Lots of self-satisfied attention online to the NYC Democratic primary election and how it proves the “power” of online campaigning v TeeVee ads. Alongside that, lots of crowing about “independent” journalism and Katie Phang on YouTube, etc.Bill Ackman says he and the oligarchs are willing to spend a fortune to back an independent candidate to jump into the NYC mayor’s race to defeat Mamdani. pic.twitter.com/DCknPWIeEY
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 26, 2025
And yet everyone is talking about the NYC Democratic primary like it was a national referendum. All I can say is, down here on the Third Coast in the largest blue city in Texas (which is NOT home to the “Liver King” or Alex Jones, thank you very much!), nobody gives a wet snap who the mayor of NYC is. It was Cuomo? And then Adams? Don’t even know who it is now; don’t care.
Houston is the fourth largest city in the country. Name our mayor. No googling.
Don’t know? Don’t care? Don’t blame you
My only point is, that primary was not a national referendum. I read something somewhere this morning that Obama was “Republican lite” (objectively true), but the NYC proves the nation cries out for a TRUE Democrat.
I mean, sure. Beto O’Rourke was a true Texas Democrat, but he’d be considered Republican lite in some places in America. He lost two statewide races. What works in NYC doesn’t work in Texas; or New Mexico; or large swaths of the country. Howard Dean used to advocate winning every race in every district in every state. That means running as a diverse and inclusive party. Not just a party of one of the nation’s media centers.
If the intertoobs are going to be the home of “independent journalism,” maybe it should be more independent.
NYC has such a long history of electing crooks, gangsters, idiots and thugs as mayor that the idea that it is some kind of bellwether or even significant in national politics would be a terrible thing if it were true. I just looked it up, no NYC mayor has ever been president of the United States, which, considering those who have run for the nomination for president in my lifetime have been pretty awful, including Guliani and Bloomburg. I had to be reminded that DeBlasio had run because if I hadn't come across that, I wouldn't have even wondered if I noticed it when it happened. What I read claimed that the only NYC mayor to get a party nomination for president was Dewitt Clinton, who ran against and lost to James Madison in 1812. AI says that there have been no NYC mayors who have made it to the U.S. Senate, but I'd need to have an authentic intelligence to confirm that for me.
ReplyDeleteI’d forgotten about DeBlasio. Like Giuliani and Bloomberg and Cuomo, they were all supposed to be major national players. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, right? And yet, after being mayor? Nothing; not on the national stage.
ReplyDeleteSure. As goes NYC, so goes the nation; said nobody, ever. Except NYC based pundits who really do think there isn’t life beyond the Hudson. And that song lyrics are keys to reality.
James Hofstra made his fortune selling newsprint from the pulp mills he still owned in Saginaw, Michigan. When he passed his widow willed Hempstead to her stray cat menagerie. LaGuardia and Hofstra's kids by his first wife in Saginaw got together and rewrote his second wife's will. Hence the Hofstra Pride.
ReplyDelete