New York State of Mind - Notes from an Emigrant

IT was just another ordinary week in New York City - battleships, ball games, and elections. Fall is in full swing and it finally turned chilly. Just a few things happened this week, but nothing too exciting…NOT! Let’s start with…



Sports - Well maybe you heard. The Yankees won the World Series championship! What’s better than that? Well, maybe winning the 27th World Series championship! And to make it even MORE better, we got to have a big parade down the Cannon of Heroes. It was crazy!


Local Politics - Michael Bloomberg squeaked by with a surprisingly close victory in his $80,000,000 ($157 per vote) bid for a third term as mayor against Bill Thompson. He actually held only 3 of the 5 boroughs and it made for a fairly tense Election Return Party. It depends who you talk to what all that means. Before the election, Bloomberg downplayed his term limit play, but the 5% margin win spooked him. (Thompson accounted for the narrow margin as a win for Democrats). It is clear that voters of New York were sending Bloomberg a message that they understand that New York City is in a bad way and maybe he is the only one to pull us out, BUT do not try it again. And just to drive this message home [unintentional baseball reference], it was reported on Page Six of the New York Post that “Mayor Bloomberg got a Bronx cheer of boos at the Yankees celebration at City Hall yesterday after Hal Steinbrenner congratulated him on his narrow, three-peat election win. Anticipating a possible embarrassing scene, the mayor’s staff kept his speech super-short. ‘He wouldn’t speak for that long anyway’ said one aide. ‘No one wanted to listen. It’s all about Jeter and A-Rod.’” We are watching you, Bloomberg.

Bill Thompson was actually pleased with the election results. With the exception that he lost, he thought it went pretty well considering he was outspent 80 to 1. However former Mayor David Dinkins blamed Thompson’s loss on President Obama. He claims that Obama did not give Thompson enough personal support. This is an obvious
Democrat policy shift because he should have blamed Bush.

Other Local Election tidbits - New York City has a new District Attorney after Jack McCoy decided to retire…just kidding. It was actually Robert Morgenthau who is retiring after being the DA since 1974. I am not sure why he decided to retire now, but I’m guessing it’s because he just had his 90th birthday. He was replaced in a one sided race by Cyrus Vance, Jr. Does that name sound familiar? It should. Junior is the son of former Carter Administration Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Sr. I hope that this doesn’t mean that we will be held hostage by Iranian students while waiting in line for gasoline again. Hmmmmm, I wonder what party he’s in?

Regional Politics - It was not just a victory for Bloomberg, but several Republican upsets in other counties. It is clear that voters in New York are sending a message that they are moving right. Westchester, Nassau, and even in New York County found Republican challengers routing the Democratic incumbents for County Executives, City Counsel and other elected positions. This doesn’t bode well for our never-elected Governor Patterson. He has already been told not so subtlety that he should not run. However, he sees it differently. He has to decided to take a page out of Bloomberg’s playbook and spend as much money as possible to win. Depending on who the Republicans run, it’s possible that New York could be the next to fall victim to Pelosireidobama-itis.

It has been reported that the newly elected Representative Bill Owens in NY-23 has already broken a big campaign promise and he was only sworn in yesterday! According to Polico.com, "Mr. Owens assured voters that he felt the public option had no place in the health care reform bill. Contrary to that position, Mr. Owens now indicates that he intends to vote in favor of the bill even though it now contains a public option." It has actually been reported that he has broken four campaign promises, but I could not verify the other three. It should be noted that because this was a special election to replace Rep. McHugh, Owens is up for re-election in 2010 and Hoffman has already stated that he will run against him next year.

New Jersey -It was reported on the radio, that the soon-to-be-former Governor Jon Corzine was ready to quit his bid for re-election sometime this summer, but was encouraged by President Obama to stay in the race. This is probably why Obama spent so much time in New Jersey last weekend. Sadly, it did not help Corzine.

Other News - As I reported last week, the USS New York finally made it’s first appearance in New York as it sailed proudly into New York Harbor early Monday morning. It was pretty spectacular to watch. It joined the US Navy fleet yesterday as it was officially christened by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England’s wife Dottie.


Other other news - There is no updated status on Rep. Charlie Rangel’s ethics investigation. Big surprise…

And, finally, the Second Avenue subway system that has been in the works for 30 years is making progress. It is now slated to open sometime in the next 10 years, but more on that later.

Next week - Who knows? Maybe Godzilla or King Kong or worse, The United Nations Security Counsel...