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Random thoughts on Mamdani and the future of New York, I


 This is the sort of come-from-nowhere figure who can really enliven politics, even in the eyes of jaded folks who think they've seen it all.

Mamdani was a nobody when he entered the race for the Democrati Party's nomination for Mayor of New York City.  He was a member of the New York State Assembly, 36th district, a district within NYC, hugging the East River from the Queens side. In the last two elections for that seat, he ran for re-election unopposed.

When Mamdani first entered the race for the Mayoral nomination, he was laughed off and the pollsters were giving him 1 percent.

His opponents included a former Governor of the State, Andrew Cuomo[not merely a former Gov., but the son of the Gov. the state recently named a bridge for] and Brad Lander, the incumbent Comptroller of NYC.  Lander went so far as to get himself arrested in the act of protesting Trump deportation policies during the campaign. It looked for 15 minutes like a brilliant political move.  It did him in the end no good.

Near the end, when Mamdani was unexpectedly surging, Lander and Cuomo cross-endorsed each other. That makes sense in the ranked-voting context.  If you don't know what ranked voting is ... that is a subject for another day.  The cross-endorsements, and the novel ranking system, neither of them made any difference in the outcome. 

How did it happen? The Democratic Party in NYC is sharply divided between, for lack of better terms, moderates and progressives.  For the former the family name "Cuomo" is still a positive, for the latter it would have been a negative even without the harrassment accusations that drove this Cuomo from the Governor's mansion less than four years ago.

There were eleven candidates on the ballot in the primary. The progressives had coalesced on their guy early.  The moderates were badly split, in ways that a late "co-endorsement" of two of them could not cure. Also, the progressives seem to have out-organized and out-worked their opponents in an old-fashioned shoe-expending-leather sense.      

The autumnal campaign will also involve several candidates, including Cuomo again. The politics of it is a complicated matter. My own best guess, though, is that Mamdani stands a good shot at becoming the next Mayor. 

Some are already asking, if that happen, will his career go national? Personally, I doubt it.  My best guess again is that, if elected, Mamdani rather completely flops at the job and disappears after a term.  

Some facts behind that guessing tomorrow.   

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