Ramblings

These articles caught my attention today:

Former Rep. Harold Ford has abandoned plans to challenge New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, sources familiar with his plans confirm.

A news story says Chautauqua County, New York, has sold its old-fashioned mechanical lever voting machines to a scrap dealer for only $52.47 apiece. Perhaps some of the other New York counties that still must sell their machines will try Ebay. Of course, the machines are heavy, so shipping would be an added cost.

The Special Election to replace former, NY State Senator Hiram Monserrate is down to 2 candidates. Assemblyman Jose Peralta has the Democratic & Working Families lines while Hiram is the independent candidate of the Yes We Can Party. Most observers think the support of Peralta by the Democratic organization, various unions plus Hiram's bad deeds, convicted of partner abuse, make Peralta the favorite. Special Elections are low turnout affairs and they usually come down to which candidate has the best "pulling"operation.

Last year, NY Rep. Carolyn Maloney was hoping to be in a primary against a younger, well-financed female opponent this fall. But instead of running against Kirsten Gillibrand for the Senate as she had planned, Maloney is defending her own congressional seat against Reshma Saujani, a 34-year-old Democratic fundraiser and hedge fund lawyer. The race is already shaping up as a generational clash, with Maloney in her fur and pearls in one corner, and Saujani with her dark business suits and trendy scarves in the other. Maloney is counting on the Democratic establishment, as well as reliable primary voters in the Upper East Side portion of the district, to send her back to Washington. Saujani, meanwhile, is banking on an influx of young professionals and immigrant voters—especially those residing in the Queens portion of the district—to buoy her insurgent candidacy to victory. I have partitioned and campaigned for Maloney in her last two elections.

The NY mayor was tight-lipped when asked by Times City Hall Bureau Chief David Chen about his decision to move some $5 billion out of the private equity firm Quadrangle Group and hiring about a dozen of the firms employees to manage the money at a new entity set up specifically to handle his money. Is he preparing for a 2012 run for President?

The leaders of Arizona’s four largest tea parties announced Monday they’re not endorsing in the state’s Senate race, a blow to the movement’s supposed darling, former Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth. The joint statement from the Tucson Tea Party, the Greater Phoenix Tea Party, the Flagstaff Tea Party and the Mohave County Tea Party declared that any endorsement would not be “appropriate.” “We stand for principles and ideas, not for politicians or parties,” said Patrick Beck, organizer of the Mohave County Tea Party. “Our mission is to promote constitutional government and fiscal responsibility and to inform people so that they can make their own decisions.” “It is not appropriate to make an endorsement in this race at the drop of a hat, as some other groups are doing,” added Kelly Townsend of the Greater Phoenix Tea Party. “The movement must stand for ideas and do everything possible to provide information to people so that they can make the best personal decisions.” Since announcing his GOP primary campaign against four-term Sen. John McCain, Hayworth has claimed tea party support.

Doing a Sarah Palin:
If you remember, Palin had put some talking points on her hand, at the Conserative conference. Many members of Congress when they are on tv talk shows never really listen to the commentator questions but use their talking points. This past weekend, McCain was asked a question about the health care bill with the moderator telling him that certain features had been taken out of the bills. But he looked down at his talking points and complained about that part of the bill that was no longer in it. He did a Sarah Palin.

Michael H. Drucker
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Bloomberg Goes All Out to Lift Turnout

His administration’s record aside, and his campaign’s unmatched spending notwithstanding, Michael R. Bloomberg’s aides in the field mince no words about exactly what will determine the outcome of next Tuesday’s mayoral election.

“At the end of the day, every election is about one thing: making sure your supporters get to the polls and vote,” Lenny Speiller, the campaign’s get-out-the-vote director, declares on the Bloomberg Web site.


I attended the "Get Out the Vote" rally this pass Sunday with Mayor Bloomberg.

I will be a poll captain spending Election Day, after I vote, reminding voters to vote for the Independent Mayor Bloomberg on Column "C", the Independence Party line on the ballot. Then I will help with monitoring the machine counts after the polls close. Oh Yeah, then I will be at the Bloomberg party watching the results.

Use the above link to read the article in the New York Times by SAM ROBERTS.

Michael H. Drucker
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The Case for Nonpartisan Elections

Francis S. Barry, has worked as a policy advisor and director of speech writing for New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg since 2002, makes the case in his book "The Scandal of the Reform" that nonpartisan elections can bring back voters who are not registered as Democrats or Republicans. "Why," he asks, "exclude independent voters from the first round of voting [the closed primary] if that is the decisive election?" Messy empirical and practical arguments aside, this is a compelling argument on its face. As new generations of voters entering the polity valuing their independence and refusing to commit to one political party or the other, the numbers of the effectively disenfranchised will only climb.

Mayor Bloomberg likes nonpartisan elections too, but he focuses more on the managerial quality of local government, along the lines of Fiorello LaGuardia's old chestnut that there is no partisan way to pick up the garbage. In 2003, Bloomberg established a charter commission under the chairmanship of Frank Macchiarola, the president of St. Francis College, to investigate and make recommendations for a nonpartisan election plan for the city. The commissioners worked hard, but faced overwhelming opposition from "reform" groups in New York.

Bloomberg's charter commission recommended giving candidates the option of identifying their party affiliation if they chose, but opening the election to all registered voters, thus eliminating the closed party primary. If you are concerned about a crowded election contest that will produce a winner with 10 percent to 15 percent of the vote, no worries -- we can employ instant runoff techniques where voters can select their second and third choices. The top finishers can be paired off with the additional preferences supplied by voters and a winner with a legitimate majority can be crowned.

Voters overwhelmingly rejected Macchiarola's plan for nonpartisan elections, 70 percent to 30 percent. But only 13 percent of registered voters bothered to show up for the off-year election of 2003, and many had ties to the unions, interest groups and political clubs that benefit from the status quo and know how to pull the levers of the current system to their advantage. They were loathe to expand the electorate and risk the surrender of power.

Barry says that nonpartisan elections very well might create a more cooperative spirit in City Hall, and embolden rank and file legislators to break with orthodoxy. I am not so sure -- many cities, after all, have nonpartisan municipal elections and are just slogging it out like we do in the Big Apple. The best case for the adoption of nonpartisan elections is the principled one, removed from any impact it may have: Nonpartisan elections give more people the opportunity to exercise, in a meaningful way, the most fundamental right and obligation in a democracy, the vote.

While taking part in the Independence Party selection of Bloomberg on Column "C" as a member of the Manhattan Executive Committee, the mayor said "show him the way to nonpartisan municipal elections, and I am in."

With 945,931 New York City registered voters who can not vote in the primaries, it just might be the time in 2010.

Michael H. Drucker
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Serious as a Heart Attack: The Independents’ Story

I found this on the Donklephant Blog from the Hankster. "This article by independent strategist Jackie Salit came across my desk and I thought it was too good not to share in full with you.-Nancy" I agree so here is the entire article.

When we finally get far enough down the road on health care reform, it will become clear that a driving force in the intensity of the fight was a heart attack. Not the medical kind. The political kind.

Independents swung decisively to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. And it is this shift by independents – who repositioned themselves from center-right to center-left – that gave the Republican right the political equivalent of cardiac arrest.

In 1992, 19 million independents voted for Ross Perot. In 2008, 19 million independents voted for Barack Obama. Over the span of 15 years, the largely white, center-right independent movement re-aligned itself with Black America and progressive-minded voters.

This did not happen out of the blue. It did not happen by magic. It happened because the progressive wing of the independent movement did the painstaking and often controversial work of bringing the Perot movement and the Fulani movement together at the grassroots. The Fulani movement refers to the country’s leading African American independent, Dr. Lenora Fulani, who exposed the black community to independent politics and introduced the independent movement to an alliance with Black America.

No doubt the dramatics that the right wing brought to the Town Hall meetings this summer were intended for the television cameras. But the organizers, strategists and radio personalities who orchestrated the theatrics had a particular audience in mind: Independents. If they could tarnish Obama’s image with indies, they could damage the black and independent alliance and re-establish the Republican Party as an influential force amongst independents. Some of that could be accomplished, they felt, by claiming Obama’s health plan would drive up the national debt – a concern that animated the early Perot movement. Some Republican strategists felt that if they simply branded Obama a socialist, it would scare independents away – not from the health care plan (everyone recognizes a plan of some kind will get passed) but away from the center-left coalition that elected him.

If indies are feeling somewhat disillusioned with President Obama over the health care reform fight, it has more to do with fears that he is being overly influenced by the partisans in Congress. Since independents voted for him to be a more independent president, it’s easy to see how some felt disappointed by his handling of the Republican onslaught. Obama’s independent appeal was based on his challenge to the prevailing culture of Clintonian opportunism in the Democratic Party and partisanship inside the Beltway. Put another way, the independent vote for Obama was an effort to define a new kind of progressivism, one that was not synonymous with Democratic Party control.

After years of hard work and organizing, independents have become a sought-after partner in American politics. They elected President Obama and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, arguably the country’s two most independent and pragmatically progressive elected officials. No wonder the Republican Party right wants a clawback.

Independents are vulnerable to being peeled away by the Republican right. The Pew Research Center reports that were the 2010 midterms to be held today, independents would lean towards Republicans by a 43 to 38 percent margin. But, the evolution of a 21st century independent movement is not that simple. First, the movement is very fluid and very new. Historical movements develop through twists and turns, not in a straight line. The far right has attempted to take over the independent movement before. In 1994, Newt Gingrich crafted the “Contract with America” to woo Perotistas back into the Republican tent. And in 2000, social conservative Pat Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party presidential nomination, though he was roundly repudiated by independents in the general election.

If Republicans are increasing their influence among independents, it’s also because the Democratic Party Left has not been a friend to the independent movement. Sure, Democrats were happy that indies broke for Obama. But they were disappointed that we didn’t become Democrats. They equate progressivism with being in the Democratic Party. But they’re wrong.

Neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party has been enthusiastic about the development of indies as a third force. For different reasons, surely. But they share a common goal: to maintain the primacy of two-value logic (where there is only one or the other, never neither) and make sure independents are passive companions. That’s one reason that the fight for open primaries – which allow independents to cast ballots in every round of voting – and the campaign to appoint independents to the Federal Election Commission are so important. Those fights are about our right to participate and our right to represent our interests in changing the political culture.

The independent movement went left in 2008, after many years of grassroots organizing to link it to progressive leadership. Now the right wants to peel it back. Obama, presumably, wants to hold on to the partnership, but must also privilege his own party, which turns independents off and makes them more susceptible to Republican attacks. Meanwhile, independents are working hard at the grassroots to hold our own.

Jackie Salit is the president of IndependentVoting.org and the campaign coordinator for New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s mayoral campaign on the Independence Party line.

Michael H. Drucker
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Dr. Lenora Fulani at the 2009 Caribbean West Indian Day Parade

Thanks to the Hankster for this video of Dr. Lenora Fulani at the 2009 Caribbean West Indian Day Parade. The NYC Independence Party Organizations' were supporting Mayor Bloomberg's run for a third term on Column "C".


Michael H. Drucker
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NY Mayor Bloomberg's Independent Campaign

"I'm a big believer in what the Independence Party stands for, and it seems to me that what it really stands for is Democracy."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg on a CUIP National Conference Call with Jackie Salit, the President of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, Inc. (CUIP) and the Executive Editor of the NEO-INDEPENDENT magazine from July 8th, 2009

Labor Day launches the fall campaign season. The core theme of the campaign is the connection between political independence and good governance. We have the opportunity to elect NYC's first independent Mayor, and we can garner a historic vote on Column "C". The vote on Column "C" all comes down to us-the IP activists who have built the independent movement from the bottom up.

Use the above link to find out more about the New York City Independence Party Organizations.

Michael H. Drucker
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Indys Defend Bloomberg As One Of Their Own

The task of defending Bloomberg's independent credentials has been taken up by leaders of the city Independence Party, who have endorsed the mayor for the third time and are now actively involved in his campaign.

The Independence Party has not official endorsed any other citywide candidates.

It is focusing its efforts solely on Bloomberg's re-election.

Every means available so far means mail and door-knocking at the homes of registered Independence Party members. Those who aren't home are greeted by this door hanger when they return. (There's also a Spanish-language version).

I collected the signatures in City Council District 4 North to help give the mayor the opportunity to appear on our line, Column "C".

Use the above link to read the entire article by Elizabeth Benjamin of the NY Daily News.

Michael H. Drucker
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2009 NYC Mayor Endorsement

As a member of the NYC Independence Party Executive Committee, I endorsed Mayor Bloomberg in his campaign for Mayor of NYC as an independent. I collected signatures for him in 2001, 2005 and again this year in my district (the Eastside of Manhattan).

Here is a video of his appearance at our:

Eleventh Annual
Spring Chairman's Reception
Sunday, June 7, 2009




Michael H. Drucker
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Appeals court OKs NYC mayor's run for third term

A federal appeals court concluded Tuesday there are no constitutional obstructions to letting Mayor Michael Bloomberg run for a third term this year.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said that absent a flaw in the law or a violation of the Constitution, "It is not the role of this court to interject itself into city politics."

The appeals court acknowledged that some people think a change in law allowing Bloomberg to run again disregards the will of people who voted for term limits. But the court said it can decide only constitutional issues and legal claims.

The appeals court called Bloomberg's reason for wanting a third term a "legitimate objective" and said it was inconsequential that the city "also may have been motivated by political reasons — the desire to remain in office and in positions of seniority."

The appeals court said the law did not interfere with a fundamental right.

Michael H. Drucker
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U.S. Won’t Intervene in Term Limits Case

The Justice Department will not block the City Council’s controversial decision last year to extend the term limits law, allowing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek a third term this fall. Federal authorities agreed that the legislation does not adversely impact minority voters or candidates who will be running for office this fall.

In a letter on Tuesday, Christopher Coates, chief of the voting section in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, told Michael A. Cardozo, New York City’s corporation counsel, that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. “does not interpose any objection to the specific changes” in the term limits law, allowing officials to serve three four-year terms, rather than two.

Use the above link to read the entire New York Times article.

Michael H. Drucker
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Bloomberg Rival Challenges Term Limits Law

New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson, who is running for mayor, and other city leaders are calling on the Justice Department to strike down last fall's law allowing city officials to run for a third term.

They say the law discriminates against minorities, because challenging an incumbent is much harder than running for an open seat, and as a result, violates the Voting Rights Act.

"When the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was enacted it was a turning point in American history. It opened the doors to democracy so that all people could play a part. When Mayor Bloomberg signed the term limits extension, once again we saw the rules change with the stroke of a pen," said Thompson.

The city's law department argues the extension from two terms to three will not impact voter opportunities. The Justice Department must sign off on the new law.

A decision is expected March 17.

Michael H. Drucker
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Narrowing the Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the Voting Rights Act this week when it ruled that it does not require states to create so-called crossover districts. The regrettable 5-to-4 ruling overturns two of the act’s central goals: protecting minority voting rights and moving the nation toward a more colorblind future.

The ruling is a curtain raiser for a more important Voting Rights Act case. Later this year, the court is expected to decide whether another part of the act, Section 5, is constitutional. Section 5, which requires states to “preclear” new voting rules that could hurt minorities, is a critically important law. We hope that Justice Kennedy’s respectful tone toward the act and its goals indicates that Section 5 will be upheld by a strong majority.

Parts of New York City fall under Section 5. Mayor Bloomberg's Term Limit Extension falls under the "preclear" rule. I would like to see a different change. Currently if the Justice Department does not rule within a certain time frame the change passes. I would rather require a definitive Yes or No.

Use the above link to read the entire New York Times article.

Michael H. Drucker
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