The big news was Bill de Blasio getting elected mayor of New York City. I have to say, that's some serious stuff. I thought the margin of victory would be thirty, forty percent at most. Nope, forty-nine point margin as of 7:20PM Wednesday evening. To make things even better, de Blasio's daughter Chiara flew all the way from California to surprise her dad on Election Day, and cast her first ballot in a . How that didn't get out of the bag is a surprise. But there's a reality for de Blasio: an increase of affordable housing in the city will be much easier than trying to get pre-kindergarten implimented. de Blasio is also going to have a $2 billion shortfall to deal with. I wish the mayor elect the best, as he has an uphill challenge.
If your last name is Suozzi, last night was a catastrophe. Not only did Ed Mangano (who I think is a jerk) win in a landslide, former County Executive Tom Suozzi's cousin Ralph in Glen Cove also losing reelection.
In general, last night was a bad night for New York Democrats downstate. Races in Rockland, Westchester and Orange all went for Republicans. The Dutchess County Legislature stayed in Republican hands and even gained a seat. Here's a message for Cuomo: pay attention to the state and stop trying to run for President. You're already President, except it's technically not the "Office of the President of the State of New York" but instead "Office of the Governor of the State of New York" But granted, he's as powerful as let's say, the president of a small European nation. Switzerland, anyone? I don't think they have a president though. Here are some of the election results, sans Sullivan County.
But not all was bad. Three of the big four upstate cities now have women mayors: Katherine Sheehan in Albany, Lovely Warren in Rochester and Stephanie Meyer Miner won reelection in Syracuse (and apologies for the Twilight confusion). It would have been nice if scandal-plagued Byron Brown in Buffalo got booted by a woman. That's a goal for 2017: a majority of the cities in Upstate NY run by women. Buffalo, you're next. But in mayoral races there were setbacks: in addition to Ralph Suozzi in Glen Cove, Mary Foster in Peekskill (still a significant city) appears to have gotten the boot. But there were some inroads: Kelly Decker will be running the city of Port Jervis, and Rick Davis will be running economically depressed Tonawanda. He has SEVEN kids. Wow!
Five of the six propositions passed last night. Proposition One did better than I expected. And as I predicted, Sullivan County would be the county where Prop One would have it's best margin of victory: 76-23% On the other hand, most of Western New York voted against the measure, making me wonder if it's just a rogue issue, if Western New York is truly Republican or if Cuomo has no support in WNY.
OUT OF STATE
As we all knew, Barbara Buono was left for dead politically by the Democrats. Chris Christie's landslide is kind of scary, as it gives him ammo for an all but obvious presidential run. As we all know, Jon Huntsman is the only Republican I would be comfortable voting for President. The minimum wage was raised in NJ to 8.25 an hour.
In Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, as expected, was elected governor of Virginia, breaking a forty year old trend of Virginia voters electing governors from the opposite party of that of the President, which could be a good sign for next November. Obamacare nearly did kill McAuliffe, but I'm going with McAuliffe supporters staying home, thinking that he had this in the bag along with voters getting cold feet-a reason why the margin of victory for de Blasio back in in New York was so surprising. I thought New York voters would get cold feet. In Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli came pretty close to winning, an example of why the Democrats NEED to continue to get electable candidates. They were lucky, as even the press had not much good to say about McAuliffe. Thankfully for the Democrats, Cuccinelli was too extreme for many Virginians, but at the same time, McAuliffe needs to govern as a moderate. But the press is having a field day over this one, especially with the skewed poll numbers. Even Rasmussen Reports, which for a somewhat conservative polling group, looking back, favored kind of well. One letdown: Cuccinelli has yet to call the governor-elect with congratulations, and I would be surprised if a congrats is never given.
One of our last lookbacks to this year's weird race in Virginia: his kids. One reader said "His kids look like they have not seen the daylight in a decade. Does he homeschool?" I'm starting to wonder the same thing.
All and all, except for some local races and New Jersey, progressives didn't have a bad night. And to make a bittersweet victory even better, the Tea Party got trashed in Alabama. And a Boston area executive was getting the strangest phone calls. The wrong Marty Walsh though is apparently no stranger to politics: he was an aide to the late senator Ted Kennedy, so I guess being the president of a small company is power in itself. Two Marty Walsh's in Boston politics. Somehow I like this! Rock on!
And Mayor-elect Walsh? He's unmarried but he and his longtime partner
The Tea Party got a rude wake up call last night. :)
Maybe ten years from now I'll be celebrating an election myself. I can only hope, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment