Primary Postmortem

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Three points to take away from Tuesday’s primary election: First, not even New York City Democrats listen to what New York Times editorials tell them to do. The Times endorsed three candidates in closely contested races: David Yassky in a Brooklyn congressional race; Ken Diamondstone in a race to represent a Brooklyn district in the state Senate; and Mark Green in the race for attorney general. All three candidates — Yassky, Diamondstone, and Green — lost. The New York Observer ran a 2,000-word article last year claiming that “It’s a given among the city’s political classes that an endorsement from The Times in a race for City Council, the State Legislature or a judgeship is tantamount to election in affluent, Times-reading neighborhoods.” Not anymore.

Second, Attorney General Spitzer won in the gubernatorial primary by running to the right, and he’s begun his general election campaign by tacking to the center. In debating his primary rival, Thomas Suozzi, Mr. Spitzer made clear that Mr. Spitzer was the only candidate in the primary who supported the death penalty. On taxes, candidate Spitzer told the Daily News’s Michael Goodwin, “We can’t raise taxes, we just can’t do it… It’s not gonna happen. Not gonna happen.” In his victory speech, Mr. Spitzer vowed to “get taxes and spending under control,” and yesterday he spoke of changing the state’s Wicks law, a union-friendly regulation that inflates the cost of government construction projects so that it ends up costing $85 million to paint the Brooklyn Bridge.

Third, the rise in homeownership and property values is changing the shape of politics in the city. Close watchers of Brooklyn politics say that Mr. Yassky lost the primary in Brooklyn because of his ardent support of the Atlantic Yards project to bring a basketball arena and skyscrapers full of “affordable housing” to Brooklyn in a plan that the developer, Bruce Ratner, has stated in writing is aimed at stemming the harmful effects of “gentrification.” The Park Slope and Boerum Hill Brooklyn gentry Mr. Yassky had been counting on to vote for him responded by voting instead for an anti-Atlantic Yards candidate, Chris Owens, in large enough numbers to put a third candidate, Yvette Clark, over the top. The gentry, it seems, want housing provided at market rates. What was Mr. Yassky thinking?

One of the principles we operate on around here is that the genius of democracy involves the recognition that many minds are smarter than one mind and that the people have reasons for what they do. One Democratic Party primary doesn’t an election make. But it certainly seems that intra-party politics in New York are changing for the better. The New York Times matters less than it did. Democrats are moving to the center. And homeowners are voting their economic interests. And we don’t doubt that the last trend is a cause contributing to the first two.


The New York Sun

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