New York Governor- 2014- Astornio vs Cuomo

[Smash255]

LOL, Mangano would get  DEMOLISHED in the state and here in Nassau also.  He might not even win re-election this year.

[Smash255]

Cuomo is completely unbeatable in the general election. He was actually kind of vulnerable to a primary until he laid out his new agenda. He can begin planning his Presidential campaign now.

He was never vulnerable to a Primary, even with the grumbling on some online forums his numbers have been through the roof across the board.

[Smash255]

Mangano is way up in the latest poll for Nassau Exec.  there's no way the NYGOP can get a candidate of even his caliber to run.  expect a Rick Lazio-esque retread.

Meh, its the same poll that had Suozzi up 23 weeks before election day in 09

[Smash255]

While there was some truth to certain parts of your "Party of Macklemore post," it was grossly exaggerated and I disagree with your ultimate conclusion.  I think that while the Democratic establishment has moved in that direction, many (probably most) rank-and-file Democrats still place a pretty high value on economic progressivism.  However, there is rarely an outlet for that at the national level and whenever there is a potential outlet at the national level, the party establishment goes into overdrive to discredit him/her (ex: all of the Fox News-style phony outrage about Schweitzer's gaydar comment, which normally would've been a minor gaffe and been forgotten in a week or two).

Which further proves my point. Elizabeth Warren seems to be the only prominent economic progressive in the party (since Fredo de Blasio sold out to the Republicans) to mainstream voters. She seems to be the "token populist" in the party, while the establishment decided to stamp out the true candidate of the people (since unfortunately Sanders can't win).

Furthermore, your thesis wrongly trivializes social issues.  Economic issues are extremely important, but the fact is that reducing gun violence, fighting state-sanctioned discrimination against the LGBT community, women's rights, etc are also really important.  It is easy for you or me to say gay marriage doesn't matter since we don't have to worry about the type of discrimination they are facing.  Whatever you may claim, we both know you'd be singing a very different tune if you were the one whose rights were under attack.  TBH, this idea that there is going to be some sort of mass exodus to the Democratic Party by poor whites if it becomes some sort of socially-conservative/center-right party while embracing extremely progressive or socialist economic policies is a bit of a pipedream.

First of all, I never said anything about trivializing women's rights in my original post (and in fact, I commended their fight for equality). If you'll recall, I said that Democrats are focusing too much on gay marriage because the issue is already being settled by the courts, and with Utah appealing to the Supreme Court, it looks like we'll have federal equality by next year. The only state that doesn't have gay marriage and is in full Democratic control is (probably) the one state that's most against it in the Union, so we have no real "gay rights legislation" to pass besides ENDA.

About gun rights, I claimed that Andrew Cuomo pretended to care about gun violence, and if you actually read my Cuomo post, you'd actually realize that I was affected by gun violence recently. This crazy f**k was on the loose one mile away from my house, carrying an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine that, for all intents and purposes, he shouldn't have had because he had full intention to commit suicide-by-cop. That really helped me warm up to background checks, which I think is common-sense legislation.

All I said, in actuality, was that an assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazines ban were Democratic poutrage over "crime". The fact of the matter is, only 2% of shootings are done with an assault rifle, and about 12% of mass shootings use assault weapons or magazines, and most of the shootings with assault weapons are done in middle-class suburbia. What I'm trying to get at is that while a white kid in Long Island can go to school, free of harm, if people aren't allowed to own AR-15s anymore, a black teenager in Brownsville is in danger of getting shot while walking to school, and Cuomo killed de Blasio's preschool plan to keep inner-city kids safe and off our streets.

What I'm trying to get at, when talking about gun violence, is that Andrew Cuomo doesn't care about urban crime, and assault weapons bans/HCM bans are fake outraged attempts to get suburban voters to vote for the Democratic Party.

I should also add that there is no reason social liberalism and economic progressivism should be treated as mutually exclusive, despite the insistence of your "Party of Macklemore" thesis, but I digress.

Once again, you're putting words into my mouth. I'd love to have socially liberal people, overall (after all, my state is fairly conservative economically), but I'd like to see a new age of economic populism in America. We need more Brian Schweitzers in this world, not less, like the party establishment seems to think.

The reality is that, regardless of his views on social issues, no Democrats (outside of maybe the NY party establishment) want Cuomo to be the Democratic nominee if Hillary doesn't run.  Anecdotal evidence about this sort of thing is unreliable at best, but I do want to note that I have literally not met a single Democrat who has said they'd consider voting for Cuomo if Clinton doesn't run and the games he is trying to play with the State Senate, redistricting, the neutered ethics commission, etc will come back to bite him.  He done things to piss off a number of important Democratic constituencies and the ones he has been favorablish to won't support him because there will be other candidates who are good on both those issues and the ones on which Cuomo has been terrible.  Additionally, Cuomo comes across as far too ambitious, voters don't like when politicians *appear* over-ambitious (as opposed to being over-ambitious, but knowing how to not come across as such); he is also just not a very likable guy in general and that will be a real problem for him if he runs.

Unfortunately, Cuomo seems to have inherited his father's oration skills, and considering he's using them to be a powerful advocate for his "champion issues" and fooled even the WFP into thinking he's a liberal, I wouldn't call it out of the question to think that he'd pull the wool over the country's eyes again.

I really don't get all the outrage and complaints over Cuomo.  As far as the pre-school plan, while Cuomo did not agree to De Blasio's plan, the state is putting into place Universal Pre-K.  The vast majority of the funding for the program is going to the city.

[Smash255]

I really don't get all the outrage and complaints over Cuomo.  As far as the pre-school plan, while Cuomo did not agree to De Blasio's plan, the state is putting into place Universal Pre-K.  The vast majority of the funding for the program is going to the city.

That explains it all. He spoke out against de Blasio's plan to pass universal pre-K because those poor rich businessmen would be taxed, and decided to pass his own plan after.

He's more concerned on bolstering his own resume than actually governing. He's the closest thing the American political system has to a Frank Underwood.

His complaint wasn't about the rich businessman paying for it as much as something that would work for the state as a whole.

FWIW, I liked de Blasio's pe-k plan for NYC, however I also think it is important issue for the state as a whole, not just NYC.

[Smash255]

Christie rejected Astorino's play for more money.

Because, like I said, with Democrats like Cuomo, who needs Republicans?

I somehow think it has more to do with the fact Christie realizes Astorino doesn't have a shot in hell.