When President Eisenhower succeeded Truman in January 1961, he appointed a new ambassador, but O’Dwyer lingered in the Latin republic until 1960, finding the climate more salubrious.
In 1941, the total number of votes cast for mayor was 2,262,369. By 2009, sixty-eight years later, the total mayoral vote had declined to 1,100,649. That total is LESS THAN HALF the number of votes cast in the LaGuardia – O’Dwyer contest, which took place one month before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. In those earlier days, it was not politically incorrect to say who attacked us, nor did we blame ourselves for inducing the attack.
The 1940 census reported the population of New York City to be 7,454,995. The most recent estimate from the City Planning Commission, as of July 1, 2009, gives the population of New York City as 8,363,710. That is an increase of 908,715, or 12.1%, over sixty-nine years. Over approximately the same time, 1941 to 1969, the decline in votes cast for mayor was 51.4%. During that period, the voting age was reduced from 21 to 18, which resulted in an even larger voter pool, so the decline in voting is even more striking. We know many residents today are not American citizens, but are still shocked at the deep decline in votes cast.
PRESS COVERAGE ON THE ELECTION
The mayoral election yesterday has been widely reported in the daily press. Several excellent articles have appeared, and we link here to a few of them, which provide useful background material about the contests.
The front page of the Daily News is striking, but not all that clear as to its meaning. A large, smiling picture of Mayor Bloomberg, is surrounded by a caption, “Hey, Mike, you won again, so now repay the voter’s trust YOUR LAST SHOT TO DELIVER” The last five words appearing in huge type. An editorial on p26 contains this exhortation:
“This is not a time for standing pat or for taking satisfaction in consolidating past gains, substantial as those have been. This is a time for fresh boldness, unfettered by political sail-trimming.”
That sounds good, but the mayor will be surrounded for four years by people who are out for his job. He cannot expect succor from hungry Democrats, who have now lost full five straight mayoral elections in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Maybe the way the party chooses its candidates, with each man or woman pretending to be further left than the others, leaves something to be desired in terms of appeal to the entire electorate. When there is a moderate Republican as an alternative, the rush in one direction may be counterproductive.
StarQuest #614 11.04.2009 1125wds
Monday, November 02, 2009
Don't Wanna Go Home
Term Limits Judged:
Are City Politicians
Needy, Greedy or Both?
Henry J. Stern
November 2, 2009
Today is the day before the mayoral election, and a certain quietude has settled over the city’s civic community. It is widely assumed that Mayor Bloomberg will be re-elected, although many New Yorkers disapprove of his actions with regard to term limits. Nonetheless, an election is a choice between people. Which one do you want to be mayor for four years, and which one is more likely to appoint competent professionals to manage city agencies and minimize political influence in the decision making process?
At a Citizens Union dinner last week, Mayor Bloomberg told a story, quoting Mayor Koch, who received an award for public service. The story was Koch telling a crowd that if they agreed with him on nine out of twelve issues, they should vote for him. If they agreed with him on twelve out of twelve, they should see a psychiatrist. Citizens Union had supported Koch for mayor three terms, and their first endorsement, in 1977, gave gravitas to his campaign. The key support Koch received in that campaign came from Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, which made its decision on the basis of Koch’s willingness to stand up to public employee unions, a position that his principal rival, Mario Cuomo, refused to take.
Citizens Union deserted Koch in 1989, supporting Richard Ravitch, who received just 4.7% of the vote in what had become a two-man race between Koch, the incumbent, and David Dinkins, the challenger. Naturally, Koch was not pleased, but that was twenty years ago, and he has either forgotten or forgiven Citizens Union for their quixotic choice. Ironically, the civic and business elite had for years been saying that Ravitch was the kind of man they would support for mayor, not the usual kind of politician who lived off elective office. When Ravitch finally ran, these elites generally did not support him, and since he had no allies in the political class, his candidacy was doomed. Hopefully, he has found his niche in Albany.
Mayor Bloomberg’s actions in 2008 with regard to term limits resulted in a measurable loss of popularity, and convinced many of his supporters that he was an ordinary politician, who was willing to change the rules of the game without regard to niceties of process when he believed it was in his interest. Bloomberg had maintained for many years that he had no interest in a third term as mayor, and that was true at the time he said it. He specifically said that he would object to over-riding the public referenda held on term limits in 1993 and 1996.
Michael Saul of the Daily News quoted the Mayor on November 23, 2005, as saying: “The public wants term limits, and while it may be that the City Council has a right to over-ride them, deliberately saying to the public, ‘We don’t care what you think,’ I would use the word, ‘disgraceful.’
“The cynicism that that would engender towards city government is not something that this city needs. The public wants term limits, and if that’s what they want, we should all learn to live with ‘em.”
Bloomberg promised, in his State of the City message on January 17, 2008, delivered in Flushing Meadows Corona Park (where a great new swimming pool was built due to the persistence of former Borough President Claire Shulman), to appoint a Charter Revision Commission, which could, if it wished, propose to amend or repeal the term limits law, after which the matter would go to the public for a referendum, as the two previous initiatives had. We quote:
“Today, I am pleased to announce that we will appoint a new Charter Revision Commission that will conduct a top-to-bottom review of city government over the next eighteen months. We’ll consider any proposal that will improve the life of New York and New Yorkers.”
The speech contained no reference to term limits. In any event, the eighteen-month length of the study meant that no proposal could come before the public until November 2009, and therefore could not affect the election to be held at that time, at which the eight-year term limit would apply for the third cycle. Its effective date was 2001, which was the year most existing Councilmembers won their seats, due to the forced retirement of their predecessors (in four cases a parent). When it came time for the juniors to vacate, they balked, some younger (and older) members not having any gainful trade to ply.
In any event, the Mayor did not appoint a Charter Revision Commission in either 2008 or 2009. On reflection, we believe that the extensive proposals he envisioned should be advanced in the first two years of a mayoral administration, not the last two, when politics is likely to have a greater influence than it would have earlier in the quadrennium. Term limits, however, could have been handled by a Commission relatively simply and quickly, particularly if the change consisted of deleting the number “two” and replacing it with the number “three”, which was essentially what the Council arrogated to itself.
What happened. Some circumstances changed: the fiscal crisis, the nominations of Obama and McCain, whatever. In consequence, the Mayor changed his own mind about staying on. People have a right to change their minds. If someone acted in reliance on a prior statement, they can complain, and if they were injured by the unkept promise, they can sue. For example, if someone broke a legally binding promise, you have a cause of action. If someone changes his mind on a matter of public policy, that is something s/he has a right to do. If you don’t like it, vote against him/er.
On September 29, 2009, Tom Robbins reported on a conversation he had had with Joyce Purnick, author of a new biography of Mayor Bloomberg. Robbins wrote:
“That spring [2008], Bloomberg commissioned a poll on public attitudes about changing term limits. Purnick confirms that it showed that voters were likely to vote thumbs down on any move to change term limits in a new referendum.”
In view of the wave of anti-government sentiment directed against increased taxes and bureaucratic incursions into people’s ordinary lives, it is quite possible that the referendum would have been defeated. However, in a democracy, the people should have the last word, unless the basic rights of others are being threatened, which was not the case here.
The City Charter provides various routes by which it can be amended, by a charter commission or by a petition, both leading to a referendum. It can also be amended by the City Council, and for the great majority of sections in the charter, that is a perfectly adequate way for them to be modified. The Charter is much too long, and loaded with unnecessary detail. A real Charter Commission would reduce its length by at least four-fifths.
The Charter does, however, specifically forbid the Council to tamper with its provisions governing elections, tenure of public officials, or their comparative powers and responsibilities. Its framers did not want Councilmembers to make judgments in matters where they had an overwhelming conflict of interest. For example, the Charter specifically forbids the Council from extending its members’ term of office, from reducing the salary of public officials, or from taking other actions enhancing their own authority or perquisites.
When Ronald Lauder (or more likely his lawyers) wrote the term limits amendment that was adopted in referendum in 1993, he did not include a provision that this section be one of those already in the Charter that can only be amended by public referendum. When Peter Vallone and the Council proposed a charter revision in 1996 extending the two-term limit to three, they submitted it to public referendum, where it narrowly lost. If some deep pockets had supported it, and countered the money spent by Mr. Lauder in opposition, the plan might well have been adopted, and the current controversy could have been avoided.
What causes anxiety here is not just the change in the mayor’s attitude toward a third term. LaGuardia, Wagner and Koch all had third terms in the 20th century, and the city did not break. It is the combination of his change of heart and his vastly superior financial resources that frightens some New Yorkers. We know that under the Supreme Court case of Buckley v. Valeo, people can spend all they like of their own money to run for public office. And there are so many loopholes in the law, letting each local union contribute to the maximum, allowing support in kind, the use of 527-c corporations which are theoretically issue-related and not involved with the candidates, but still spend millions on advertising, reinforcing the candidate’s message.
It was not Bloomberg alone but the City Council that approved the extension. It is true that he put all the pressure he could on members to vote for the plan, but it also enabled the members to run for a third term, and that was the bottom line for most of them. Their intention was not to do the mayor a favor, or express their support for him. They did it, for the most part, out of self-interest: to help themselves, to keep themselves eligible for another four years on the public payroll, with office supplies, drivers and medical expenses, and more time served in order to increase their pensions.
We did not like the process of amending the Charter. There was a hearing in a room far too small to handle the expected crowd. People were physically excluded from the hearing by guards. The whole thing was a sham as far as citizen input was concerned. The officials knew what they wanted to do, and were simply complying with the law by going through the public ritual of holding a hearing. The public was almost unanimously against the scheme, and those who testified in favor were, for the most part, recipients of mayoral largesse, either privately or through public appropriations assisting their non-profits.
That being said, voters now have the duty of choosing a mayor for the years 2010 – 2013. The basis for this decision should be the comparative merits of the candidates. Who, in your judgment, is more competent, who is more intelligent, who is more devoted to the city’s interests, who is more likely to have his decisions shaped by political considerations, whose values are closer to yours, whose staff is likely to be better educated and more principled?
The term limits controversy has also been misstated. It does not give the mayor a third term, it gives him the opportunity to run for it. You will decide whether he gets it or not. President Kennedy said “Life is unfair”, and that is true. Some people are born rich and some are born poor. The mayor’s father was an accountant in Medford, Mass., who died 45 years ago, when Michael was in college. The comptroller’s father became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York and, thank God, is still alive. People achieve different levels of wealth, sometimes through their own efforts, sometimes through others, or through fate.
We are grateful that in America, this third stanza
Of the English hymn by Cecil Frances Alexander
(1818-1895), does not represent our viewpoint
As to the possibility of improvement of status:
“The rich man in his castle,
the poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
and ordered their estate."
Actually, the hymn begins beautifully,
“All things bright and beauteous,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wondrous,
The Lord God made them all.
“Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings."
There are four more quatrains,
To which you may link.
You can tell us what pains
You have, or what you think.
StarQuest #613 11.02.2009 1980wds
Are City Politicians
Needy, Greedy or Both?
Henry J. Stern
November 2, 2009
Today is the day before the mayoral election, and a certain quietude has settled over the city’s civic community. It is widely assumed that Mayor Bloomberg will be re-elected, although many New Yorkers disapprove of his actions with regard to term limits. Nonetheless, an election is a choice between people. Which one do you want to be mayor for four years, and which one is more likely to appoint competent professionals to manage city agencies and minimize political influence in the decision making process?
At a Citizens Union dinner last week, Mayor Bloomberg told a story, quoting Mayor Koch, who received an award for public service. The story was Koch telling a crowd that if they agreed with him on nine out of twelve issues, they should vote for him. If they agreed with him on twelve out of twelve, they should see a psychiatrist. Citizens Union had supported Koch for mayor three terms, and their first endorsement, in 1977, gave gravitas to his campaign. The key support Koch received in that campaign came from Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, which made its decision on the basis of Koch’s willingness to stand up to public employee unions, a position that his principal rival, Mario Cuomo, refused to take.
Citizens Union deserted Koch in 1989, supporting Richard Ravitch, who received just 4.7% of the vote in what had become a two-man race between Koch, the incumbent, and David Dinkins, the challenger. Naturally, Koch was not pleased, but that was twenty years ago, and he has either forgotten or forgiven Citizens Union for their quixotic choice. Ironically, the civic and business elite had for years been saying that Ravitch was the kind of man they would support for mayor, not the usual kind of politician who lived off elective office. When Ravitch finally ran, these elites generally did not support him, and since he had no allies in the political class, his candidacy was doomed. Hopefully, he has found his niche in Albany.
Mayor Bloomberg’s actions in 2008 with regard to term limits resulted in a measurable loss of popularity, and convinced many of his supporters that he was an ordinary politician, who was willing to change the rules of the game without regard to niceties of process when he believed it was in his interest. Bloomberg had maintained for many years that he had no interest in a third term as mayor, and that was true at the time he said it. He specifically said that he would object to over-riding the public referenda held on term limits in 1993 and 1996.
Michael Saul of the Daily News quoted the Mayor on November 23, 2005, as saying: “The public wants term limits, and while it may be that the City Council has a right to over-ride them, deliberately saying to the public, ‘We don’t care what you think,’ I would use the word, ‘disgraceful.’
“The cynicism that that would engender towards city government is not something that this city needs. The public wants term limits, and if that’s what they want, we should all learn to live with ‘em.”
Bloomberg promised, in his State of the City message on January 17, 2008, delivered in Flushing Meadows Corona Park (where a great new swimming pool was built due to the persistence of former Borough President Claire Shulman), to appoint a Charter Revision Commission, which could, if it wished, propose to amend or repeal the term limits law, after which the matter would go to the public for a referendum, as the two previous initiatives had. We quote:
“Today, I am pleased to announce that we will appoint a new Charter Revision Commission that will conduct a top-to-bottom review of city government over the next eighteen months. We’ll consider any proposal that will improve the life of New York and New Yorkers.”
The speech contained no reference to term limits. In any event, the eighteen-month length of the study meant that no proposal could come before the public until November 2009, and therefore could not affect the election to be held at that time, at which the eight-year term limit would apply for the third cycle. Its effective date was 2001, which was the year most existing Councilmembers won their seats, due to the forced retirement of their predecessors (in four cases a parent). When it came time for the juniors to vacate, they balked, some younger (and older) members not having any gainful trade to ply.
In any event, the Mayor did not appoint a Charter Revision Commission in either 2008 or 2009. On reflection, we believe that the extensive proposals he envisioned should be advanced in the first two years of a mayoral administration, not the last two, when politics is likely to have a greater influence than it would have earlier in the quadrennium. Term limits, however, could have been handled by a Commission relatively simply and quickly, particularly if the change consisted of deleting the number “two” and replacing it with the number “three”, which was essentially what the Council arrogated to itself.
What happened. Some circumstances changed: the fiscal crisis, the nominations of Obama and McCain, whatever. In consequence, the Mayor changed his own mind about staying on. People have a right to change their minds. If someone acted in reliance on a prior statement, they can complain, and if they were injured by the unkept promise, they can sue. For example, if someone broke a legally binding promise, you have a cause of action. If someone changes his mind on a matter of public policy, that is something s/he has a right to do. If you don’t like it, vote against him/er.
On September 29, 2009, Tom Robbins reported on a conversation he had had with Joyce Purnick, author of a new biography of Mayor Bloomberg. Robbins wrote:
“That spring [2008], Bloomberg commissioned a poll on public attitudes about changing term limits. Purnick confirms that it showed that voters were likely to vote thumbs down on any move to change term limits in a new referendum.”
In view of the wave of anti-government sentiment directed against increased taxes and bureaucratic incursions into people’s ordinary lives, it is quite possible that the referendum would have been defeated. However, in a democracy, the people should have the last word, unless the basic rights of others are being threatened, which was not the case here.
The City Charter provides various routes by which it can be amended, by a charter commission or by a petition, both leading to a referendum. It can also be amended by the City Council, and for the great majority of sections in the charter, that is a perfectly adequate way for them to be modified. The Charter is much too long, and loaded with unnecessary detail. A real Charter Commission would reduce its length by at least four-fifths.
The Charter does, however, specifically forbid the Council to tamper with its provisions governing elections, tenure of public officials, or their comparative powers and responsibilities. Its framers did not want Councilmembers to make judgments in matters where they had an overwhelming conflict of interest. For example, the Charter specifically forbids the Council from extending its members’ term of office, from reducing the salary of public officials, or from taking other actions enhancing their own authority or perquisites.
When Ronald Lauder (or more likely his lawyers) wrote the term limits amendment that was adopted in referendum in 1993, he did not include a provision that this section be one of those already in the Charter that can only be amended by public referendum. When Peter Vallone and the Council proposed a charter revision in 1996 extending the two-term limit to three, they submitted it to public referendum, where it narrowly lost. If some deep pockets had supported it, and countered the money spent by Mr. Lauder in opposition, the plan might well have been adopted, and the current controversy could have been avoided.
What causes anxiety here is not just the change in the mayor’s attitude toward a third term. LaGuardia, Wagner and Koch all had third terms in the 20th century, and the city did not break. It is the combination of his change of heart and his vastly superior financial resources that frightens some New Yorkers. We know that under the Supreme Court case of Buckley v. Valeo, people can spend all they like of their own money to run for public office. And there are so many loopholes in the law, letting each local union contribute to the maximum, allowing support in kind, the use of 527-c corporations which are theoretically issue-related and not involved with the candidates, but still spend millions on advertising, reinforcing the candidate’s message.
It was not Bloomberg alone but the City Council that approved the extension. It is true that he put all the pressure he could on members to vote for the plan, but it also enabled the members to run for a third term, and that was the bottom line for most of them. Their intention was not to do the mayor a favor, or express their support for him. They did it, for the most part, out of self-interest: to help themselves, to keep themselves eligible for another four years on the public payroll, with office supplies, drivers and medical expenses, and more time served in order to increase their pensions.
We did not like the process of amending the Charter. There was a hearing in a room far too small to handle the expected crowd. People were physically excluded from the hearing by guards. The whole thing was a sham as far as citizen input was concerned. The officials knew what they wanted to do, and were simply complying with the law by going through the public ritual of holding a hearing. The public was almost unanimously against the scheme, and those who testified in favor were, for the most part, recipients of mayoral largesse, either privately or through public appropriations assisting their non-profits.
That being said, voters now have the duty of choosing a mayor for the years 2010 – 2013. The basis for this decision should be the comparative merits of the candidates. Who, in your judgment, is more competent, who is more intelligent, who is more devoted to the city’s interests, who is more likely to have his decisions shaped by political considerations, whose values are closer to yours, whose staff is likely to be better educated and more principled?
The term limits controversy has also been misstated. It does not give the mayor a third term, it gives him the opportunity to run for it. You will decide whether he gets it or not. President Kennedy said “Life is unfair”, and that is true. Some people are born rich and some are born poor. The mayor’s father was an accountant in Medford, Mass., who died 45 years ago, when Michael was in college. The comptroller’s father became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York and, thank God, is still alive. People achieve different levels of wealth, sometimes through their own efforts, sometimes through others, or through fate.
We are grateful that in America, this third stanza
Of the English hymn by Cecil Frances Alexander
(1818-1895), does not represent our viewpoint
As to the possibility of improvement of status:
“The rich man in his castle,
the poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
and ordered their estate."
Actually, the hymn begins beautifully,
“All things bright and beauteous,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wondrous,
The Lord God made them all.
“Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings."
There are four more quatrains,
To which you may link.
You can tell us what pains
You have, or what you think.
StarQuest #613 11.02.2009 1980wds
Friday, October 30, 2009
Five Days Out
What's Behind
Political Torpor
As Nov. 3 Nears?
Henry J. Stern
October 29, 2009
The mayoral race is fast approaching its finish line. Election Day, November 3, is just five days away. We have not seen a mayoral election which aroused so little excitement since Mayor Robert F. Wagner (Dem-Lib) won a second term in 1957 by defeating the Republican candidate, Robert K. Christenberry, who was postmaster of New York during the Eisenhower administration. Wagner received 1,508,775, or 67.8% of the total. Christenberry received 585,768 votes, 26.3% of the total. There were more Republicans living in New York City fifty-two years ago.
During that campaign, as Sam Roberts recently reminisced in the Times, Christenberry complained that the Police Department was lax on crime and vice. The response was a police raid on a gaming den in the basement of Manhattan’s Hotel Ambassador at 345 Park Avenue, since demolished for the Rudin building. The Ambassador was an opulent hostelry patronized by Rudolph Valentino. Christenberry was its president.
Mayor Wagner, the second mayor in the 20th century to be elected to three terms, (the first was LaGuardia and the third was Koch) was the son of New Deal Senator Robert F. Wagner, author of landmark legislation protecting labor’s right to organize and establishing social security.
The highest recent margins for a mayoral candidate were rolled up by Mayor Koch in winning his second and third terms. Running on the Democratic and Republican lines in 1981, he received 75% of the vote. In 1985, without the Republicans, he won 78%. In the 1989 Democratic primary, he lost a bid for a fourth term to David Dinkins.
This year is highly unlikely to see any of those marks surpassed. The total vote has declined in recent years, as a result of a substantial population of people who are not eligible to vote for various reasons: They may not have not applied for citizenship, possibly because they are illegal aliens (or undocumented migrants), have been convicted of felonies, do not want to be called for jury duty, vote in other states or other countries, or view politicians with such distaste or apathy that they are uninterested in choosing between them. They may be Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religion discourages them from participating in secular elections or saluting the American, or any other, flag. Orthodox Jews, however, do vote heavily, often in a bloc for candidates recommended by their spiritual leaders.
We ask why there has been relatively little excitement about this election. An article on that subject appears in this week’s Village Voice, written by Tom Robbins. THE MAYOR’S PRESS PASS: The Unexamined World of Mike Bloomberg. He criticizes his colleagues in the press as well as the mayor. Robbins’ lede:
“One reason for the remarkably charmed life of Mike Bloomberg’s administration as he sails toward re-election has been the waning of the city’s news business. This is an odd blessing for a man who made his fortune as a media mogul. But just ask Rudy Giuliani, or David Dinkins, or Ed Koch, and they’ll painfully explain…”
The irony here is that, because of the very condition Robbins laments, his article is unlikely to gain traction and will shortly disappear from public attention.
Another irony is that, critical as many people are about various things the mayor has said or done over the last eight years, and annoyed as they may be over the term limits extension, they are likely to vote for Bloomberg because this is a race between two men, not between the mayor and an abstract standard of virtue. They may enumerate at length the mayor’s shortcomings and then add that they will vote for him anyway because they feel his rival is far worse. Look, a vote is a vote.
The argument that while many politicians are corrupt because they take money, Bloomberg is suspect because he gives money is hard for people to swallow. According to a David Chen story in the Times on January 26, 2009, Bloomberg was the single biggest individual donor in the United States last year, giving away $235 million. One would think that such behavior would be commended. If he limited his giving to people or organizations whose support he sought it would be a problem, but the scope and extent of his generosity should be appreciated rather than attacked. What he has asked of his beneficiaries is only that they not contribute to his rivals.
Some people believe that it is unfair for one candidate to spend much more than the rivals. First, the Supreme Court has ruled that, in a free country, it is his right under the First Amendment for him to speak out for himself.
Second, there are many other ways to help a campaign than cash gifts. Labor unions provide phone banks and membership rolls to candidates of their choice.
Third, the support of political machines, and their platoons of volunteer workers, can be quite helpful in local elections, or races between people not widely known.
The most expensive campaign will founder if people do not believe the candidate’s message, no matter how often they see it on television. Political history abounds with stories of rich men who ran for office and lost. Ross Perot and Tom Golisano are two. For an earlier example, William Randolph Hearst ran for Mayor of the City of New York, in 1905 and 1909, and Governor in 1906. He had a printing press as well as a fat purse, but he did not win. In the classic film loosely based on his life, Citizen Kane, two stacks of newspapers have been prepared for distribution as soon as an election result is reached. One says "KANE ELECTED.” The other says “FRAUD AT POLLS!”
Wealth gives a candidate an edge, and allows him to bring his message to the voters, but unless the message resonates, and is supported by credible evidence or persuasive argument, it is unlikely to succeed Between two candidates of similar reputation and level of recognition, money is an important factor.
Reported contributions are an early indication of a candidate’s support.. His/her ability to raise money, and gain a better chance of election, stimulates further donations from people who just want to be on the winning side. Whether or not there are financial considerations involved, most people like to support a winner, and to believe they helped the candidate before others did. Some think of politicians as horses, and they want to pick a winner, which would vindicate their judgment. It may sound odd to you, but there are enough people who do that to make a difference in the outcome of a race.
Many voters will support or oppose candidates because of their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, physical attractiveness or sexual preference. Others are concerned with ability and ideology. Most make their choices for a combination of the categories listed above. That’s the way it is. The jury decides guilt or innocence; the public decides who will hold the highest positions in government.
In most cases, when an incumbent is challenged, people will vote on the basis of whether they believe the incumbent has done a good job, and whether they think that the challenger can do better. When the race is for an open seat, advertising and campaigning is likely to have a greater impact.
One fact not mentioned so far this year is an old belief that African-American candidates do better at the polls than at the voting booths, because people don’t want to appear prejudiced, but have no problem expressing racial preferences in private. For example, in 1989, Rudy Giuliani was reported by polls to be ten points behind David Dinkins, but the result was that Giuliani lost by only two points. If people had known it was that close, they might have done more or given more to help him. He might even have won.
On the other side, Mayor Dinkins was said to have been distressed by the result. Even though he won, the high percentage Giuliani received was, to him, a sharp indication of race prejudice, since he could not understand any other reason so many New Yorkers would vote for a Republican. This influenced his thinking to some extent during his single term as mayor. (He lost to Giuliani in 1993.) Rather than seeing his election as a triumph (New York City electing the first black mayor in its history) he saw it as a narrow escape from bigotry.
Now that we have a black President, and a black Governor, and a black Democratic candidate for Mayor, these matters are looked at differently than they were years ago. But people who grew up in an earlier era remember when race and religion were more important than they are today in matters of employment, housing and access to public accommodations. Politics has changed to promote diversity, along with film casting, movies and television. The older you are, the more you are able to appreciate how this country has changed.
But as some aspects of American life have changed for the better, others have changed for the worse. By measuring children born out of wedlock, prison population, drug addiction, unemployment and underemployment, education and language gaps, the loss of what are viewed as 19th century virtues, and lack of participation in public affairs, we know that social problems remain. We cannot help observing, however, how little elected officials have to do with many of these issues, and how in fact they try to avoid them rather than spending that elusive asset known as “political capital.” Our advice is Rule 20-U: “Use it before you lose it.”
The strength of a democracy is based in part on how much its citizens know.
StarQuest #612 10.29.2009 1627wds
Political Torpor
As Nov. 3 Nears?
Henry J. Stern
October 29, 2009
The mayoral race is fast approaching its finish line. Election Day, November 3, is just five days away. We have not seen a mayoral election which aroused so little excitement since Mayor Robert F. Wagner (Dem-Lib) won a second term in 1957 by defeating the Republican candidate, Robert K. Christenberry, who was postmaster of New York during the Eisenhower administration. Wagner received 1,508,775, or 67.8% of the total. Christenberry received 585,768 votes, 26.3% of the total. There were more Republicans living in New York City fifty-two years ago.
During that campaign, as Sam Roberts recently reminisced in the Times, Christenberry complained that the Police Department was lax on crime and vice. The response was a police raid on a gaming den in the basement of Manhattan’s Hotel Ambassador at 345 Park Avenue, since demolished for the Rudin building. The Ambassador was an opulent hostelry patronized by Rudolph Valentino. Christenberry was its president.
Mayor Wagner, the second mayor in the 20th century to be elected to three terms, (the first was LaGuardia and the third was Koch) was the son of New Deal Senator Robert F. Wagner, author of landmark legislation protecting labor’s right to organize and establishing social security.
The highest recent margins for a mayoral candidate were rolled up by Mayor Koch in winning his second and third terms. Running on the Democratic and Republican lines in 1981, he received 75% of the vote. In 1985, without the Republicans, he won 78%. In the 1989 Democratic primary, he lost a bid for a fourth term to David Dinkins.
This year is highly unlikely to see any of those marks surpassed. The total vote has declined in recent years, as a result of a substantial population of people who are not eligible to vote for various reasons: They may not have not applied for citizenship, possibly because they are illegal aliens (or undocumented migrants), have been convicted of felonies, do not want to be called for jury duty, vote in other states or other countries, or view politicians with such distaste or apathy that they are uninterested in choosing between them. They may be Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religion discourages them from participating in secular elections or saluting the American, or any other, flag. Orthodox Jews, however, do vote heavily, often in a bloc for candidates recommended by their spiritual leaders.
We ask why there has been relatively little excitement about this election. An article on that subject appears in this week’s Village Voice, written by Tom Robbins. THE MAYOR’S PRESS PASS: The Unexamined World of Mike Bloomberg. He criticizes his colleagues in the press as well as the mayor. Robbins’ lede:
“One reason for the remarkably charmed life of Mike Bloomberg’s administration as he sails toward re-election has been the waning of the city’s news business. This is an odd blessing for a man who made his fortune as a media mogul. But just ask Rudy Giuliani, or David Dinkins, or Ed Koch, and they’ll painfully explain…”
The irony here is that, because of the very condition Robbins laments, his article is unlikely to gain traction and will shortly disappear from public attention.
Another irony is that, critical as many people are about various things the mayor has said or done over the last eight years, and annoyed as they may be over the term limits extension, they are likely to vote for Bloomberg because this is a race between two men, not between the mayor and an abstract standard of virtue. They may enumerate at length the mayor’s shortcomings and then add that they will vote for him anyway because they feel his rival is far worse. Look, a vote is a vote.
The argument that while many politicians are corrupt because they take money, Bloomberg is suspect because he gives money is hard for people to swallow. According to a David Chen story in the Times on January 26, 2009, Bloomberg was the single biggest individual donor in the United States last year, giving away $235 million. One would think that such behavior would be commended. If he limited his giving to people or organizations whose support he sought it would be a problem, but the scope and extent of his generosity should be appreciated rather than attacked. What he has asked of his beneficiaries is only that they not contribute to his rivals.
Some people believe that it is unfair for one candidate to spend much more than the rivals. First, the Supreme Court has ruled that, in a free country, it is his right under the First Amendment for him to speak out for himself.
Second, there are many other ways to help a campaign than cash gifts. Labor unions provide phone banks and membership rolls to candidates of their choice.
Third, the support of political machines, and their platoons of volunteer workers, can be quite helpful in local elections, or races between people not widely known.
The most expensive campaign will founder if people do not believe the candidate’s message, no matter how often they see it on television. Political history abounds with stories of rich men who ran for office and lost. Ross Perot and Tom Golisano are two. For an earlier example, William Randolph Hearst ran for Mayor of the City of New York, in 1905 and 1909, and Governor in 1906. He had a printing press as well as a fat purse, but he did not win. In the classic film loosely based on his life, Citizen Kane, two stacks of newspapers have been prepared for distribution as soon as an election result is reached. One says "KANE ELECTED.” The other says “FRAUD AT POLLS!”
Wealth gives a candidate an edge, and allows him to bring his message to the voters, but unless the message resonates, and is supported by credible evidence or persuasive argument, it is unlikely to succeed Between two candidates of similar reputation and level of recognition, money is an important factor.
Reported contributions are an early indication of a candidate’s support.. His/her ability to raise money, and gain a better chance of election, stimulates further donations from people who just want to be on the winning side. Whether or not there are financial considerations involved, most people like to support a winner, and to believe they helped the candidate before others did. Some think of politicians as horses, and they want to pick a winner, which would vindicate their judgment. It may sound odd to you, but there are enough people who do that to make a difference in the outcome of a race.
Many voters will support or oppose candidates because of their race, religion, ethnicity, gender, physical attractiveness or sexual preference. Others are concerned with ability and ideology. Most make their choices for a combination of the categories listed above. That’s the way it is. The jury decides guilt or innocence; the public decides who will hold the highest positions in government.
In most cases, when an incumbent is challenged, people will vote on the basis of whether they believe the incumbent has done a good job, and whether they think that the challenger can do better. When the race is for an open seat, advertising and campaigning is likely to have a greater impact.
One fact not mentioned so far this year is an old belief that African-American candidates do better at the polls than at the voting booths, because people don’t want to appear prejudiced, but have no problem expressing racial preferences in private. For example, in 1989, Rudy Giuliani was reported by polls to be ten points behind David Dinkins, but the result was that Giuliani lost by only two points. If people had known it was that close, they might have done more or given more to help him. He might even have won.
On the other side, Mayor Dinkins was said to have been distressed by the result. Even though he won, the high percentage Giuliani received was, to him, a sharp indication of race prejudice, since he could not understand any other reason so many New Yorkers would vote for a Republican. This influenced his thinking to some extent during his single term as mayor. (He lost to Giuliani in 1993.) Rather than seeing his election as a triumph (New York City electing the first black mayor in its history) he saw it as a narrow escape from bigotry.
Now that we have a black President, and a black Governor, and a black Democratic candidate for Mayor, these matters are looked at differently than they were years ago. But people who grew up in an earlier era remember when race and religion were more important than they are today in matters of employment, housing and access to public accommodations. Politics has changed to promote diversity, along with film casting, movies and television. The older you are, the more you are able to appreciate how this country has changed.
But as some aspects of American life have changed for the better, others have changed for the worse. By measuring children born out of wedlock, prison population, drug addiction, unemployment and underemployment, education and language gaps, the loss of what are viewed as 19th century virtues, and lack of participation in public affairs, we know that social problems remain. We cannot help observing, however, how little elected officials have to do with many of these issues, and how in fact they try to avoid them rather than spending that elusive asset known as “political capital.” Our advice is Rule 20-U: “Use it before you lose it.”
The strength of a democracy is based in part on how much its citizens know.
StarQuest #612 10.29.2009 1627wds
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Baseball Trumps Politics
Impending World Series
Diverts Public Interest
From Mayoral Campaign
Henry J. Stern
October 26, 2009
As almost all New Yorkers know by now, the Yankees won the pennant last night, in their first year in their new stadium, which the city helped build. This is their 40th American League championship (the first was in 1921), and they have won the World Series 26 times (starting in 1923). Babe Ruth (714 home runs, 0 steroids) was sold to the Yankees by the Red Sox for $125,000. Howard Koeppel owns the original contract of sale, dated December 26, 1919.The Yankees last pennant came in 2003 under Joe Torre, who also managed their last world championship came in 2000, when they defeated the Mets in a subway series.
We heard the upcoming contests referred to as the Amtrak series. It might also be called the I-95 series.
The opening game of the 105th World Series will be held Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Game Four will be played in Philadelphia on Sunday, November 1. Game Five, if necessary, comes on Monday, November 2 and Game Six on Wednesday, November 4. They skip Election Day so the players can vote. Actually, it is an off day because the pennant winners could come from distant cities (e.g. Los Angeles, Houston) and the day is set aside for travel.
Election Day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The date ranges from November 2 to 8, so November 3 is relatively early in the range. It was fixed by Congress in 1845 for Federal elections. The consequence of the Yankees winning the pennant is that the home team in New York will be playing in the World Series until two days before the election, assuming a four game sweep. If the series takes six games or more, it will bridge the election.
There will be enormous public attention focused on the 2009 World Series. The press and other mainstream media have given the American League playoffs extensive coverage, in part because of the presence of a New York team in the Series for the first time in six years. The mayoral election is not considered a cliffhanger, but one never knows what the people will decide. The baseball games will continue until Sunday at the earliest, so there will not be much time, if any, for an undivided focus on the campaign. That should help the candidate who has done the most television advertising, because there will be less attention paid by the free media.
This unusual juxtaposition of baseball and politics suggests that less attention than usual will be paid to the election. The turnout was relatively low in the Democratic primary and even lower in the runoff two weeks later. Those indicators suggest that the vote on November 3 will not be that high. Neither candidate arouses much emotional feelings on the part of most New Yorkers. Apathy usually favors the front-runner. It can occasionally conceal an ambush, but we have not yet seen signs of a popular rising. One observation we make is that if Derek Jeter were to become a candidate, he would have a very good chance of being elected.
The Yankee victory resonates with the Bloomberg campaign. They have the most capable team for the election, in part because they bought the players. A-Rod, CC Sabathia and their teammates are not Yankees because they enjoy the climate of New York City. They are here because they were offered the most money, and perhaps the best chance to play in the World Series, which provides additional income for the players. I read when I was a teenager, at the peak of my interest in baseball, that the players only share in the proceeds of the first four games, because the owners wanted to prevent conflicts of interest. As a result the better team would drop a game or two to prolong the series.
Somehow, victories in sporting events have historically benefited incumbents by creating a general atmosphere of goodwill in town. On January 12, 1969, The Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami, with Broadway Joe Namath at quarterback. Johnny Unitas was the Colts’ QB. On October 16, at Shea Stadium, the Mets won the World Series in five games by beating the Baltimore Orioles. That was just three weeks before the election which Mayor John Lindsay won on the Liberal line, after losing the Republican mayoral primary in June to State Senator John Marchi of Staten Island. Marchi came in second. The Democratic mayoral candidate in 1969 was Comptroller Mario A. Procaccino.
DIGRESSIONS: Senator Marchi died in April 2009 while visiting Italy. He was 87 years old, and had served a record 50 years (1956-2006) in the New York State Senate. Although well to the right of Lindsay, Marchi was considered a moderate Republican and was very popular and widely respected on Staten Island. Mario Procaccino had won a five-man Democratic primary with 32.85 percent of the vote. He was the only conservative in a race against four liberals. His primary victory, and the subsequent defeat of the Democratic Party in the general election led to the State Legislature’s adoption of the Runoff Law at the request of Democrats. Under this law, the leading candidate receives fewer than 40 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held between the top two candidates. The law applies only to the three city-wide elected offices: Mayor, Comptroller and Public Advocate. This year, two of the top three races were settled in runoffs. Mayor Koch defeated Mario Cuomo in the 1977 mayoral runoff, and in the general election that year, going on to three terms as mayor. The third time Koch and Cuomo opposed each other, in the Democratic primary for governor in 1982, Cuomo won, and went on to three terms as governor. They both lost bids for a fourth term.
The longevity record in the United States Senate is held by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who served from 1954, when he was elected as a write-in candidate, until 2003, when he retired at the age of 100. He died five months later. Senator Thurmond was the last independent candidate to receive a substantial number of electoral votes. In 1948, running against Harry Truman and Tom Dewey, he carried four southern states, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, with 39 electoral votes. The purpose of his candidacy was to prevent Truman or Dewey from receiving a majority of the Electoral College (268 at the time), which would throw the election into the House of Representatives, which would enable the South to extract commitments from the winner to preserve its way of life (based on segregation, legalized racism, and violence to those who would alter the status quo). Fortunately, Truman received 303 electoral votes to Dewey’s 189, so that situation did not materialize.
There is a very good blog on baseball and politics, called The Nub. It is edited by Richard Starkey of Perfect Pitch Communications. You can link to it at perfectpitcher.
The mayoral election is eight days from today, and it has not stirred the attention that previous races drew. Perhaps the most significant contest since World War II was the 1961 Democratic mayoral primary, in which Mayor Robert F. Wagner was opposed by State Comptroller Arthur Levitt (Sr.), the choice of all five Democratic county organizations. That race, however, is a story on its own.
P.S. In both politics sports, there is a lot of historical and statistical data, which some people find stimulating. We have included such data in this article, in part because it may be read by relatively young people who were not around when these events took place. If you are old and wise, and know this stuff already, perhaps you can share the article with a callow youth for whom it may be new – possibly a young relative or descendant, so s/he will know you think about him/er without the necessity of having to write a lengthy letter.
P.P.S. We are legally permitted to express our hope that the Yankees win the World Series. This is not intended as any reflection on the Phillies, who were the World Champions in 2008. It is based in part on local pride, and in par on the additional revenue New York City will receive in taxes because of a higher level of business activity. We suspect the Economic Development Administration will conclude that we have already recouped whatever the stadium cost. If not this year, then in 2010.
StarQuest #611 10.26.2009 1417wds
Diverts Public Interest
From Mayoral Campaign
Henry J. Stern
October 26, 2009
As almost all New Yorkers know by now, the Yankees won the pennant last night, in their first year in their new stadium, which the city helped build. This is their 40th American League championship (the first was in 1921), and they have won the World Series 26 times (starting in 1923). Babe Ruth (714 home runs, 0 steroids) was sold to the Yankees by the Red Sox for $125,000. Howard Koeppel owns the original contract of sale, dated December 26, 1919.The Yankees last pennant came in 2003 under Joe Torre, who also managed their last world championship came in 2000, when they defeated the Mets in a subway series.
We heard the upcoming contests referred to as the Amtrak series. It might also be called the I-95 series.
The opening game of the 105th World Series will be held Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Game Four will be played in Philadelphia on Sunday, November 1. Game Five, if necessary, comes on Monday, November 2 and Game Six on Wednesday, November 4. They skip Election Day so the players can vote. Actually, it is an off day because the pennant winners could come from distant cities (e.g. Los Angeles, Houston) and the day is set aside for travel.
Election Day is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The date ranges from November 2 to 8, so November 3 is relatively early in the range. It was fixed by Congress in 1845 for Federal elections. The consequence of the Yankees winning the pennant is that the home team in New York will be playing in the World Series until two days before the election, assuming a four game sweep. If the series takes six games or more, it will bridge the election.
There will be enormous public attention focused on the 2009 World Series. The press and other mainstream media have given the American League playoffs extensive coverage, in part because of the presence of a New York team in the Series for the first time in six years. The mayoral election is not considered a cliffhanger, but one never knows what the people will decide. The baseball games will continue until Sunday at the earliest, so there will not be much time, if any, for an undivided focus on the campaign. That should help the candidate who has done the most television advertising, because there will be less attention paid by the free media.
This unusual juxtaposition of baseball and politics suggests that less attention than usual will be paid to the election. The turnout was relatively low in the Democratic primary and even lower in the runoff two weeks later. Those indicators suggest that the vote on November 3 will not be that high. Neither candidate arouses much emotional feelings on the part of most New Yorkers. Apathy usually favors the front-runner. It can occasionally conceal an ambush, but we have not yet seen signs of a popular rising. One observation we make is that if Derek Jeter were to become a candidate, he would have a very good chance of being elected.
The Yankee victory resonates with the Bloomberg campaign. They have the most capable team for the election, in part because they bought the players. A-Rod, CC Sabathia and their teammates are not Yankees because they enjoy the climate of New York City. They are here because they were offered the most money, and perhaps the best chance to play in the World Series, which provides additional income for the players. I read when I was a teenager, at the peak of my interest in baseball, that the players only share in the proceeds of the first four games, because the owners wanted to prevent conflicts of interest. As a result the better team would drop a game or two to prolong the series.
Somehow, victories in sporting events have historically benefited incumbents by creating a general atmosphere of goodwill in town. On January 12, 1969, The Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, played at the Orange Bowl in Miami, with Broadway Joe Namath at quarterback. Johnny Unitas was the Colts’ QB. On October 16, at Shea Stadium, the Mets won the World Series in five games by beating the Baltimore Orioles. That was just three weeks before the election which Mayor John Lindsay won on the Liberal line, after losing the Republican mayoral primary in June to State Senator John Marchi of Staten Island. Marchi came in second. The Democratic mayoral candidate in 1969 was Comptroller Mario A. Procaccino.
DIGRESSIONS: Senator Marchi died in April 2009 while visiting Italy. He was 87 years old, and had served a record 50 years (1956-2006) in the New York State Senate. Although well to the right of Lindsay, Marchi was considered a moderate Republican and was very popular and widely respected on Staten Island. Mario Procaccino had won a five-man Democratic primary with 32.85 percent of the vote. He was the only conservative in a race against four liberals. His primary victory, and the subsequent defeat of the Democratic Party in the general election led to the State Legislature’s adoption of the Runoff Law at the request of Democrats. Under this law, the leading candidate receives fewer than 40 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held between the top two candidates. The law applies only to the three city-wide elected offices: Mayor, Comptroller and Public Advocate. This year, two of the top three races were settled in runoffs. Mayor Koch defeated Mario Cuomo in the 1977 mayoral runoff, and in the general election that year, going on to three terms as mayor. The third time Koch and Cuomo opposed each other, in the Democratic primary for governor in 1982, Cuomo won, and went on to three terms as governor. They both lost bids for a fourth term.
The longevity record in the United States Senate is held by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who served from 1954, when he was elected as a write-in candidate, until 2003, when he retired at the age of 100. He died five months later. Senator Thurmond was the last independent candidate to receive a substantial number of electoral votes. In 1948, running against Harry Truman and Tom Dewey, he carried four southern states, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, with 39 electoral votes. The purpose of his candidacy was to prevent Truman or Dewey from receiving a majority of the Electoral College (268 at the time), which would throw the election into the House of Representatives, which would enable the South to extract commitments from the winner to preserve its way of life (based on segregation, legalized racism, and violence to those who would alter the status quo). Fortunately, Truman received 303 electoral votes to Dewey’s 189, so that situation did not materialize.
There is a very good blog on baseball and politics, called The Nub. It is edited by Richard Starkey of Perfect Pitch Communications. You can link to it at perfectpitcher.
The mayoral election is eight days from today, and it has not stirred the attention that previous races drew. Perhaps the most significant contest since World War II was the 1961 Democratic mayoral primary, in which Mayor Robert F. Wagner was opposed by State Comptroller Arthur Levitt (Sr.), the choice of all five Democratic county organizations. That race, however, is a story on its own.
P.S. In both politics sports, there is a lot of historical and statistical data, which some people find stimulating. We have included such data in this article, in part because it may be read by relatively young people who were not around when these events took place. If you are old and wise, and know this stuff already, perhaps you can share the article with a callow youth for whom it may be new – possibly a young relative or descendant, so s/he will know you think about him/er without the necessity of having to write a lengthy letter.
P.P.S. We are legally permitted to express our hope that the Yankees win the World Series. This is not intended as any reflection on the Phillies, who were the World Champions in 2008. It is based in part on local pride, and in par on the additional revenue New York City will receive in taxes because of a higher level of business activity. We suspect the Economic Development Administration will conclude that we have already recouped whatever the stadium cost. If not this year, then in 2010.
StarQuest #611 10.26.2009 1417wds
Monday, October 26, 2009
E-Day Minus Eleven
Poll Shows Mayor Ahead
With Eleven Days to Go
Henry J. Stern
October 23, 2009
It is hard to believe that we are only eleven days away from a mayoral election.
There is a feeling that what little campaign took place this year is close to an end: over nine-tenths of the electorate having largely settled on the candidate of their choice. The Marist poll (taken Oct. 19 to 21) resulted in Bloomberg 52, Thompson 36, other 7, undecided 5. The poll claims to be accurate within 5 per cent for likely voters.
How can this result be predicted in a city where voter registration is 66 per cent Democratic and 13 per cent Republican? The last four municipal elections, 1993, 1997, 2001 and 2005, have been won by candidates running on the Republican, Independent and Liberal party lines. The four Democrats who were defeated in those elections are Mayor Dinkins, Ruth Messinger, Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer. All were elected officials who had held lesser offices.
Here are some possible causes of the dichotomy between voter registration and the predicted but uncertain vote in 2009.
For eight years, the Bloomberg administration has provided honest, reasonably effective government, in sharp contrast to the mess in Albany,
The mayor purchased an enormous advertising campaign, using television, radio, the internet, newspapers and community weeklies.
There was a lack of enthusiasm for Comptroller Bill Thompson, who said nothing remarkably new in the campaign. He had not been hostile to Bloomberg for seven years, until the mayor decided to try to change term limits, which adversely affected his plan to run in 2009, as it did Anthony Weiner’s intention to seek the mayoralty. Weiner, who is 45 years old, pulled out of the race; Thompson, who will be 60 in 2013, may not have been as confident about his future.
The power of incumbency, and media exposure for eight years, made the mayor much better known than his rival. There was no particular civic or fiscal issue with which Thompson was identified. His five years as president of the Board of Education (1996-2001) were derided by Bloomberg. (Thompson had been appointed to the Board by Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden. He was regarded as friendly with the United Federation of Teachers. Known as a moderate, he was not criticized during his tenure at the Board. He left when he was elected Comptroller.) Thompson in turn attacked Chancellor Joel Klein and Bloomberg’s role in the school system. The difference was that the Bloomberg campaign said it repeatedly on television.
During his eight years in office, the mayor inevitably made enemies. He also made friends, many of whom in the non-profit area were beneficiaries of his charitable contributions, which exceeded $200 million per year. Whether or not there were elements of self interest in his gifts, the fact remains that they were extremely helpful for many organizations engaged in human service and the arts. He is one of the most generous people in America. Although it is true that he can afford to be, it is also true that many other people of wealth do not make gifts anything like Bloomberg does. He has earned the gratitude of people and organizations he has helped over the years.
In areas such as gun control, and restricting cigarette smoking, he has become a national figure. He forms organizations to seek legislation in these areas, and to increase enforcement of existing laws.
In any such record, there are flaws, and issues on which reasonable people can differ. When I told him I was opposed to congestion pricing, he told me “You have a right to be wrong.” Anyone involved in many public issues will disagree from time to time.
The most jarring episode in the Bloomberg administration was the manner in which the City Charter’s term limits provisions, adopted by the people in 1993 and upheld in a 1996 referendum, were changed by the City Council at the insistence of the mayor. We frequently criticized this maneuver, and believe that it violated the spirit of the Charter, if not the letter. This issue became the basis of the Comptroller’s campaign and he forcefully raised it in the first debate on October 13. The mayor, however, did not give himself a third term. He gave himself the right to run for a term, which he otherwise did not have because of the referenda. Whatever interests of the city he might advance in a third term did not extend to the Councilmembers, who voted to extend his eligibility because the bill also provided for them. Their votes for the extension were directly motivated by self-interest, which is perfectly understandable but not totally excusable. This is particularly true because many of the members only held their seats because their predecessors (in some cases their father) had been forced out by term limits in 2001. To us, it was a scandal.
We can put the question of whom to support in 2009 thusly: who is likely to act more effectively on behalf of the people of the City of New York over the next four years? Which man is stronger, and better able to stand up to the enormous pressures he will face? The three billionaire publishers who supported the extension of term limits, to the displeasure of many of their reporters, acted in what they thought was in the best interest of the city, in which they have a great economic stake. They are acting in their own economic interest, but they want New York City to prosper.
The financial crisis does change the situation, not because Bloomberg is a financial genius who will solve the problem of deficit spending, but because a strong mayor will be badly needed to resist the militant spenders who will oppose any attempt to reduce expenses, no matter how necessary it will be. The mayor, who will presumably be barred from running again in 2013, will exert more resistance to excessive spending than someone who was seeking union support for his next race. This is an argument for a two-term limit (rather than three), because then at least half the time (the second term) the mayor will be relatively immune from the pressure to tax and spend.
Newspaper coverage has been relatively sparse because of the Yankees participation in the playoffs. If they get into the World Series, a prospect that appears likely this afternoon but is by no means assured, public attention will be drawn away from the election for another week. If they should defeat the Phillies and win the World Series, that would be favorable for the incumbent, just as the Mets’ victory in the 1969 World Series, and the Jets’ success in Super Bowl III, were considered as creating a mood which helped underdog Mayor John Lindsay win a second term on the Liberal Party line. Sadly, that was forty years ago.
The Marist poll showing a 16-point margin for Bloomberg, 52-36, was surprising, because we all thought the race was closer than that. A wide margin discourages contributors from giving to the prospective loser, since many gifts are based on anticipated favors. It certainly does not stimulate volunteers to join the campaign. Mayor Bloomberg does not solicit funds, but he is not amused when New Yorkers, especially those receiving municipal largesse in one form or another, bite the hand that feeds them. It is the converse of Pay to Play. “If you play, you will pay.” That is not morally uplifting, but human nature being what it is, such things occur. Perfection is not on the ballot.
Other polls will be released in the next few days, and may well indicate a narrower gap between the candidates. It is, however, highly unlikely that later polls will predict a different outcome on Election Day.
There have been a number of endorsements of candidates which you probably have not seen.
Citizens Union supported Mayor Bloomberg, while criticizing some things he has done, particularly on the term limits issue. We were surprised that CU’s statement was not published in the MSM (mainstream media, to the unhip). It only appeared in Elizabeth Benjamin’s blog for the News. CU is a historically important organization. Founded in 1897 to oppose corruption and Tammany Hall, it has generally been a force for reform and honest government ever since. (Disclosure – I was president of Citizens Union from 1990 to 1993, during my exile from Parks in the Dinkins era. Bobby Wagner was the board chair at the time.) Link here to their statement.
Endorsements:
The New York Post, a daily founded in 1801 and now owned by News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch, chairman), surprised no one by endorsing Bloomberg in this editorial. The Post criticizes Bloomberg periodically, but finds Thompson even less to their liking.
The Staten Island Advance, a daily newspaper that is part of the Newhouse chain, endorsed Bloomberg in the following editorial.
Two weeklies, Gay City News and the Amsterdam News, endorsed Thompson. Link to their editorials here.
One daily, El Diario La Prensa, also endorsed Thompson. Here is their editorial.
The list of community weeklies supporting Bloomberg is too long to print here. I never heard of some of them but have been assured that they exist. They represent a variety of geographic and ethnic interests in the five boroughs. We called the Thompson campaign office to see if there were others we could list, but were told that the three we named above were it. Link to the list here.
The second debate is Tuesday, October 27 at 7 p.m. It will be aired on WABC-TV (Channel 7).
Enjoy the weekend. If you are interested, help the candidate you prefer.
StarQuest #610 10.23.2009 1619wds
With Eleven Days to Go
Henry J. Stern
October 23, 2009
It is hard to believe that we are only eleven days away from a mayoral election.
There is a feeling that what little campaign took place this year is close to an end: over nine-tenths of the electorate having largely settled on the candidate of their choice. The Marist poll (taken Oct. 19 to 21) resulted in Bloomberg 52, Thompson 36, other 7, undecided 5. The poll claims to be accurate within 5 per cent for likely voters.
How can this result be predicted in a city where voter registration is 66 per cent Democratic and 13 per cent Republican? The last four municipal elections, 1993, 1997, 2001 and 2005, have been won by candidates running on the Republican, Independent and Liberal party lines. The four Democrats who were defeated in those elections are Mayor Dinkins, Ruth Messinger, Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer. All were elected officials who had held lesser offices.
Here are some possible causes of the dichotomy between voter registration and the predicted but uncertain vote in 2009.
For eight years, the Bloomberg administration has provided honest, reasonably effective government, in sharp contrast to the mess in Albany,
The mayor purchased an enormous advertising campaign, using television, radio, the internet, newspapers and community weeklies.
There was a lack of enthusiasm for Comptroller Bill Thompson, who said nothing remarkably new in the campaign. He had not been hostile to Bloomberg for seven years, until the mayor decided to try to change term limits, which adversely affected his plan to run in 2009, as it did Anthony Weiner’s intention to seek the mayoralty. Weiner, who is 45 years old, pulled out of the race; Thompson, who will be 60 in 2013, may not have been as confident about his future.
The power of incumbency, and media exposure for eight years, made the mayor much better known than his rival. There was no particular civic or fiscal issue with which Thompson was identified. His five years as president of the Board of Education (1996-2001) were derided by Bloomberg. (Thompson had been appointed to the Board by Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden. He was regarded as friendly with the United Federation of Teachers. Known as a moderate, he was not criticized during his tenure at the Board. He left when he was elected Comptroller.) Thompson in turn attacked Chancellor Joel Klein and Bloomberg’s role in the school system. The difference was that the Bloomberg campaign said it repeatedly on television.
During his eight years in office, the mayor inevitably made enemies. He also made friends, many of whom in the non-profit area were beneficiaries of his charitable contributions, which exceeded $200 million per year. Whether or not there were elements of self interest in his gifts, the fact remains that they were extremely helpful for many organizations engaged in human service and the arts. He is one of the most generous people in America. Although it is true that he can afford to be, it is also true that many other people of wealth do not make gifts anything like Bloomberg does. He has earned the gratitude of people and organizations he has helped over the years.
In areas such as gun control, and restricting cigarette smoking, he has become a national figure. He forms organizations to seek legislation in these areas, and to increase enforcement of existing laws.
In any such record, there are flaws, and issues on which reasonable people can differ. When I told him I was opposed to congestion pricing, he told me “You have a right to be wrong.” Anyone involved in many public issues will disagree from time to time.
The most jarring episode in the Bloomberg administration was the manner in which the City Charter’s term limits provisions, adopted by the people in 1993 and upheld in a 1996 referendum, were changed by the City Council at the insistence of the mayor. We frequently criticized this maneuver, and believe that it violated the spirit of the Charter, if not the letter. This issue became the basis of the Comptroller’s campaign and he forcefully raised it in the first debate on October 13. The mayor, however, did not give himself a third term. He gave himself the right to run for a term, which he otherwise did not have because of the referenda. Whatever interests of the city he might advance in a third term did not extend to the Councilmembers, who voted to extend his eligibility because the bill also provided for them. Their votes for the extension were directly motivated by self-interest, which is perfectly understandable but not totally excusable. This is particularly true because many of the members only held their seats because their predecessors (in some cases their father) had been forced out by term limits in 2001. To us, it was a scandal.
We can put the question of whom to support in 2009 thusly: who is likely to act more effectively on behalf of the people of the City of New York over the next four years? Which man is stronger, and better able to stand up to the enormous pressures he will face? The three billionaire publishers who supported the extension of term limits, to the displeasure of many of their reporters, acted in what they thought was in the best interest of the city, in which they have a great economic stake. They are acting in their own economic interest, but they want New York City to prosper.
The financial crisis does change the situation, not because Bloomberg is a financial genius who will solve the problem of deficit spending, but because a strong mayor will be badly needed to resist the militant spenders who will oppose any attempt to reduce expenses, no matter how necessary it will be. The mayor, who will presumably be barred from running again in 2013, will exert more resistance to excessive spending than someone who was seeking union support for his next race. This is an argument for a two-term limit (rather than three), because then at least half the time (the second term) the mayor will be relatively immune from the pressure to tax and spend.
Newspaper coverage has been relatively sparse because of the Yankees participation in the playoffs. If they get into the World Series, a prospect that appears likely this afternoon but is by no means assured, public attention will be drawn away from the election for another week. If they should defeat the Phillies and win the World Series, that would be favorable for the incumbent, just as the Mets’ victory in the 1969 World Series, and the Jets’ success in Super Bowl III, were considered as creating a mood which helped underdog Mayor John Lindsay win a second term on the Liberal Party line. Sadly, that was forty years ago.
The Marist poll showing a 16-point margin for Bloomberg, 52-36, was surprising, because we all thought the race was closer than that. A wide margin discourages contributors from giving to the prospective loser, since many gifts are based on anticipated favors. It certainly does not stimulate volunteers to join the campaign. Mayor Bloomberg does not solicit funds, but he is not amused when New Yorkers, especially those receiving municipal largesse in one form or another, bite the hand that feeds them. It is the converse of Pay to Play. “If you play, you will pay.” That is not morally uplifting, but human nature being what it is, such things occur. Perfection is not on the ballot.
Other polls will be released in the next few days, and may well indicate a narrower gap between the candidates. It is, however, highly unlikely that later polls will predict a different outcome on Election Day.
There have been a number of endorsements of candidates which you probably have not seen.
Citizens Union supported Mayor Bloomberg, while criticizing some things he has done, particularly on the term limits issue. We were surprised that CU’s statement was not published in the MSM (mainstream media, to the unhip). It only appeared in Elizabeth Benjamin’s blog for the News. CU is a historically important organization. Founded in 1897 to oppose corruption and Tammany Hall, it has generally been a force for reform and honest government ever since. (Disclosure – I was president of Citizens Union from 1990 to 1993, during my exile from Parks in the Dinkins era. Bobby Wagner was the board chair at the time.) Link here to their statement.
Endorsements:
The New York Post, a daily founded in 1801 and now owned by News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch, chairman), surprised no one by endorsing Bloomberg in this editorial. The Post criticizes Bloomberg periodically, but finds Thompson even less to their liking.
The Staten Island Advance, a daily newspaper that is part of the Newhouse chain, endorsed Bloomberg in the following editorial.
Two weeklies, Gay City News and the Amsterdam News, endorsed Thompson. Link to their editorials here.
One daily, El Diario La Prensa, also endorsed Thompson. Here is their editorial.
The list of community weeklies supporting Bloomberg is too long to print here. I never heard of some of them but have been assured that they exist. They represent a variety of geographic and ethnic interests in the five boroughs. We called the Thompson campaign office to see if there were others we could list, but were told that the three we named above were it. Link to the list here.
The second debate is Tuesday, October 27 at 7 p.m. It will be aired on WABC-TV (Channel 7).
Enjoy the weekend. If you are interested, help the candidate you prefer.
StarQuest #610 10.23.2009 1619wds
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