Cynthia Nixon for Governor

She has that unfortunate last name, and she made a remark about union concessions. This notwithstanding, what's in a name, the remark was a one-off, and I see her as the best person to unseat the amoral creature who now governs our state. Cuomo is a horror who's publicly vilified us in order to gratify the caprices of Eva Moskowitz and her hedge-fund buddies. He jumped up and down over the prospect of judging us via junk science, and then called the system he pushed "baloney" because not enough teachers were fired.

I'm a lifelong Democrat. For decades I voted for every Democrat that came down the pike. It took me a long time before I realized what Bill Clinton did to get himself reelected after his health care debacle. He essentially rebranded himself as a moderate Republican. This became the wave for New Democrats, and Cuomo rode in on that wave, vowing to go after unions in his first term.

That was too much for me. I voted for Green Howie Hawkins twice in protest. But I don't believe in protest votes as a go to. I believe Nixon has a chance to actually win, something Hawkins won't do in a million years. I also believe Working Families Party, now that it's finally come on its own, is worth supporting.

Nixon has continually spoken out on the right side of education, and that means a lot to me. Her celebrity doesn't hurt either. She already appears to be pushing Cuomo to the left. This is a direct result of her celebrity, and this is an advantage she holds over not only Hawkins, but also brilliant Zephyr Teachout. In fact, with Nixon out there, maybe this will open the door to getting Teachout in government where she belongs.

I'm not alone in thinking that Nixon could topple Andy. It would be great to see celebrity work positively in politics. We all know too well that the President of the United States used it, along with his incredible bluster, to overcome his opponents. Maybe we can use it to elect someone sensible, articulate, and intelligent.

Think of what it would mean to have a truly progressive governor. Maybe we could achieve statewide universal health care. Maybe progressive Democrats could take the Senate for real this time, without Simcha Felder or the IDC or any such nonsense standing in our way. Maybe we could be a beacon, leading the country toward a long overdue moral imperative.

Cynthia Nixon pays attention to someone I consider the foremost authority on American education:

Thank you @DianeRavitch for your important voice in the fight for a better future for our children. https://t.co/HhgCztsTK7

— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) March 22, 2018

That's more than you can say for Andrew Cuomo, who wouldn't know Diane Ravitch from Diane Sawyer. Andy remembers only his contributors. Can you imagine having a governor who paid attention to Diane Ravitch instead of Eva Moskowitz? What would it be like if the person in charge of governing our state knew the difference between junk science and research? Could it spark a national trend? I'm thrilled at the possibility of thoughtful, intelligent people looking to do the right thing in government.

There's a new group called Labor for Nixon. I love the idea of a group that represents Labor, and I see my friend Mindy Rosier's name on it. I told her she could add mine. I'm thrilled to be part of something that could topple the execrable Andrew Cuomo and bring us closer to the state we need to be, and perhaps even move us toward the country we need to be.

I'd love to see a viable Labor Party. Maybe this is a new beginning. That's why Cynthia Nixon wins the much-coveted NYC Educator endorsement for Governor of NY State.

Cynthia Nixon, Andrew Cuomo, and the UFT Learning Curve

I've got mixed feelings about actress Cynthia Nixon and her foray into politics. On the one hand, I'm really excited to see a true progressive looking at the governorship of my state. I have to say, though, that I was not happy with some of her remarks about unions.

“With the deals that [unions] have now, you can’t hope to make improvements to the trains in a fiscally responsible way,” Nixon told amNY, not specifying the unions to which she was referring. “Everybody’s got to pull together, and everybody’s got to make sacrifices.”

I don't know what deals the unions have now, so I can't comment on that. I was sorely disappointed, though, to hear a nominal progressive criticize union. It reminded me of no one more than Andrew Cuomo himself, whose first campaign platform entailed going after unions. This opened my eyes a lot, and made Cuomo the first Democrat for whom I declined to vote. I voted for Green Howie Hawkins for Governor these last two rounds.

Nixon, though, is very good on education. Unlike Cuomo, who takes suitcases full of cash from charter folk, she won't be doing that. She has an entirely different POV.

Too many corporate Democrats like Andrew Cuomo are taking charter school hedge fund money.

We have to stop diverting education funding into privately run charter schools, and put the focus back where it should be: on strengthening our public schools and keeping them public.

— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) April 13, 2018

Now here's the thing about Andrew Cuomo--he's making an effort to look good to us, and has been doing so over the last year or so. Cuomo observed the 2016 election, and read the tea leaves. They told him that America wants a government that fulfills its needs. Some of those needs are universal healthcare, affordable college, and a living wage. I repeat that often. Another, of course, is a decent  K-12 education for all of our children.

Cuomo has indeed made concessions. He's moderated his tone over firing all of us because of highly flawed test scores. He's created a program that will make it easier for some New Yorkers to go to college. He's stepped back on the IDC, which kept the Senate in GOP hands even though Democrats held the ostensible majority. Even though that thwarted a whole lot of improvements for New Yorkers, Cuomo can now say he's stopped it so as to disassociate himself from them.

The problem with Andrew Cuomo, of course, is that he has no moral center. He sways whichever way the political wind blows. He is for sale to the highest bidder, so long as whatever the bidder is buying will aid him toward reaching his Prime Directive--the advancement of Andrew Cuomo.

And that's when we come to our own union leadership, clearly poised to endorse Cuomo this time around.  A NY Times headline declares key unions are leaving the Working Families Party, which has now endorsed Cynthia Nixon for governor. You have to scroll down quite a bit for specifics, but when you do, you see this quote from UFT President Michael Mulgrew:

“My only concern is some reckless behavior that will have an unintended consequence of us ending up with a Republican governor,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “When these elections are over, we will judge any decision we have to make off your behavior if you caused bad things to happen — even though it was not your intent you are responsible for them.”

Let's focus a little on reckless behavior. Our parent union, the AFT, endorsed Hillary Clinton well before we saw any teacher voice at the polls. There was a kabuki dance of deciding the endorsement, but we ultimately got behind a candidate who did not support universal health care, a living wage, or affordable college. We got behind a candidate who mustered the audacity to lecture AFT about what we could learn from "public charter schools," whatever the hell they may be.

And just in case you hadn't noticed, Hillary Clinton lost that election. So by Mulgrew's logic, even though it was not our intent, we are responsible for Donald Trump. That's quite an albatross to hang around our own necks. You'd think we'd learn something from that, but you'd be wrong.

Rather than embrace a progressive candidate who holds causes dear to our hearts, we condemn her for one thoughtless comment. We might try to talk with her, negotiate with her, but instead we dismiss her out of hand, back a man with no integrity whatsoever, and hope the progressive wind that's blowing him this week will not change direction any time soon. We ignore mountains of evidence that Cuomo will do whatever is expedient for Cuomo, and brush away Nixon just as we brushed away Bernie Sanders.

This is an egregious error. I'm sure that UFT leadership will disagree, since they know better than me, they know better than you, and making a potentially fatal error in the 2016 Presidential campaign has done nothing to persuade them they are fallible in any way, ever. But it's not a huge leap of logic to say that Cynthia Nixon's philosophy more closely resembles that of working teachers, just as Bernie Sanders' did.

The blanket condemnation of Nixon is precisely the same as that of Sanders. The blind support of sure thing corporate Democrat Cuomo is precisely the same as that of sure thing corporate Democrat Clinton. Now I'm reading that union leadership may set up their own ballot line to make sure Cuomo wins and the progressive gets no traction whatsoever.

What has leadership learned from the debacle that was the 2016 election?

Nothing I can determine.