Originally posted to the newly resurrected Daily Gotham (which I hope gets back to its former glory soon!).
When my wife and I have attended fundraising events for our friend John Liu's mayoral campaign, one thing that amazes us is the diversity of who supports him. Chinese-Americans are kind of a given since he is the first Chinese-American elected to a citywide office (Comptroller) in NYC. But he also has very strong support in the black community, as I saw at a fundraiser in Bed-Sty, and among other Asian American communities.
At John Liu's Birthday Bash in Chinatown, Joy and I noticed someone who looked to us dressed as a Pashtun (I never confirmed that) and strong support from a leader of the Nepalese community in NYC.
Well it seems that Nepalese support really is strong. As expressed here:
When it comes to diversity of support, so far John Liu seems ahead of the pack. But that diversity has to have some real depth and robustness if it will help John win. So far I see diversity, but I am not yet convinced he has the depth and robust support it will take to beat the Wall Street money poured into Quinn and de Blasio's campaigns or the longer-term support Bill Thompson can rely on. But it seems a good start for Liu...if he can just expand it.
Some personal notes below.
Just a side note. For many years Daily Gotham was the top progressive site in NYC. It was widely read by Congressional Reps, State Senators, judges, Councilmembers, etc. it made a difference. I remember one time I posted a scathing critique of my own City Councilmember on Daily Gotham and within 10 minutes he responded personally trying to placate me. That is what Daily Gotham used to be about: Speaking Truth to Power and actually having the Power respond.
It died for awhile and lost its readership. It is not back. Not sure why it died or why it is now back, but my goal is to rebuild the readership because we really made a big difference in local politics and I was sad to see that wither away. We can get it back. So NYC folks get back to Daily Gotham:
http://dailygotham.com
And if you want to sign up to post, let me know. I need to contact the publisher to get that aspect of the site up and running again and it won't be worth it if no one wants to post.