Thursday, September 1, 2022

New York State of Mind

Although New York State had gubernatorial and senatorial primaries last week, the focus was mostly on U.S. House primaries, particularly Democratic primaries, where competition was fierce.  (Senator Schumer and Governor Hochul won their primaries easily.)

Representative Carolyn Maloney, above, was pitted against Representative Jerrold Nadler in the same U.S. House district in New York City thanks to redistricting.  It turns out that the two Democratic House members can't stand each other ,and the fight was bitter between the two powerful Democrats, Maloney chair of the House Oversight Committee and Nadler chair of the House Judiciary Committee.  Nalder won, and many of Maloney's supporters blame her loss on sexism.  Right. And if Nadler had lost, someone would blame it on anti-Semitism.
While one Maloney lost, another Maloney won. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democratic congressman representing an upstate district and the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, fended off a challenge from Alessandra Biaggi, a progressive Democrat backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who decided that the gay Maloney wasn't "woke enough" and wanted an outsider to replace him. Outsider, hell: Alessandra Biaggi's grandfather was a New York congressman.  
In the 19th U.S, House district, Democratic Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan won a special election to complete an unexpired term running on the need to preserve legal abortion, which suggests that abortion my be a really big issue in the midterms after all.  Ryan's hometown of Kingston, however, will be shifted to the 18th U.S. House District come January; he won the primary to run for that seat in November. 
It'll be very interesting to see how things work out in the midterms.  One thing we don't have to worry about as far as the Republican side is concerned: Noted fascist Carl Paladino lost his bid for the House seat of the 23rd House district.  

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