Normally, I don’t talk about politics on my blog. There’s rarely a reason to. But in a couple of weeks there will be an election I feel strongly about, and since it reflects some of my concerns about politics in general at this particular point in time, I thought I would share my opinion. Feel free to ignore and move right along
If you’re a regular reader, you know I live in New York. The state, not the city, which is important to this. On September 13, there will be a Democratic primary and I will be voting in primaries relating for my county’s state Senator and my Governor.
Since my current county Senator says he a Democrat but has shown fairly clearly that he does that only to get elected and caucuses with the Republicans, I will be voting for his opponent. I very much hope she wins because I find his behavior reprehensible.
But the gubernatorial primary worries me.
I see an awful lot of young women out there saying “I’m going to vote for Cynthia Nixon because she’s progressive.”
I have nothing against Nixon’s progressive ideals, but I don’t really see how much “more progressive” they are. Here are things I see with our current NYS government as led by Governor Cuomo.
• I have been self-employed since I moved to NYS in 2005. NYS always had a “no questions asked” policy about healthcare—if an insurer wanted to do business here, they could not ask you about your pre-existing conditions. But the prices were very high. When I couldn’t afford it, I went to “Healthy New York” which was set up almost specifically for people like me. Lots of small groups and unions had buy-in through Healthy New York. Just about everyone I knew had their healthcare in one way or another through Healthy New York.
Is that Medicare for all? No. But M4A, which I would love to see at the national level, was not a possibility at the state level.
• My sister and her wife were able to get married in New York long before SCOTUS said they had to be allowed to get married. (They got married in Canada before that, but marriage was legalized here before it was nationwide.)
• NYS has very strong gun control laws without actually banning any guns that might be needed for hunting, target shooting, or self-protection.
• NYS has paid family leave
• NYS has very strong domestic violence laws.
• NYS, like much of the US, has volunteers as its primary firefighting force. Cuomo is very firefighter-friendly. In NYS, you can get a tax break if you are an active firefighter.
• Speaking of taxes, when the current administration slapped together its new blue-state-punitive tax plan, Cuomo led the fight to find a way for citizens not to suffer.
• NYS has a $15 minimum wage
• NYS’s “Excelsior” scholarship makes sure that NY’s students have access to higher ed if they want it.
• NYS considers those below 18 “underage” when it comes to criminal responsibility
• The whole state is a sanctuary state. That may be something you disagree with, but it’s certainly progressive. Cuomo sued the federal government to find out what children were sent here and where they and their parents were when the Trump administration started separating families.
And then there are the things Cuomo’s gotten wrong—and admitted he’s gotten wrong, and changed his mind about. To me, that’s the adult thing to do. When constituents are unhappy, he listens.
• Thinking that having a single source for prison packages would make things easier. This did not last. People said “it’s not fair to either the prisoners or their families, especially the poorer families, who cannot afford to do this—they need to be able to get what they want at the best possible price. And this supplier does not have a wide range of reading material, which means prisoners won’t be able to develop empathy or learn what they wish.” So, yes. He got it wrong. And he reversed his decision.
• Fracking. Another time Cuomo thought something was a good idea until he heard from the majority of his constituents.
I don’t expect perfection from my candidates. I don’t even expect to want to go out to dinner with them (which is a good thing, since I don’t want to have dinner with either of these two), but you can earn a lot of respect from me if you show that you’re trying to do the right thing by your constituents. ALL of them.
People complain about Cuomo being “too Republican.” But I am a realist. New York is immensely Republican. No, not the city. But the state. If you want to get things done here, you have to be willing and able to negotiate with people.
New York State is immensely complex. There are vast differences in wealth. Yes, you can say “I am a Democratic Socialist and I want to make that better,” which is a lovely sentiment. But how are you going to manage that? Raise the minimum wage? Cuomo did it. Add more tax brackets so that taxes aren’t so flat and the people who have more pay more? He did that, too.
Plus, part of the big problem is that the city is so wildly out of line with the rest of the state. I don’t live in the city, though I grew up there. But you get out onto Long Island and suddenly you’re in Trump country. I currently live in a highly purple district, where our Representative changed from a violently pro-life Republican in one election to a gay man in the next. These are issues people who don’t leave the city don’t really understand. If you’re a dairy farmer in New York or an orchard owner, or even a restaurant worker in South Salem, your point of view is apt to be very different than that of your average NYC resident. All the touchy-feely lovely sentiments in the world aren’t going to make a difference to your ability to manage those different needs. Cuomo may not be a warm and sensitive soul, but he’s done a lot of good for a lot of people.
Why does this worry me? Because people seem to forget that for all her big smiles and activism, Cynthia Nixon has zero experience. In anything. She’s never run a small business. Never sat on city council. Never worked in middle management with pressure from above and below. Governor of a complicated state like New York is not where you begin. It’s not like Congress, where you can learn from colleagues. About the only true colleague you have as Governor of New York is the Governor of California. I applaud anyone who wants to get into politics and make a difference, but I am deeply, deeply concerned about people who vote based on emotional appeals and gender. (Why do I bring up gender? Because I was told by a canvasser collecting signatures for Nixon that as a Democratic woman I should endorse her. I don’t believe that was on direction, and I don’t blame Nixon for that, but it’s a disturbing point of view.)
So when you go to the polls, wherever you live. I urge you to consider more than hype and personality. Vote in every election and vote carefully.
And that’s your long, boring PSA for the day.