I first became a friend of Sean Patrick Maloney in 2006 when I wrote a check for $250 for his primary campaign for New York State Attorney General and went to a function at the private home of one of his supporters on Fifth Avenue. Sean gave a very Bill Clinton-esque speech about how he was going to win the nomination and that made sense because he worked for President Clinton as White House Staff Secretary. I'm sure he picked up a lot of pointers from his mentor, who is, as we all know, a consummate politician, friender and triangulator. My other friend Andrew Cuomo wound up winning the nomination.
But that was okay, I felt. As a gay man I was excited to support the campaign of an Out politician, who used to be "the highest ranking openly homosexual man on the White House staff".
Sean has had a storybook relationship with his partner--now spouse--Randy Florke, a real estate broker and restorer who recently had a reality show. They have three great adopted kids. I love them, or at least, the idea of them. Well dressed, attractive, bi-racial. I got a beautiful Christmas card in the mail.
Sean went on to work on Elliot Spitzer's staff in Albany, got a little scorched in the Troopergate controversy (some nonsense about some emails---I didn't really pay attention), then worked for Spitzer's successor David Paterson.
All-in-all Sean is a poster child for the Great Gay American Success Story. We might as well put him on the short list with Tim Cook, Neil Patrick Harris, Rachel Maddow and Michael Sam.
Randy is a long-time Upstate real estate maven who had a reality show on A&E recently:
http://gossipdavid.com/...
"The Male Martha Stewart"!
I swear, if we could get NPH and Bavid Burtka and their twins together with Sean, Randy and their kids it would be a smash hit, whatever the venue. Maybe a vacation together somewhere, covered by Vanity Fair, the Congressional Record and Better Homes and Gardens.
In 2012 Sean pulled a Hillary and carpetbagged his way up to Orange and Putnam Counties to dislodge right-wing House Member and ophthalmologist Nan Hayworth from the newly-drawn 18th District. Sean beat the Tea Party-ish Hayworth, and just this past election survived, narrowly, a rematch.
Sean's friends Bill and Hill gave him some key support in his races.
I donated to him, even as I was becoming wary of his readily apparent Wall Street orientation as a lawyer with Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Then he started adding a lot of rhetoric about bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle and sensible solutions and "no labels" and I'm thinking okay you have to juke to the right for the Nan Hayworth upstate constituency.
But then more stuff started happening.
The Comment that got me unfriended.
In October of 2013 Sean was one of 70 Democrats who voted with the Republicans to pass H.R. 922, the "Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act", which basically blocked the provisions in Dodd-Frank that attempted to regulate derivatives trading. (Legislation facts and vote records are from GovTrack.us) H.R. 922 was largely written by lobbyists from Citibank (sound familiar?) and was co-sponsored by another Wall Street Democrat, ex-Goldman Sachs executive James Himes of Connecticut's 4th District.
Sean also joined 56 other House Democrats to vote in favor of the Cromnibus Bill which, scandalously, and abetted once again by Citibank Lobbyists writing the legislation, killed the Dodd-Frank rule prohibiting banks from using federally-insured deposits to bet on risky derivatives.
Now in the new 114th Congress, on January 7th, Sean voted with 34 other Democrats with the Republicans in favor of H.R. 37, which attempted to delay implementation of the Volcker Rule. The bill failed to pass.
Two days later, on January 9th, Sean was one of 28 Democrats to join with the Republicans to pass H.R. 3, the Keystone XL Pipeline Act.
Is he out of his mind?
Is this a Democrat?
I "friended" Sean on Facebook before he was first elected to Congress and got his Congressman page. From time to time I have asked him pointed questions about some of his positions. He claimed in the past that his support for the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act was to help farmers in his district hedge the prices of their product by using derivatives. Whatever.
My Act Blue Contribution Summary Page
I sent him money for his rematch with Hayworth, but maybe it never registered on the friend-o-meter. You can see from my Act Blue Contribution Summary page that Sean, in retrospect, kind of sticks out like a sore thumb in that group.
My comment from January 7th was tagged as unfriendly, apparently: "Sean, you were one of 35 Democrats to vote with the Republicans today for HR 37 which delays implementation of the Volcker Rule. Why are you always voting for Wall Street interests and against reforms that protect Main Street?"
That did it. Unfriended.
It is clear that the Big Story of our politics is the emerging battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. The Party has unfriended the American People in favor of Finance Capital. They started to do that in the 1980s with Tony Coehlo and others courting Corporate Money in the wake of the Reagan Revolution. Bill Clinton solidified the lurch rightward, fully embracing the Neoliberal dogma of "free markets" (which are actually rigged), throwing the Poor and Unions under the bus.
Sean Patrick Maloney is clearly an adept of the Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party. The Wing that is in charge. The Wing that Barack Obama ceded the Economy to. The Neoliberal Wing that will fight like tigers for gay marriage and other social causes deemed harmless by the Masters of Money, then sell out all of the American People by propping up the failed Status Quo of Casino Capitalism.
Economic Justice is the ONLY issue. Every other issue flows from this. Democrats need to decide what it means to be a Democrat.
I'm a business person and I used to be considered a moderate. Now, perversely, I'm some sort of radical leftie communist in the eyes of the failed Washington Consensus and the racist "End-Times" Wacko Christians..
Who are the actual radicals?
The GOP is now radicalized and might as well change their name to the FPA (Fascist Party of America).
The Democrats are now Eisenhower Republicans. No. Wait a minute. I was born when Ike was President. The top tax rate was 90% and corporations paid in 32% of Federal tax revenue. Now it's what? 38% and 9%?--after years of deliberate capture of the apparatus of government by the corporate plutocracy? Can't anyone do MATH?
Many Democrats in power might as well be Reagan Republicans.
I wish Sean and Randy and his family well. Branded, image-calculated like an L.L. Bean catalogue, they are perfectly suited to the theoretical meritocracy of the Neoliberal Age. Meanwhile, Main Street continues to suffer. Far too many Democrats have turned their backs on the American People.
The overwhelming majority of the American People are hurting, struggling. The greatest country in the world and nearly 1 out of every 4 children are in poverty. How many of them dream of L.L. Bean? None of them. They're just trying to live. They haven't seen the advert on the I-Pad.
According to Wikepedia, as a young man Sean spent a year working with the Jesuits in Peru. God bless him for that. God bless him for adopting and raising up these children. Yet I wish he would start listening to what the Jesuit Pope Francis is saying about Capitalism the way it is practiced today.
I would ask Sean and other so-called Democrats who shill for Wall Street and Big Oil: when will you drop your mad support for policies that are ruining our country?