Today I went to my polling place and the place was packed.  With poll workers.  The only person I saw voting, at any of the booths on the way out or leaving,  was me.

I think it is abundantly clear that runoffs in citywide primaries do more harm than good.  Particularly when Democratic candidates have to spend money on the runoffs and can't focus on the general election.

As Sam Roberts piece in yesterday's New York Times points out (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/nyregion/28runoff.html?_r=1) runoffs in citywide races were instituted by the party machine back inh 1973 as protection against a popular non-machine candidate winning a race.

I mean who decided 40 percent was some magic number anyway? I think runoffs should be eliminated once and for all, or at least only used in the rare cases where only one percent or less separates first from second place, or no candidate gets over twenty five percent.

But you know what?  The unions would oppose eliminating runoffs because their guys got paid today to haul out the voting machines.  The Times p iece even brings up the proposal of having a preferential voting system in the primary where voters would rank their top choices.  Anything would be better than this colossal waste of money on runoffs.

Why not use that fifteen million dollars the city spent today on this runoff to feed some homeless people or create some more housing?

The problem is that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says that there is nothing in the State Constitution that says that Paterson can do this.  Cuomo says there will be a legal fight.

The Governor says he can appoint.  The AG says he can't.   Who is right here?  Just because the Constitution doesn't say you can't do something, does that automatically mean you can?  Is Paterson assuming powers not explicitly given to him?

Is Paterson grandstanding or is Cuomo grandstanding?  How is Ravitch supposed to function as Lt. Governor if the Attorney General says he has no right to be in the office?

Who is right here? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/opinion/27aweiner.htm?_r=1

I think this could leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.  There were a lot of progressive activists who worked quite hard on his campaign four years ago.  Weiner made the runoff and then dropped out, telling supporters he was better positioned to run four years later (now) when the Mayor's seat was open then if he fought it to the end with Freddy Ferrer.  Saving the party a costly runoff was to score points with the establishment and make him the frontrunner this year.  Weiner's supporters, albeit upset that he didn't contest the runoff, at least accepted the wisdom of his argument. 

Yet now, four years later, the city is in huge financial crisis and desperately needs new leaders, and Weiner is in fact not running.  Granted even the primary would have been difficult given that most of the Democratic establishment (including Brooklyn party boss Vito Lopez) are backing Bill Thompson.  But what does Weiner say now to all those who have given him time and money the last four plus years? 

If Weiner truly cared about giving the city a choice in this election, and about pushing his core issues, then he should not trade in on all the hardwork and good will of his supporters like this.  These are people who made a committment to him and do not deserve to hear that, no matter how bad the city's financial crisis is, Bloomberg's too good and he's going back to Washington and 'see you in four years'

I seriously doubt a lot of these supporters are going to be in his corner four years from now.  How do you ask people who worked their asses off to get him in the position of being the Democratic frontrunner this year only to see him walk away to stay with him in four years? 

Anthony Weiner should have run for Mayor this year.  Even if he lost to Thompson, or if he made the general and Bloomberg handed him his ass.  The party needed a competitive primary and the city needed a strong voice to frame the debate over the current financial crisis.  I think Weiner has damaged his longterm political career.  He can keep his seat in Congress but people have long memories and I can't see him getting a lot of these supporters to back him for mayor, governor, senator or whatever in the future.  When you get committment from supporters, you owe *them* committment.  Weiner had an obligation to run this year and his dropping out and not making the race is going to be seen by some as a betrayal. 

Also we have to be concerned now that with Weiner out of the race that there are going to be ser ious turnout issues in the September primary.  Weiner has not helped the party *at all* with this decision not to run. 

In one corner you have Ms. Law and Order, former Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder, Morgenthau's primary opponent last time.  She would appear to be the frontrunner.  Crocker Snyder has even now seen the light and is now all of a sudden against the death penalty in all cases, whereas previously she had supported it in some instances.  She has never stopped running for the job and her campaign is a well oiled machine.

The problem is that Morgenthau and most of his people can't stand her.  Morgenthau will do everything in his power, pull every string and call in every favor he has, to prevent Crocker Snyder from becoming the new D.A.   There are people who have spent their entire professional lives in the D.A.'s office, due to Morgenthau being there so long, and they fear Crocker Snyder getting in there and cleaning house.  Therefore Morgenthau will do whatever it takes to prevent that, which is why this is shaping up as a brutal war of a primary.

Leslie Crocker Snyder's likely three opponents are:

1. Assistant D.A. Dan Castleman, Morgenthau's protege and likely handpicked succesor.   If Castleman, with Morgenthau's presumed endorsement, wins, then most everyone else in the D.A.'s office gets to keep their jobs and things stay pretty much as they are.  Everybody knows Morgenthau has delegated most of his authority as he has gotten older anyway.  Castleman is the 'don't rock the boat' candidate.

2. Cy Vance Jr., another longtime prosecutor in Morganthau's office who would presumably would be the "rock the boat but only a little" candidate.   He also would probably keep most of the Morgenthau regime in place.

3. Richard Aborn, head of the NYC Citizens Crime Commission, and yet another former Morgenthau Assistant D.A.  He is not part of the current Morgenthau regime as he hasn't been in that office since the 70's and would qualify as the liberal outsider in the race.

There is little doubt that Morgenthau will do everything in his power to make sure that one of his three former D.A.'s, and preferably Castleman, gets the job.  Crocker Synder will only get to be Manhattan D.A. over Morgenthau's dead body (figuratively speaking of course). 

This should be a hell of a race.  Can't wait to hear what Norm Siegel and others say about this race.   So who do you think has the best chance?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/nyregion/08green.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=mark%20green%20&st=cse

I have mixed feelings about this.  I always felt Green was a good public advocate and he is certainly the one person most closely identified with the position.  But there are also already a number of particularly good candidates running for it:

Normal Siegel

Bill DeBlasio

Adam Clayton Powell IV

Eric Goia

John C, Liu

In a contest where there is no runoff it goes without saying that if Green runs, one or more of these guys probably has to drop the race.  There just isn't going to be enough money around.

Mark Green wants to run for P.A. again at least in part over his disgust with term limits getting extended.  So he is against politicians having the same job for too long and to protest it he wants his back?

Has Green lost so much money on Air America that the P.A.'s $150,000 salary is starting to look good?  I want to hear Mark Green make his case for running, and maybe he does have the best chance to win, but I am not sure putting him back in the same office works better than elevating promising younger democrats like DeBlasio or letting civil liberties icon Norman Siegel ("the people's advocate") get the job he's wanted for so long.

So whats the consensus here?  Is Mark Green running for P.A. a potentially good thing or is he going to be a spoiler in what could have been a quality race? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/nyregion/06demwomen.html?bl&ex=1228712400&en=87713734acb711c3&ei=5087%0A

Hillary's seat is of course the one that belonged to her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy.  Caroline Kennedy was born in and has lived most of her life in New York City and is an attorney and long time political activist, who has been quietly very active in public affairs, particularly in local education issues.

Gov. Paterson is under intense pressure from feminist groups to pick another woman to replace Hillary.  They don't think it is acceptable for the Senate's most high profile female senator to have her seat taken by a man.  Paterson is also being pressured by hispanic and african-americal lawmakers who want the seat for one of their own, as well as lawmakers from buffalo and elsewhere up north who think it should be the "upstate's" senate seat. 

DSCC and DNC officials of course want someone who can actually get elected to the seat when the time comes.  If Paterson chooses someone like Nydia Velasquez or Carolyn Maloney who aren't that well known statewide, there is going to be an excellent chance of the GOP targeting that seat when it comes up, or other more well known democrats doing so.  Party officials are going to want Paterson picking someone who can actually keep the seat.

Paterson himself has to think about his own election campaign in 2010, and no doubt wants to avoid angering this or that faction within the party by choosing the wrong person with his Senate pick.  He doesn't want his Senate pick used against him by disaffected party members as a rallying cry for primary opposition in his own campaign.  This alone has to be a strong incentive to pick someone from outside the New York political machine. 

I have stated on here before that picking Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary makes a lot of sense for these reasons.  She's high profile, she's a woman, she's a lifelong New Yorker, and when the election does come, you can't realistically see the voters of New York denying the daughter of John F. Kennedy the chance to continue serving in her uncle's seat.  I actually doubt a serious democratic candidate would run against her unless she gets into some controversy or does a terrible job.  Consider also that Caroline Kennedy chaired Obama's vp search committee and is closely aligned with the new President-elect.  New York state could benefit from having a Senator with strong ties to the White Hosue.

So I am sure Paterson is giving Caroline Kennedy serious consideration.  But of course she has never held political office before and this might be annoying to all the career politicos in the state who have spent years building their resumes for this kind of position.  They are probably calling Paterson and asking him, "how do you know she'd do a good job?"  and "is the Senate the right place to start a political career?"  To which Caroline Kennedy would say, "Hillary Clinton had never held office before either did she?"

""ST. PAUL (CNN) - Bristol Palin, the 17 year old daughter of Sarah Palin, is pregnant and will keep the baby and marry the father, a senior McCain aide confirmed to CNN Monday.

Bristol Palin, a senior in high school, is about 5 months along, in
her second trimester, according to the aide.""

I've been having some interesting discussions today about whether this subject is inbounds or out of bounds.  Sarah Palin, the GOP vp candidate, is a right wing born again christian who opposes the right to abortion, birth control, condoms and believes kids should practice abstinence.  Now it comes out she has a seventeen year old daughter who is five months pregnant, who may not have used contraceptives because her morally upright parents told her it was wrong.  In my mind, if a parent has a sexually active daughter and does not give them the number for planned parenthood or get them or tell them where to get pills or condoms, it is poor parenting.  You always hear these right wing evangelicals preach abstinence, as if any seventeen year old girl with a boyfriend is really going to be abstinent.  Please.

But apparently the subject is taboo.:

Sen. Barack Obama said firmly that families are off-limits in the campaign for president, reacting to news that GOP running mate Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

Sen. Barack Obama campaigns in Monroe, Michigan, on Monday.

"Let me be as clear as possible," Obama said. "I think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president."

Obama said reporters should "back off these kinds of stories" and noted that he was born to an 18-year-old mother"

This is well and good Barack, but do we not have the right when considering candidates for president and white house, to consider what kind of parents they are and what kinds of advice they give their children? 

The teen pregnancy rate goes up in this country and we have Barack Obama telling us that if it happens to one of the children of the candidates it is off limits?  Can we not point to this and use it as a case in point of why kids in this country need to better educated about contraceptives.  Not told they are evil, as Sarah Palin tells her kids if she is like most evangelicals.

I feel bad for Bristol Palin.  It is hard enough to be seventeen and pregnant, without the whole country knowing about it.  Sarah Palin should have turned down the nomination.  Now Bristol is going to be the poster child for both sides of the argument.  Obama is right to take the moral high ground but he is naive if he thinks people will do so. 

But that aside, I am wondering what everyone wants to see out of the convention.  I believe most of the people who post here are Democrats, nominally or actively, and have an idea of what the party is supposed to stand for and represent, and what themes and ideas should be put forth at this Convention.

I think the Democratic party has undergone a dramatic change in the last four or five years.  I was active in Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, and a key to that effort was the idea that we had to take the party back, that democrats were losing to republicans across the country because somewhere along the line the Democratic Party had become splintered by its different factions and was losing a cohesive identity.  Dean's mantra was that the Democratic Party needed to go back to its grass roots and get regular people involved again, and that to be a national party it needed to recruit new people from outside the system to run.  Towards this end, Dean wanted people to not just contribute to his campaign, but to contribute to the campaigns of these new people now coming into the system.  Thus was started the Dean Dozen, where twelve candidates for various offices around the country. Dean supporters and progressvies, were identified and pushed as hard as Dean himself on his website and blogs. 

Among the first Dean Dozen were a number of bright and promising candidates, all challengers running against the estalishment.  Only one of the original twelve Dean Dozen members actually won their race, but that one victory was worth all the other losses, for it was a certain little known state senator from Illinois who was running for the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama.   This was well before he did the keynote speech at the convention, well before anybody outside of Illinois knew who he was.  Dean's campaign, and later DFA and DFNYC did fundraisers for Barack well before he hit the big time later that summer.

In the years since, the historic effect of Howard Dean's presidential campaign and his fifty state strategy and "Dean Dozen" slates have become clear.  This year's convention is, in my mind, the culmination of what Dean started, and the beginning of the next stage, which is not just electing good people but changing the system.  It is more appropriate that we are going to be nominating for president the very first winning Dean Dozen candidate

This convention can be a great moment, a beginning for the great things we can do in this country in the years ahead. 

By the way, in case you are wondering which parts of the Convention coverage to catch and which to miss or catch later, here's a bit of informed advice.  Do not miss Michelle Obama's speech Monday night.  Many people still haven't seen her speak and don't know her.  But any of you who have seen her speak at Obama campaign events already know that she is a huge political talent in her own right.  Michelle Obama could easily run for state or national office herself.  She is that good.  Michelle is the main speaker on the first night for a reason.  Which is to set the tone.  Barack probably knew better than to have her speak before him on Thursday night.  Michelle's a hard act to follow.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/gores-second-act/

This article points out that the lineups for the Democratic Convention in Denver are now pretty much set and the top speakers have been announced. We know on which nights the party's biggest stars will be speaking. With one glaring exception. Nobody has said a word about Al Gore. Nobody has said a word about his role in Denver. You would think Gore would obviously be going to Denver and they'd be insane not to have him up at the podium in prime time.

So we don't know who Obama's vp will be and we haven't heard a thing about Gore's role. This article speculates that maybe Gore will be vice president. When you think about it, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. The GOP is going to try to convince the american people that they don't really know Obama. They will play off the fact that most americans had never heard of Obama until four years ago. Trust what you know, not what you don't know. For this reason the Obama people would be taking a huge risk to put another relatively unknown person on the ticket. The GOP will also rip Obama endlessly on his relative lack of experience compared to McCain.

The answer to both of those lines of attack is to put someone with unquestionable character and experience, someone the public knows very well and trusts on the ticket. Someone whose presence on the ticket would only underscore the historic nature of the campaign. With respect to all the other people on the vp list, Al Gore is the obvious answer.

There are no term limits for vice president. Gore can be vice president again. I am speculating that Gore is being pressured to do this because his presence would instantly lend unquestioned integrity and weight to the ticket. It would insulate Obama from the obvious GOP lines of attack. Anyone who wonders if they really know Obama will immediately not worry becuase they do know Gore, he's been there.

Gore is passionate about the immediate and urgent need to take drastic action on environmental and energy issues. There is only so much you can do from the outside. So what if Obama says to Gore that he can come back to the vice president's office and have complete control over environmental and energy issues. In effect a co-presidency. This would be Gore's chance to enact the policies and changes he badly wants, and to do something remarkable for the country because his presence on the ticket could conceivably guarantee Obama's election as President.

Not to mention that by putting the other half of Clinton/Gore on the ticket, Obama would instantly satisfy both the Hillary Clinton supporters in the party *and* the supporters on the left who have started to complain that he isn't liberal enough. It would also speak well for Obama, who can then say that in all honesty he has chosen the most qualified person there is to share the White House with him and to take over the Oval Office if anything should ever happen to him.

Obama/Gore. Barack and Al in '08. It works if you ask me. An audacious candidate who aspires to an audacious presidency should show the willingness to make an audacious choice for runningmate. Speak loudly. Speak boldly.