Posted on 11/17/2001 8:56:08 AM PST by NYCVirago
Have New York Democrats learned any lessons from the mayoral debacle of 2001? Or are they crazy enough to continue drinking from the poisonous well of ethnic politics?
The City of New York is going through its toughest period since the Great Depression. Terrorism has left thousands dead. The World Trade Center, the skyline's most distinctive feature, is a mixture of dust and memories. Neighborhoods like Chinatown and Little Italy are struggling to survive. Jobs are vanishing by the scores of thousands. Enormous budget deficits are coming, and perhaps a state takeover of municipal finances as well.
The city, as they say, has some issues.
And yet the last time the Democrats were heard from they were squabbling over insults to this group and appeals to that crowd, and ugly pictures and nasty phone calls — everything except the profoundly important issues of the day.
Last week the voters told them to sit down and shut up. Michael Bloomberg, a nominal Republican with astonishingly deep pockets, was elected mayor in a town that has approximately the same percentage of registered Democrats as the Kennedy family.
Warning bells don't come any louder.
New York is a different place these days, and it's not just because of the World Trade Center attack. This is a more tolerant city than it was just 10 or 20 years ago. We may not have achieved ethnic nirvana, but for whatever reasons (there are many) New Yorkers have gotten better at getting along. Substantial progress has been made since the days when the city was convulsed by killings in places like Howard Beach and Bensonhurst and Crown Heights.
But there are an awful lot of Democrats behaving as if the calendar somehow got stuck in the 1970's or 80's. Their primary consideration is not policy but how the various ethnic groups can be mixed and matched, and thus exploited. This year's Democratic primary was a study in racial and ethnic cynicism, and the bad feelings it generated undoubtedly contributed to Mark Green's defeat.
It doesn't matter who was at fault at any given moment. Ethnic politics is a lousy game and self-defeating. The fallout from the mayoral race is already tainting the Democrats' effort to win the election for governor next year. A liberal Democrat who is white, Andrew Cuomo, and a liberal Democrat who is black, Carl McCall, are hunting votes in terrain that is dangerously similar to this year's Democratic mayoral primary.
That chuckling you hear is coming from George Pataki.
Some years ago, I interviewed the venerable civil rights leader James Farmer. He told me that he and others made a grave error, even as the civil rights movement was racking up its stunning successes. No long-range planning was done, he said. So future generations never benefited as much as they might have from the dismantling of segregation, the enhancement of voting rights and — over a period of many years — increased education and employment opportunities.
I think that many influential Democrats in New York are failing to recognize that some of the party's most important goals — greater tolerance, increased opportunity, higher levels of racial and ethnic inclusion — are coming to pass. The party's message and strategies need to change to reflect that reality.
Conversely, the advances made over the past several years will be undermined if Democrats continue to play cynical ethnic games, especially during a time of economic hardship.
On Monday, when thick plumes of dark smoke were billowing over a residential neighborhood in Queens, the fears of New Yorkers were focused on the possibility of another terrorist attack. And as the details of the crash of American Flight 587 emerged, the city's collective sorrow was focused once again on a huge loss of life and the grief to be endured by those left behind.
The city has changed. And as it makes its way through this very difficult and tragic period, there is less room and less tolerance than ever for cheap racial politicking.
Every group has a grievance. And sometimes it's legitimate. But right now there are other matters on the table. Important matters. So let's give it a rest.
"Hell Freezes Over!"
tag line? Altho I'm fairly certain I've some things from this writer ( long ago ) that weren't off the mark.
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