The
Democratic Party's de Blasio will ask you to celebrate the return of
progressivism to City Hall. Don't be fooled. Progressivism is
something born in the streets, not in the centers of power.
There
is a new progressivism being built in New York today. It is visionary,
it is nonpartisan, it is inclusionary, it is multi-racial, it is
Independent. Its mayoral candidate is Adolfo Carrion.
Give him your vote on November 5th.
Now
that the mayoral race has taken shape, it's time to take a harder look
at the candidates, the choices, and the politics built into this race.
I
am a supporter of Adolfo Carrion, the Independence Party's mayoral
candidate. He is neither a Democrat nor a Republican, he's something
else altogether and that is a good thing. Unless we can create a new
way of doing things politically, we will not be able to touch the
problems that New Yorkers face, let alone solve them.
The
Democratic Party and its nominee, Bill de Blasio, have put themselves
forward as that new and "beautiful" thing. At the unity rally on Tuesday
where Bill Thompson folded his campaign even though the votes had not
been fully counted, de Blasio said, "There is nothing more beautiful
than Democratic unity."
I
have to admit, I was taken aback by this pronouncement. There are so
many things on this earth more beautiful than that. When poor Black
kids who have been struggling to achieve in the classroom and in life
manage to get the support they need to learn to read, that is a
beautiful thing. When a life is saved by a first responder, that is a
beautiful thing. When a child is born, or people fall in love, these are
beautiful things. When violence is averted because people in the
neighborhood had the skills needed to step back from the edge, that is a
beautiful thing. (By the way, I include President Obama's recent moves
in Syria as an example.)
You
get my point here. I have met Bill de Blasio. We've seen each other
in the streets for years. He has visited my youth programs, the All
Stars Project, and we've discussed the importance of afterschool and
youth development. He cares about these things and I respect that. But
my problem with Bill de Blasio's mayoral campaign is that it is based
on the idea that what we should care about most of all is the Democratic
Party. This is something that every New Yorker, but particularly the
communities of color, need to be very concerned about.
Putting
your political party above all else is no way to run a city. It leads
to bad decisions. It invariably leads to the poor being left behind.
The Democrats always take care of their organized constituencies at the
expense of the poor and unrepresented.
I
was struck by several other things at the unity press conference. Bill
Thompson expressed his outrage at the failure of the Board of Elections
to have counted all the votes, one week after the election. He said,
"This electoral process has to be improved, there has to be fundamental
reform." Of course, he's right, there does have to be fundamental
election reform. I've fought for that for decades, prompting bitter
opposition from Democrats, including Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson.
When
you think about it, the results of the Democratic primary were deeply
influenced by flaws, faults, even fixes by election bureaucrats. When
the CFB withheld matching funds from John Liu, they substituted
themselves for the voters and destroyed Liu's campaign. When the Board
of Elections couldn't manage to count the votes on Primary Day, the door
was left open to party bigwigs muscling Thompson out of the race, which
they promptly did. In neither case did the voters get to decide.
Rev.
Al Sharpton played a part in the Democratic Muscle Machine, tamping
down any potential anger or frustration in the Black community at
Thompson being sidelined. He made an appeal to moving beyond "identity
politics" by pointing out that half of Black voters had cast ballots for
de Blasio rather than Thompson. Of course, I completely support
Sharpton's call to move beyond identity politics. I've been telling the
Black community that for years. However, let's not forget that when I
organized 47 percent of Black voters to abandon the Democratic Party in
2005 and vote for the independent Mike Bloomberg, no Democrat gave any
grand speech about moving beyond identity politics; no Democrat called
me up and said, "Dr. Fulani, thank you for moving us to a new place!"
It
was Governor Cuomo, though, who provided the grand finale to the
Democratic unity rally. Having spent close to two terms repressing any
semblance of Black and Latino empowerment in the state legislature,
Cuomo arrived on the scene to tell New Yorkers that the suffering is
over because we can now put a progressive in City Hall. What is Cuomo's
progressive agenda? Improving public education, passing sensible gun
laws, having an open immigration policy, and making the city the capital
of commerce and diversity.
For
the record, that was Mike Bloomberg's agenda. However, because the
Democrats are poised to retake City Hall, the past must be rewritten to
fit their script. The main thing that distinguishes Mike Bloomberg's
agenda from Cuomo's "progressive agenda" is that Bloomberg fought
alongside me (not always comfortably!) for the electoral reform that
Bill Thompson, in his farewell address, finally said we desperately
need. Bloomberg wasn't a perfect mayor. But he sure as hell was an
independent one.
At
the risk of being branded a radical (actually there is no risk because
it's already happened and it's true) let me remind us of the cautionary
words of Malcolm X. He said to us, "You put the Democrats first and the
Democrats put you last." In this election, more than any other in my
lifetime, we need to take those words to heart.
Adolfo
Carrion, a former public school teacher, from humble beginnings, rose
through the ranks of the Democratic Party to serve on the City Council,
as Bronx Borough President and in the Obama White House. For his entire
career, poverty, the lack of opportunity and the need to create
economic and social development that benefits everyone have been his
life's mission.
He
was considered a model Democrat, a pro-growth, anti-poverty activist, a
man of color, the son of a man of the cloth. Everyone believed he
would go far. Last year the Democrats offered him the comptroller
position in this year's election, having heard rumblings he might want
to run for mayor. It wasn't his turn, they said. (Sound familiar?) He
turned it down.
Adolfo
Carrion didn't want to wait. He believed, based on his experience,
that far from being the embodiment of progressivism, the Democratic
Party had become its greatest obstacle. And so, he became an
independent. He came to the Independence Party, to me, to ask for our
support. He said to us that we must have a new progressive coalition in
New York City and I want to help lead it. We said yes.
For
the next seven weeks, you will hear a lot from the Republican Joe
Lhota. Many say that Lhota is a capable person. But the New York City
Republican Party is dead as a doornail. Its vision is non-existent. It
barely exists. It is no threat.
The
Democratic Party's de Blasio will ask you to celebrate the return of
progressivism to City Hall. Don't be fooled. Progressivism is
something born in the streets, not in the centers of power.
There
is a new progressivism being built in New York today. It is visionary,
it is nonpartisan, it is inclusionary, it is multi-racial, it is
Independent. Its mayoral candidate is Adolfo Carrion.
Give him your vote on November 5th.
