1226 Thoughts on the NYC Primary

1226 Thoughts on the NYC Primary

The New York Primary is behind us.  Here are some questions it raised:

Democrats:

• Why can they count 98% of the vote in five hours and the remaining two percent takes forevermore?
• Did Christine Quinn jettison Bloomberg or did Bloomberg pull the carpet out from under her?
• If apparent winner DiBlasio hadn’t run, would Quinn have won more than the Upper East Side?
• If John Liu didn’t have legal troubles, would he have won more than just Chinatown and Flushing?
• Did people actually vote for William Thompson or did they just vote against everyone else?
• Did Anthony Weiner actually think he had a chance?  Or was he just promoting his next job in the adult film industry?
• Now that he has nothing else to do, will Spitzer bankroll Weiner’s next film?
• Did people actually vote for Kenneth Thompson (Bklyn DA) or were they just sick to death of Charles Hynes and his recently awful record?

Republicans:  Of the five boros, only Staten Island reliably and regularly sends Republicans to office of any kind.  After 16 years of Republican mayors, the GOP may be overconfident, forgetting for now that neither Bloomberg nor Giuliani fits their notion of what a Republican is.

• Does Lhota think he can win anything but Staten Island (which really belongs to New Jersey but doesn’t know it) and a few patches of Queens?
• Now that he’s been rejected -- even in most of Astoria -- will Catsimatidis spend some of his money cleaning up Gristedes?
• Is there any reason to devote more than these three questions to the Republicans?

Time was, winning the Democratic party primary was tantamount to election. That’s not a given anymore.  But this time it looks like the city returned to its nature.

Giuliani won his first term because he faced a weak and widely disliked opponent.  Bloomberg won his first term as a Republican because everyone knew he wasn’t one but registered that way to avoid the Democratic primary which always is a mud wrestle.

New Yorkers like extreme personalities in our mayors.  The current one is extreme in his somberness. The next one has two of our favorite characteristics, he’s very tall and a showboat.  That’s what kept Ed Koch in business all those years.  It helped Lindsay a great deal, too -- especially the tall part.  The Republicans would have done better by running Shaquille O’Neal or Katie Mattera, one of the tallest players in women’s pro basketball.

New York has elected compact cars, too.  LaGuardia, Beame, Bloomberg.  But usually we go for the stretch limo types.

So that puts DiBlasio in a good position.  So does his current job, “public advocate.” The job description is kind of vague.  Little budget, little power, big mouth.  Mark Greene used it to catapult to mayoral candidate and then his present job, Minister of Obscurity.

The job is not exactly something invented by the Dutch in New Amsterdam.  It dates back only to the early 1990s.  The Republicans didn’t field a candidate.  No matter.  To make it noticeable, the Dems offered four “majors.” Of the four the only interesting one is Catherine Guerriero and she’s only interesting because she reminds everyone of a spinning-eyed Rosie O’Donnell confronted by a bear. This one’s a runoff for sure.  What’s going against her?  She’s been endorsed by the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.  Since most cops live in places like Massapequa and can’t vote in the City, that endorsement will do her little good.

Bloomberg disproved the notion that New York is ungovernable. Let’s see what the next guy does.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013