A can of whoop-ass.
The family gathered at our place last night to watch the returns.
The temperature had reached one hundred. A hot day calls for what my mother used to call a “dairy meal”, meaning nothing from the oven or stove.
I ordered some corn beef from Shelsky’s (Brad Lander’s favorite New York deli I have heard). I had two bottles of Gold’s beet borscht chilling in the refrigerator. Potato salad and cole slaw. Rye bread for sandwiches. I chopped up some cucumbers and scallions to mix in with the sour cream for the borscht.
We were all set for 9pm when the polls would close and the results would come in.
And boy, did they ever come in. Like a tsunami.
Andrew Cuomo, who had led for months in the polls, got swept away as Mamdani piled up votes in each of the five boroughs, with majorities in Queens, Manhattan and monster numbers in my home in Brooklyn.
My inbox is filled with analyses this morning.
It was Mamdani’s charisma.
It was Cuomo running a really bad campaign.
It was all about the issues.
It was about Israel.
It was the heat keeping Cuomo’s base at home.
It was young voters, old voters, Jewish voters, South Asian voters, male voters.
I’m reading all the analyses and will make a deep dive into the data myself. I will share, of course.
I recall my time working in the Harold Washington campaign years ago in Chicago.
There was the same kind of discussion surrounding Harold’s victory over the Democratic Machine.
Was it the man? The moment? Or the Movement?
I’m seeing that discussion again all these years later.
A man. A moment. A Movement.
As in the case with Harold, it is all three.
One final observation for now.
Up untill a few weeks before election day Cuomo’s TV ads (he rarely went out in public), focused on his experience and attacked Mamdani for his lack of same.
I felt that message had some actual traction.
But in the final two weeks the talking points changed. The message became dark. Ads showed Mamdani in what looked like foreign and alien attire. False claims that Mamdani was antisemitic. There was Red-baiting. It was exposed that Cuomo was sending out mailers with Mamdani having a long beard and darkened complexion.
I would like to think that this backfired on Cuomo. That New York’s incredibly diverse voters were as repulsed by it as I was.