Not since Samuel Tilden prosecuted Boss Tweed and proved him guilty of corruption has there been a political earthquake of such great magnitude in New York City. New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who is 33 years old and a Muslim of South Asian origin, won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York. Mamdani is a democratic socialist who is so progressive he makes Bernie Sanders look like a Tea Partier. Among his policy proposals are municipally owned grocery stores for underserved communities, a "30 by '30" minimum wage increase - $30 an hour by 2030 - free bus service for the poor, and sanctuary for non-heterosexuals.
Progressives looking forward to the general election in New York City had better not get too confident - not yet, anyway. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is still standing for re-election as an independent, and there is a precedent for a New York City mayor winning a second term as an independent after being dumped by his own party - John Lindsay, who was disowned by the Republicans but managed to win re-election without party backing in 1969. Also, Republicans and center-right independents could pull off the same hat trick that Republicans and center-right independents pulled in Connecticut in 2006. When U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman failed to win the Democratic nomination for a fourth Senate term that year, losing to Ned Lamont, the Republicans put up a token nominee while backing Lieberman's independent general election campaign. Lieberman was re-elected, and Connecticut progressives who backed Lamont had to lick their wounds. Substitute "Adams" for Lieberman and "Mamdani" for Lamont, and you get the GOP/establishment Democratic Big Apple playbook. True, Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels vigilante group and conservative talk-radio host, is no token candidate, but a coalition of Republicans and establishment Democrats might pivot to Adams if they think Adams can prevail in a three-way campaign.
(Aside: Ned Lamont was elected governor of Connecticut in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. He is the rarest of birds - a Democrat who was allowed to make a comeback after an electoral defeat.)
So what do I care, right? I mean, this won't affect the gubernatorial election in my state of New Jersey, right? But it may. Don't think that Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli won't exploit the Mamdani nomination against Mikie Sherrill, his Democratic opponent, for his own purposes, when many commuters to Manhattan live in the state's northern counties and a Mamdani administration might have an effect on commuters through issues like congestion pricing. Ciattarelli already has a head start by having the opportunity to ask voters to imagine a Sherrill administration working in concert with the mayor of New Jersey's largest city, Newark - Ras Baraka. Imagine how many times Jack will mention the mayor of Newark - "Ras Bar-AKA!" By the time November comes, Mayor Baraka will wish his father hadn't changed the family name from Jones. So think of how Jack can exploit the name of Zohran Mamdani.
It's very easy to demonize anyone whose surname ends in a vowel, as Ciattarelli's immigrant forbears realized when they came here from Italy. But in New York City, the only person with a vowel at the end of his surname that got rejected was Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo was rightly seen as an aging political warhorse out on one last pillage for power in an effort to redeem himself after his sex scandals and the COVID nursing-home scandal by asking to be elected the chief executive of five of New York State's counties (the NYC boroughs) after having been chief executive of all 62 of them. He is a tried-and-true centrist and a transactional politician, unlike his revered and esteemed father, and he's as megalomaniacal as his brother Chris is self-important. He offered nothing for New York City's beleaguered residents suffering from the high cost of living and the higher cost of Mayor Adams' stupidity. Zohran Mamdani did offer something.
It remains to be seen how NYC independents will vote in November, as New York is a closed-primary state that allows only registered party members to participate. And Curtis Sliwa will still likely garner a lot of support. But the Democrats ought to remember that not every election campaign for office should have the same type of nominee. Whether progressive or moderate, all Democrats are pretty much to the left of the GOP these days. As a center-left Democrat, Mikie Sherrill, who has been blessed with extreme-right Republican electoral opponents that make her look more liberal than she is to progressive voters, is a perfect fit as the Democratic gubernatorial nominee for New Jersey. As a Democrat more firmly in the middle of the road - so much, she can stand in the middle of the road without touching either yellow stripe with her feet - Abigail Spanberger is the perfect Democratic gubernatorial nominee for Virginia, a former Confederate state becoming more Northern than Southern thanks to an influx of newcomers from the Northeast and a growing realization of the state's geographical position north of 36°30′. And as an arch-liberal, Zohran Mamdani is the perfect mayoral candidate for New York City, a city populated by immigrants, artists, models, photographers, progressive white women, black women, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, non-heterosexuals . . . I think I just described the guests I always meet at model Nancy Donahue's and hairdresser Harry King's annual parties. 😊
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