Month: June 2019

As of early this morning, June 26, the New York Times reported that the race for District Attorney of Queens is too close to call. But even without a final result, the political result is clear and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is the winner.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting,  The Times said Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsed candidate, Tiffany Caban, led Queens Borough President and Democratic organization favorite  Melinda Katz by 1,090 votes. Between them, in the six-candidate field, they garnered 80% of the total vote, with 3,400 absentee ballots to be counted. The Times reported New York City Board of Election officials said the count might not be complete until July 3.

It appeared from reported results that turnout was a dismal 10% or 11%, signaling that once again the Queens Democratic machine sputtered and failed to get in motion as it did in June 2018 when AOC ambushed it in a similarly low-turnout election to win nomination for her congressional seat over long-term incumbent and heavy favorite Joe Crowley. If those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it, then Queens regular Democrats are among them.

It is more than very likely that the New York Times endorsement of Caban a week ahead of the election tipped the vote to her because, especially in obscure local low-turnout elections where the most motivated voters turn out,  voters actually do look to newspapers to help them decide. And in New York, the Times’s endorsement matters to such voters a lot.  But whether the Times made the difference, it will not get or claim the credit.

AOC will get credit for a big win that is likely to strengthen her hand not only in her congressional district and in Queens, but in the very consequential Democratic presidential nomination battle.

She has been smart about that, appearing with both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom endorsed Caban. Though she’s appeared with both, she has yet to endorse either —  although the 2016 Sanders campaign gave the congresswoman her start in politics.

She can let that decision ride toward the end of the year but, given her influence, her endorsement will be wanted by whoever receives it well before the early voting starts in Iowa Feb. 3.

The one thing we can divine from her short but impactful career in politics is that she would never in any circumstance endorse Joe Biden for the nomination. Would she support him if he became the nominee? You are supposed to say that yes, she would and probably she would but …

In any case, whether the absentee ballots turn the election to Katz or confirm Caban as the winner, AOC’s candidate won or will end up in a very near second place and either result is an AOC win.

Ordinarily, absentee ballots would favor an organization candidate. But even if they do, from the numbers reported election night, Katz will need to win two-thirds of them to pull out a victory While possible, that is unlikely. Most likely is that when it is all done and counted Caban’s win will hold up.

What is likely is that this will be read in political circles and in the political media as a win for AOC that strengthens the value of her endorsement for president, an endorsement all but certain to go to Sanders or Warren. Her endorsement is important not just because of her own renown but because she is an influencer and a media magnet.

She will influence the presidential choices of others in the Democratic progressive caucus in the House. Not if but when she endorses she will influence a lot of young voters in early primary and caucus states and her choice will influence the media to report that she is influencing young voters and progressives.

In the nature of things political, hearing from the media they are being influenced toward one candidate or another by AOC will actually influence those younger voters and progressives toward her choice.

All of that makes the AOC endorsement particularly prized and essential for Sanders or Warren, whichever of them gets it.

Do I have a guess as to which of the two AOC will support?

Yes, I do.

Who?

Not saying.

Guess.

Tomorrow, June 25, a relatively obscure election in Queens, N.Y. looms large in the career of Alexandra Ortasio Cortez — AOC, the whirling dervish of new “progressive” politics.

I put progressive in quotes because my father worked in and for the Progressive Party, successor in New York State to the American Labor Party, for which he also worked as one of its chief fundraisers. In my father’s house, there were not liberals, there were progressives committed to all the same things today’s progressives are.

Continue reading “AOC and the Organization”

This post refers back to another two days ago titled “And the Candidate Is: Part VII” that suggests Joe Biden is not the front-running candidate the media reports he is and the  23-candidate Democratic presidential field is already reduced to a few real choices with a possible multi-ballot convention resulting a year from now.

From the start, these posts have emphasized the importance of California moving its 2020 primary from a traditional early June date to Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020, when the state containing 12.5 percent of the U.S. population will dominate on a day of nine state presidential primaries.

California will send 416 elected and 79 super delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

A poll released today (June 13, 2019) conducted for U.C. Berkley/The Los Angeles Times showed:

Joe Biden, 22%

Elizabeth Warren, 18%

Bernie Sanders, 17%

Kamala Harris, 13%

Pete Buttigieg, 10%

No other candidate at more than 3% (Beto O’Rourke).

It is a clarifying poll little more than a week before the first Democratic candidate debate. The first debate, all the debates and seven more months of campaigning before the first caucuses in Iowa lie ahead. They can and will change the race but, for now, this poll confirms a lot about where the race stands as all that awaits.

It says even more clearly than any poll before now that the field of 23 candidates is presently a field of five or six real contenders, cluttered by more than a dozen other candidates gaining no traction.

It says Biden is a thin front runner, who 70% or more of Democrats do not want as their nominee.

It says Warren has moved into second place supplanting Sanders (this being the second poll in a week putting her second, a spot Sanders had held until now).

It says Harris,  for whom her home-state California primary is the acid test, is not breaking through.

It says be sure to watch that first debate June 26 & 27.

On Wednesday, July 15, 2020, the Democratic National Convention will call the roll of the states and U.S. territories to choose a presidential nominee. That’s just 13 months from now. If you think it is a long way off, it’s not.

If you think House Democrats should impeach the president less than a year before their national convention and send an impeachment charge to the Senate, where Mitch McConnell no doubt would let it fester right up to Election Day, think again.

The Constitution says the Senate has the sole power to try impeachment. It doesn’t say the Senate has to and, even if it did, as federal Judge Merrick Garland can attest,  McConnell is situationally creative when it comes to what the constitution doesn’t say.

Better than the very stupid politics of impeachment is to give us all the chance to repudiate the president at the ballot box and send him back 18 months from now to the tender mercies of the Southern District of New York, the Attorney General of New York and the Manhattan District Attorney.

Focus on that roll call date, July 15, 2020. As this is written it is 13 months away. That’s all, 13 months.

Continue reading “And the Candidate Is: Part VII​”

At Gettysburg in the Fall of 1863 Abraham Lincoln said this, words that can, that should be said again on the beaches at normandy on D-Day’s 75th Anniversary:

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Continue reading “D-Day”

At Gettysburg in the fall of 1863 Abraham Lincoln said this: Words that can, that should be said again on the beaches at Normandy on D-Day’s 75th Anniversary:

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

Continue reading “D-Day”