Playing Politics

Readers who do not live in New York City will indulge me for a moment while I talk about one of my favorite spectator sports.

Primary elections for city government offices will be held Tuesday, September 13 and borrowing a page from a friend and fellow blogger, I wanted to talk about who I’ll be voting for and why. Let’s not call these endorsements, just my personal picks. This blog isn’t nearly that influential.

Voters will decide who they want to represent their party in the November general elections. In a city and state where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost 5:1, New York has a Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who enjoys popularity even among Democratic voters. While he maintains the same agenda as his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani–to give the city away to the real estate developers and create a place where only rich people can afford to live–his greatest strength is that he is not his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani was such a polarizing force that anyone who followed him was bound to gain favorable treatment. You either liked Rudy or you hated him with a passion and a force equal to that of Hurricane Katrina. Most everyone I know loathed him. To his credit Bloomberg, at least in his initial days and months as mayor, went out of his way to mend fences with communities (namely Black and Latin neighborhoods) that had been on the outs under Giuliani. Overall he’s just been far less abrasive in attempting to get his plan for the city implemented and citizens have been willing to give him a freer hand.

On the Democratic side there are six mayoral candidates in this week’s primary, only four of whom are serious contenders, and none of them impress me.

The frontrunner throughout most of the campaign, former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, lacks the fire and vision to excite voters in my opinion. I actively supported and campaigned for Freddy four years ago, when he narrowly lost a hotly contested primary to (arrogant and equally loathsome) former Public Advocate Mark Green. He ran like a man who wanted to be Mayor and showed drive and enthusiasm that suggested he could take this city in a new direction. This year he stumbled out of the gate, saying to a gathering of police that he didn’t think the Amadou Diallo shooting was a crime, which angered Black voters, and he has generally had trouble articulating his agenda. He almost seems this time like a man who is running only because he was expected to.

Former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and current City Council Speaker Gifford Miller strike me as a politician who is being term-limited-out and has nothing better to do, in the former case, and a politician too young and inexperienced to be entrusted with a city this big, in the latter.

Congressman Anthony Weiner, whose district includes Brooklyn and Queens, is also young, but spent 7 years on the City Council and 7 in Washington. In recent weeks he has managed to separate himself from the pack and raise the level of visibility for his candidacy. He won’t beat Bloomberg in November, but I think he’ll run a more energetic campaign and cause people to look at issues Bloomberg is ignoring and for which Ferrer seems unable to get the public’s attention. I’m voting for Weiner.

Public Advocate is the city’s second highest office, yet little-known to most voters. It is the chief watchdog over the Mayor, Council and all branches of city government. When people don’t feel their needs are being met, it is the Public Advocate’s job to do something about it. A squeaky wheel to get the grease.

Incumbent Democrat Betsy Gotbaum has maintained the low visibility of this office with a lackluster and uninspired term. The position calls for an activist, someone to take initiative and keep other politicians on their toes. She has blazed no new trails, taken up no great causes. A basic public servant. The best candidate is the person who should have been elected back in 2001, former New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Norman Siegel. I’ll be voting for him, again.

There is no primary for the office of Comptroller, the city’s chief financial officer. Incumbent Democrat William C. Thompson will be re-elected. I mention him only because he will be in an ideal position to run for Mayor in 2009, when Bloomberg will have to leave because of term limits. He will then have 8 years in office, overseeing the books and challenging the Bloomberg agenda. He also enjoys widespread popularity in political circles, although he will need to raise his name recognition among average voters.

Only Manhattan will elect a new Borough President this year. BP’s (similar to a county executive everywhere else in America) are largely ceremonial nowadays, although they once held a great deal of influence over city finances when New York decision-making was handled by the Board of Estimate. In 1989, the US Supreme Court ruled that non-elected body was unconstitutional because it violated the principle of one person, one vote. The BP’s office is now a bully pulpit from which the occupant serves as advocate and cheerleader for borough causes.

It is also a stepping stone to higher office (witness Ferrer and Fields), and so this year’s field is full of politicians on their way out because of term limits or those already gone and trying to get back in. Nine people are running, I think only two of them have a realistic shot, Margarita Lopez and Bill Perkins, both outgoing city council members. Lopez is the outspoken, out lesbian from the Lower East Side. Perkins is the activist street fighter from Central Harlem who was nearly elected council speaker before a compromise vote put Gifford Miller in that position.

The rest are a mixed bag: three members of the New York State Assembly are running; Adriano Espaillat, Scott Stringer and Keith Wright. All are competent officials, but frankly I think they can better serve the city from up in Albany.

Outgoing council member, Eva Moskowitz, former council member Stanley Michaels (from my district), out gay lawyer and community board member Brian Ellner and IT consultant Carlos Manzano, are all hoping for a miracle.

I’ve met and followed the careers of both Lopez and Perkins. Both are grassroots activists at heart who have no problems opposing the Mayor. Both are skilled at staging a press conference on the City Hall steps. Margarita can be abrasive at times and I wonder how that will play across the borough. Perkins doesn’t enjoy widespread support among the moneyed interests downtown. To my mind that makes either one perfectly suited. So I’ll be parochial. Perkins’ district is one over from mine. A Borough President from Harlem would help keep our issues on the table at a time when Harlem real estate is up for grabs. I’m voting for Perkins.

Finally, for Manhattan District Attorney, incumbent Robert Morganthau has been in office since 1974. He’s 86 years old. He opposes the death penalty. His opponent, former New York State Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder, favors the death penalty. She accuses Morganthau of blocking efforts to repeal the harsh Rockefeller Drug laws and says he has a poor record on promoting people of color in the DA’s office. This is a hard one to pick. They’ve each got pluses and minuses. I’m wary of Morganthau’s age and Crocker’s stance on the death penalty. I may not pick this one until I get in the voting booth.