Just how bad is the political condition of New York City and the quality of the potential candidates running for mayor? So bad that we sadly have to say that the extremely flawed, arrogant former governor, Andrew Cuomo, is probably the lesser of all evils on the Democratic side.
Mayor Eric Adams has been a disaster. He suddenly found religion on the immigration issue, but let’s not forget, he was the official welcoming the illegal aliens off of the bus and calling Texas Governor Greg Abbott a racist for trying to sound the alarm on the open border.
While Adams has a law enforcement background and tries to back the police more than his socialist opponents, he still has done remarkably little in using his bully pulpit and leverage to pressure Governor Hochul and the state legislature to change the awful bail reforms and other laws passed around 2019 that were a gift to violent criminals.
He’s done little to bolster protection within the subway system to give riders a sense of confidence for their safety. He allowed the mentally ill homeless to take over streets, parks and subway cars for far too long.
He doesn’t deserve another term.
However, most of his opponents are downright awful.
State Senator Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) is an outright socialist, as is city Comptroller Brad Lander. Scott Stringer, a former state assemblyman and city comptroller, is a pawn of the teachers union, just like Mayor Brandon Johnson is in Chicago. He is also very weak on law-and-order issues.
Which leaves us with Cuomo. He’s arrogant, unlikable, Machiavellian and has no true ideological core. He goes in the direction that will yield him the most power. When the mood of the state in 2010 was to cut back, he followed the trend. His first two years as governor were surprisingly good. He kept a lid on spending and stood up to the progressive wing of his party by leveraging the Republican Senate.
But then he was primaried twice by the Working Families Party — first by radical Zephyr Teachout, and then by celebrity Cynthia Nixon. Cuomo was petrified and shifted dramatically left.
He drifted even further leftward when he saw himself as a potential presidential candidate and wanted to solidify his bona fides with the activists within the party.
So he proudly championed all the horrible so-called criminal justice reforms that wreaked havoc on private citizens. He supported ineffective radical green policies that have our electric bills soaring. He did nothing to combat homelessness in our cities. He insulted conservative voters in New York and suggested they leave the state. He allowed the big spenders to take control of the budget. He allowed progressive to take control of our departments, thereby promoting woke garbage in our institutions and schools. And, worst of all, after exhibiting significant leadership with his Covid press conferences, he made the fatal decision of forcing nursing homes to take Covid-infected patients, leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of elderly New Yorkers.
And yet, despite this extraordinarily flawed résumé, he is actually far better than any of the other candidates the Dems are likely to field. And it’s precisely because he has no ideological core. While Lander and Myrie will automatically support the Marxist elements within the state, Cuomo would weigh the mood of the residents and hopefully make an effort to try to make the city safer and more hospitable.
We don’t know how long that will last, but he offers fewer negatives than his opponents.
But if New Yorkers really don’t want to settle for the lesser of the evils, there is an alternative — vote for the Republican candidate. Fed-up New Yorkers did so decades ago in electing Republican Rudy Giuliani and it transformed the city for the better.