Monday, June 12, 2017

New York Democrats Aren’t Trying Very Hard To Elect New York Democrats


 
By Ross Barkan

The New York State Democratic Committee, the party organization charged, in theory, with electing as many Democrats as possible across the state, is getting busier these days. On Tuesday, the party and its de facto leader, Governor Andrew Cuomo, hosted a rally for House Democrats, vowing to turn the state’s congressional delegation completely blue. “We promise you if you violate your office, you defraud the voters, you hurt the people of this state — we will remove you from office,” Cuomo boomed at the Javits Center. “Those are not just words. You can bet your political life.”

What was notable about the theatrics was all that was left unsaid. No Democrat onstage, including Basil Smikle, the party’s executive director, uttered one word about Republican control of the state senate, a far more consequential roadblock to liberal change in New York. Nothing was said about the Independent Democratic Conference, an eight-member breakaway group that has spent more than four years in a power-sharing agreement with the Republican majority. No one thought it odd that Cuomo, who has been governor since 2011, never spearheaded such an aggressive statewide effort before in pivotal House elections during the 2012, 2014, and 2016 cycles.

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Source: The Village Voice (via The Empire Report) 

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