NYCweboy: 2018 elections

The Trials Of Nixon

Let's just get this out of the way up front: I think Cynthia Nixon is immensely talented. She has had an amazing career. I'm sorry I missed her and Laura Linney - who I also admire - trading roles in The Little Foxes. Hers is the most wondrous role of Sex and the City, from the very first minutes of the pilot, to the brilliant Models and Mortals, and on and on - even if she couldn't salvage the misbegotten sequel feature film.

None of that, nor her moves into political activism I'm afraid, makes her a necessarily great choice to be the next Governor of New York.

Just how formidable an opponent she might or might not be to Andrew Cuomo isn't entirely clear, and likely never will be. Since she announced her intention to run, backed by the array of allies who backed Zephyr Teachout's more left field challenge to Cuomo that unleashed a torrent of bad feeling for our current Governor, Cuomo has responded with the kind of machine gun to kill a mouse approach that seems to suggest that he's at least looking to not repeat the last debacle. What's less clear is whether Nixon really poses a threat even on par with Teachout, never mind beyond that.

Cuomo's side started early and hard, with Christine Quinn coming out before Nixon even officially entered the race to term Nixon an "unqualified lesbian" who'd been especially unhelpful in Quinn's run for Mayor (as the "qualified lesbian"). Quinn's score settling was so heavy handed that she had to back away from the implications that she was knocking Nixon's later life coming out for fear of ruining her political ties to gay activism (God knows, she's never going to run again in New York for anything, ever). But that episode wasn't helped by a slow-footed response from Nixon and her team that spoke to her challenges as a campaign neophyte... underlining the very things Quinn raised.

New York politics - especially in the city, but really, across the state - is not a nice or pleasant business. Set aside the sense of general sleaze in Albany - which animates the dissatisfaction with Cuomo - and there's still the everyday unpleasantness of a statewide web of political clubs and organizations who use arcane rules and complex procedure to handicap all but the most dogged of political ambitions. It is not for the faint of heart, the delicate of sensibilities or the naive. And Nixon isn't the first, or last, New Yorker with a name to get tossed into a maelstrom of political storms based on a well meaning attempt to ride fame and recognition to glory.

And so it was that Nixon found herself this week managing to get the endorsement of the Working Families Party - a key endorsement for lefties unhappy with traditional Democratic Party machine politics - in a battle that may well have undone the whole party's existence. Before dropping out of the contest entirely, Cuomo used his weight as their chief negotiator to...well, who can say, exactly, but let's try "encourage" WFP's main union backers - SEIU and the downstate local of the CWA - to walk away from their support. Thus Nixon now has a party endorsement from a party that, without it's basic coalition of activists and union groups, doesn't quite have a reason to exist at all.

The existence of the WFP, and a number of similar small parties not familiar to many outside the state, is just one of our interesting wrinkles. It's why, for instance, the well meaning insurgents on Team Sanders found themselves blindsided by not gearing up early or actively enough in 2016, when the state's arcane rules left them without lines on the small party ballots and voters who hadn't known early enough to switch their party allegiances had no way to vote in the state's primary (that 10 month window - which has passed this year as well - will also hurt Nixon). "Reformers" talk a good game of attacking the interconnected web of New York rules (don't get me started on petitioning, our time honored extra hurdle), but the fact is, the people who benefit from those rules are the ones who'd have to vote to change them. And that, as we say, ain't happening.

There's no reason to fault Nixon for not knowing what many newcomers don't know... but that doesn't excuse a savvy operator like Teachout, who is Nixon's treasurer, from having some insight into the potential messes long before now (like the way, for instance, Cuomo started a "Women's Party" to help stall her chances, and headed it up with... Christine Quinn). And it is a point that Nixon's fame and name recognition is also her Achilles heel - because she's more visible, her name likely to attract readers to New York's splashy but struggling tabloids, every shudder and misstep plays out very publicly. That's the problem of a celebrity neophyte - and a New Yorker doesn't need to look much farther than Donald Trump to see how bad that can be. Sure Trump, more or less steamrolled his way into office... but his campaign was marked, repeatedly, by dumb, unforced errors played out in splashy fashion because of his name recognition (and just as splashily, are stlll likely to get him remove from office sooner rather than later).

Worse still is the fact that Andrew Cuomo's lumpish, disliked presence as Governor is ripe for a strong, thoughtful challenge; it beggars belief that Teachout herself, coming off a surprisingly strong finish against him last time, didn't just re-up herself, even with her more painful loss in an upstate Congressional race in 2016. Teachout's laserlike focus on a platform of combined governmental reform and pledge to focus on the needs of everyday New Yorkers played especially well. Nixon, by contrast, has embraced a set of proposals that seem tailored to both the narrow swath of Sanders stye lefties and a city specific audience happy to hear about lowering apartment rents and tackling the MTA. Missing from that is the basic core of Democratic party success - threading the needs of economically challenged upstate communities with the appeal to minority interests needed to prevail across the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. So far, Nixon is shaping up to be Teachout lite: an amiable protest vote that will never pose much threat to Cuomo, and that he can easily co-opt by adapting her more attractive proposals to his placating whims. Which is exactly what he did to her this week on recreational marijuana.

The simpler fact is that Nixon, for many, doesn't cross the threshold to be Governor; this is a state of active, thoughtful voters (especially in primaries) with a high bar and serious criteria. Nothing in Nixon's fine resume as a performer suggests the skills needed in a Governor, and nothing in the early days of her run suggests the kind of nerve and political savvy needed in a state as complex and diverse as New York. If she'd started small, if she'd started earlier... who can say? But sadly - and cynically - her run seems to be exactly, well, what it seems: plucking a name brand celebrity with some lefty cred and throwing her out there in the hopes that she can thrown Cuomo off balance enough to pose a real threat. Sure it's deeply unfair to voters to play them like that... but ultimately I'm a little more sad for Nixon herself - she didn't, and doesn't, deserve this.

And so, we'll get what we'll always get: more time with a connected guy from a political family who long ago ceded his integrity for power and some limited prestige. Cuomo is so badly damaged - if nothing else, he's an ethical disaster - that he has no chance on the national stage, yet he commands the levers of a well oiled political machine so skillfully that no ordinary opponent can stop him in state. Zephyr Teachout was the kind of wild card that threw a wrench into that machine. Nixon, quite simply, isn't. And knowing that now, with so much yet to unfurl, is the real trial we all face, here in the Empire State.

Posted at 09:47 PM in 2018 elections, celebrities, Gay stuff, New York, women | Permalink | Comments (0)

What Are We Fighting For?

Virtually no politics watcher - or talker - could ignore the obvious contrast by the end of the week: the Trump and Kelly vs. Grieving Widow show from the White House up against the two previous Presidents choosing on the same day to unleash fresh critiques of the ugly scene we're in right now. When punditry is this cut and paste easy, it's worth asking... what part of this are we not getting?

That part, I think, is where it's worth considering the two appearances Barack Obama made on Thursday, in New Jersey and Virginia, to bolster the two candidates for Governor in those states. These are the marquee races of the off year season, the ones everyone will use, rightly or wrongly, to draw indications for next year and beyond (it's the one secret power Virginia possesses, that they dominate these odd year affairs. New Jersey... not so much). And Obama's quick, in and out, one and done moments can mean something big... or not.

In the case ofNew Jersey, it's hard to see where Obama makes much difference. The democrat is comfortably ahead, the Lt. Governor, Kim Guadagno is both closely tied to the worst of the Christie years, and somehow lackluster by comparison. Phil Murphy's gone on the air this weekend with a commercial meant to invoke "Bridgegate" which hits its points well. President Obama is a nice to have, and may help turnout, but ending the Christie era seems to be where this is headed, with or without him.

What could happen in Virginia seems less clear. Democrats have been generally successful statewide, and seem to have a clear formula for winning. Republicans choosing to nominate Ed Gillespie, a party insider who has never held office, looks faintly desperate, and Gillespie hasn't polled spectacularly well, though the race is in single digits, generally. But that doesn't make this a slam dunk, and Democrats have chosen Virginia as emblematic of whether the forces needed to reverse Trump-ism can succeed or not. If Gillespie wins, there will be a lot of hand wringing. And some of that will, no doubt, blow back onto the last President.

One of the reasons, Washington types say, that Obama has largely refrained from commenting on Trump's obvious yen to undo any and everything Obama did is because he's concerned that his presence is catnip to Trump's base. Republicans have drifted into deep party division since the election, but can find common ground on things they hate... like policies Obama pursued, "Obamacare" chief among them, and that slew of made up or trumped up non-scandals, like Benghazi or, lately, the "Uranium One' business that refuses to die.

For democrats, this is all dicey politics, not simply because the "scandals" have an audience (if few facts that suggest anything like what the right wants to believe), but because democrats haven't entirely decided what they want to defend, and, more ominously, just what issues they want front and center in the national debate.

When Bush and Obama made their appearances this week, it was Bush who revived the debate about how to see his presidency - liberals praised Bush for speaking out against Trump's politics, noting how they had disparaged him then... and it was Steve Bannon who served as voice for the right, slamming Bush's critique with assertions about him as a failed President. It's an assessment of Bush that's taken years to take hold within the GOP, where for years few wanted to admit how badly Bush failed, except, say, in Katrina. And it's been softened, somewhat, by liberals - me included - realizing that there was, in fact, something worse than the years of GWB. Bush was bad, but this... well...

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has faced no such reexamination, and it was telling, just in the few days since Thursday, how he remains a sacred object for the left (it's a big week for "sacred" - let's swipe it!). The literal 'amens" that accompanied his speeches, the revival of "he's the best orator on the left" encomiums, there was a lot of basking in glory going on, and not lot of hard questions. To the extent that anyone wanted to challenge the orthodoxy, it was conservatives who tried, generally rather gently, to point out that Obama's "this isn't the 18th century" and opposition to outright bigotry hadn't really stopped Trump from winning last year. And a year later, really, not much has changed.

Since the election, for her supporters, there's been a wealth of dismaying cries for Hillary Clinton to exit the public stage, even as she released a thoughtful, hugely successful memoir analyzing the politics of now and her stunning loss.In part, I think, the calls on the left to sideline Mrs. Clinton are an attempt to quarantine the feelings of loss (and, let's be honest, failure) to her and her alone. Doing that, in no small part, absolves fans of Mr. Obama - and they are legion - from facing his role in the 2016 loss, and what it means for the politics of liberalism going forward.

Avoidance, as usual, serves no purpose here. Avoiding the complexities of President Obama's role in the era of Trump - what he represents, what gets the right so riled - enables, among other things, blanket assessments of racial animus. Fear and Hatred of a Black President is no small part of this story. But it's not the only part. If it were, we'd be having a different discussion of the various rules, regulations, thoughtful policies and sensible progress being rolled over and back with every action of this Administration. It would, on the one hand, be a more thoughtful discussion. It would also, I think, be a discussion that centered more on the policies - and their actual popularity - rather than on the "if President Obama did it, I hate it" reflexology of the right, even now. Treatment of immigrants, plans for clean water, sensible approaches to urban policing - these are just a few issues where the policies being reversed by Trump not only damage the country, they don't reflect popular or even majority thinking on the topics. What they do, successfully, is remind everyone, left and right, that Trump primarily stands for smashing everything Obama stood, and stands, for.

As much as I get - and even share - the need to defend Obama on the left, I suspect that we are helping to supply the catnip. So long as the discussion of Trump and his Presidency centers on Democrats being the Defenders of Obama, we've made this debate simple not just for us, but for the hard right. And, to be gentle but firm, Obama doesn't need us to do this fight - he's perfectly capable of defending himself. What we should be defending - and what we grope around to do, these days, somewhat messily but with growing solidity - is the policies. Those are things not only worth fighting for, they are things - clean water, decent treatment of immigrant children, justice that serves minority communities as well as majority ones - that get us the majorities we need to win elections.

From special election to special election, and into this fall's first major off year contests, one constant in the coverage is that it's unclear "what Democrats have to offer to voters." It's boilerplate political language for the lack of proposals, on the left, to take matters in hand. I like both of the gubernatorial candidates, and feel good about Democratic prospects... but what are these elections fighting for? I 'll be honest... beats me. And it's easy, in the vacuum, to think Democrats are offering pretty much, well, rage: "Don't like Trump? We certainly don't. And don't you wish we still had Barack Obama? We do."

Barack Obama is not going to need to win another election for himself. Encouraging voters to turn out for him or about him - or by extension, to "fight back against Trump" - may not get the results we need, and may encourage an ugly, already emboldened opposition with an especially ugly agenda. And Democrats need to face the opposite problem of a George W Bush - that Obama, while not a terrible President, was, as Presidents are, flawed, imperfect, and occasionally wrong. In order to get to what comes next, there's a need to let go of what's past. In ways big and small, I think the left is groping towards that reality. But this past week was a reminder of what a struggle remains: figuring out what we are actually fighting for, and not naming it Barack Obama.

Posted at 02:21 PM in 2018 elections, anger, Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0)

How Bad Do You Want It?

The singular liturgy of this presidency is about sinking to the bottom. All of these "we've crossed a new line," "This isn't normal," "He's reached a new low" (whether literally in polls or figuratively). If there's a reason so many seem so depressed and so anxious, surely it's the rampant negativity around charting just How Bad This Is and How Much Worse Can It Possibly Get.

As someone who's certainly right there as well - at best my "oh god, he's still president" thoughts have gone from every morning, to oh, about every other - I have to say, I think it's past time we think about something other than the depth of despair or the lowering of whatever bar we're using. By which I mean that it's getting to the point where we need, I think, to just accept that this is the President we have and the fact that he's terrible is just a fact to be lied with, not a constant search for how much more terrible he could possibly get.

Because, let's be honest, he's already clearly dead last.

The past couple of days - with their startling, even for him, revelations of callous indifference to the suffering of the families of soldiers killed in action - have surely defined a "new low"... but what really is new? Trump has shown no particular capacity to show empathy or understanding of the suffering of others, whether it's hurricane victims, the casualties of mass shootings, or military deaths since the start of his presidency, if not before. While I'm hesitant to get all psychological about it, It's clear Trump's main thinking is about himself and his needs and his desire to be sen as successful and well liked. The needs of other, even those closest to him, never mind strangers, have never seemed especially paramount.

Similarly, bemoaning Trump's failures to understand the policies he's dealing with, in any and every area of government, seems to miss the point. His fans elected a blowhard who's main feature was mouthing off, incoherently, about the things he didn't like without offering much in the way of actual, practical solutions. The3 comedy of errors around his "Build That Wall" promise are not just indicative of his unseriousness, they are the prime example of it. And it's why, often, hand wringing about the possible outcomes of worst case scenarios Trump could create is misplaced... he's so incompetent and ineffective, he can't even succeed at ruining things, except those of his own making.

To be sure, there's a lot of bad things happening and plenty about which to be concerned. Those concerns, I'd argue, ultimately have less to do with Trump personally, than they do with the awfulness of say, his appointees, or the broken down, ineffective nature of Congressional leadership within the GOP. DACA's demise, or CHIP expiration are really about a failure of Congress to step in. Scott Pruitt's destructive path through EPA or Jefferson Sessions' reductive approach to Justice are more a function of their agendas, more than Trump's. By taking Trump out of some of these equations, and focusing on the real threats, it's possible to figure out when and where to take action.

As it stands, this relentless focus on charting Trump as a downward spiral is a distraction with no endpoint and no real point at all. He is, simply, that bad. He is capable, it seems, of near limitless depths. But so what? Outside of impeachment (or a fanciful, if not impossible, hope for the execution of the 25th amendment), he is where he is and he is what we've got. As weary as I am of the "Trump hits new low" dynamic, my sense is the public soured on this at least over the summer. This narrative is obvious, and old. And we need to get on with figuring out how to move past it. Impeachment requires, most likely, a fundamental shift in the composition of the House. At the very least, harnessing the energy around hating Trump to wards progress in Congressional races is a practical step. And we could stand to make some of those, rather than raging, impotently, at How Bad This Has All Become.

When we get around to charting the - hopefully brief - history of this presidency, there's little doubt about how this failure will be seen, in all it's contours, horrific events, callous words, and thoughtless acts. Practicing a measure of acceptance about Trump, who he is, how he behaves, how inappropriate and unacceptable all of this is, doesn't take a near daily exploration of what depth he's sunk to now. Yup, he literally insulted the wife of a dead Army Ranger to the point of tears. That's what he's capable of. Shouldn't we figure out what we're capable of, instead?