Find: Stories and Diaries. From: 3 days ago to now.
Search: thompson mayor. ... 13 results.
(Sifting to find stories/diaries starting after voting began that were not just reviewing results in many races but actually focusing on the topic of the New York Mayoral race.)
Democrats for Bloomberg? by Eddie C. 45 comments, 16 recs, impact = 0.163.
Election Lessons from the Hudson by ChiefOrganizer. 3 comments, 3 recs, impact =0.027.
Election Night in NYC: We beat the odds by Charles Lenchner WFP. 7 comments, 7 recs, impact = 0.064
That's it.
I lived in New York City in 2005; volunteered for Freddy Ferrer. Why? Because he was a decent guy running as a Democrat. Many of my liberal friends at a most liberal white shoe law firm in Manhattan rolled their eyes at me, at my being so declasse.
This year, I didn't even follow the NYC Mayor's race much, so convinced I was -- and I use "convinced" as a transitive verb, if you know what I mean -- that Bloomberg had the thing sewn up. I didn't try to organize national phone banking, didn't write about the race, nothing.
The result of the race, when it came, did not pass wholly without comment -- how could it? it was so close! -- but passed mostly without reflection.
I think that perhaps the Democrat in the country who has the most right to be angry around now is Democratic Mayoral candidate William Thompson, who got bupkes from the white political establishment and progressive media, who were OK with Bloomberg.
Look at the map: no, actually, I can't even find the map on the NYT page anymore! The map of results, as I recall it, shows that Manhattan south of Harlem voted for Bloomberg -- liberal, Democratic Manhattan -- as well as Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, maybe Red Hook, and a small bit of Queens, and everywhere else supported Thompson.
We see snark about how much Bloomberg paid per vote. What we don't see is recriminations. That dog don't bark.
I saw that result and wanted to tear out what's left of my hair. Did you feel any twinge that maybe we screwed up?
Let me make this plain: the whole Democratic Party calculus, especially that promulgated by white centrist Democrats, is that Blacks have to come out and vote for our candidate because they have nowhere else to go. How much have you read about Blacks not coming out to vote for Creigh Deeds in Virginia?
Now, how much have you read about liberal white Democrats not coming out to vote for William Thompson in Manhattan?
This bargain -- the bargain by which we whites try to get Blacks to vote for candidates who may just be a little better than Republicans, because they're Democrats -- is a two way street. Whites owe it to Blacks not to betray them when one of them wins the nomination and is a credible candidate -- as Thompson seems to have been.
So we made a mistake? It happens. But for it not to be recognized -- mourned! -- as a "what could have been," had upper-class and upper-middle-class liberal whites shown the devotion to party that we sanctimoniously (me included) demand of minorities? That's just astounding.
Yesterday, I wrote a diary about a great success in Tuesday's voting to which few seemed to be paying adequate attention. Today, I write about the inverse: a failure that we seem poised to let be excused, to pass with scant comment.
I'm still pissed off at my liberal friends who didn't vote for Ferrer -- and I don't care whether Bloomberg was arguably the better candidate. (Bloomberg helped re-elect Bush. That's enough for me, frankly.)
Bloomberg's strategy was, in retrospect, brilliant -- he bamboozled everyone with exceptional access to media into thinking that Thompson was a mere token sacrifice against his inevitable victory.
That suggests that something is very, very wrong -- and I think it needs more barking and less cricket chirps.
Are we just embarrassed to discuss what this race says about us?