“And some (like, it seems to me, our friend Gatemouth) simply think all candidates are pretty much the same and despair of finding excitement in supporting a candidate…in fact they seem disdainful of anyone who actually shows some enthusiasm for a candidate.” —MOLE333
Although I once made the observation above the subject of a long meditation, I cannot deny its essential truth. Though some of them are fun to drink and swap stories with, I don’t much care for most pols.
Though I’ve long disdained the oldtime hacks and their admirers, who measure accomplishment only in terms of bringing home treasure, I’ve not been impressed with the late models either.
The worst of the oldtimers lacked a worldview larger than “any weapon to hand“, and “dance with those who brung ya.”
I‘ve always considered some sort of belief system an essential way to understand how an elected will deal with new information and new situations. To understanding a pol’s worldview is to understand how they will process information.
But, the oldtimers’ lack of worldview has of late been replaced more and more not with pols who have systems for processing new information, but instead with pols who possess ready made party-line answers no matter what the circumstances.
While on some level, such pre-chewed dogma looks to be an improvement over the hacks of old, in the case of groups such as the ACORN/WFP/DFS conglomerate, the bottom line often is no different from that of the old hacks. “Any weapon to hand” and “Dance with those who brung ya” pretty much qualify as the slogans for Bill DeBlasio’s campaign for Public Advocate and are also emblematic of his career to date.
While serving as City Councilman, DeBlasio took a $33,000 "consulting" fee from a “think tank/ foundation” run by the WFP, while advancing their legislative agenda and generating money for their for-profit political consulting firm. This all appears to be both perfectly legal and stunningly, brazenly, repugnant.
DeBlasio has spent virutally his entire adult life going back and forth from campaign/party to public payrolls, but prefers again and again to occupy both sinecures at once. While a smart and shrewd Councilmember (in the world of the WFP Party Line, he is no mere apparatchick, but a full Commissar) one can never find a moment in his career where he made a decision which elevated the merits over the current political expedience. With DeBlasio, one cannot separate the political animal from the public official because they are always one and the same.
One need only look at DeBlasio’s checkered history on the matter of term limits to conclude that his allegiance will always be ruled by expedience. While DeBlasio has been all over the map on term limits, he’s never ever been at a place that didn’t benefit him the most at the time.
By contrast, Mark Green the political animal and Mark Green the elected official are two different beasts. If there were euthanasia for political animals, Mark Green would be sleeping with the fish, and it would be an act of mercy.
But Mark Green the public official is another matter; as Consumer Affairs Commissioner and Public Advocate, Mark Green was the gold standard; nothing and no one were sacred.
Green took on powerful enemies and tallied impressive victories. To Green as a Public Official, sacred cows made the tastiest hamburgers. Is it any wonder that the political establishment is lined up almost solidly against him?
Back in 1996, the Brooklyn Democratic Organization, in its Clarence Norman model, ran a sleazy hack judge (later removed from office) named Mike Feinberg for County Surrogate; Feinberg was also backed by most of the “reformers.” Insurgent Regulars, including Vito Lopez, responded by running another hack judge, both less sleazy and less competent, named Lila Gold, who also attracted the support of CBID and Rock Hackshaw. Another hack, even less qualified and suffering from Alzheimer’s, also entered the race.
Then Clarence got a clever idea. The major competition was a woman named Gold; what if there was also a woman named Goldstein in the race? Another candidate named Ferne Goldstein emerged, with petitions carried by people on Feinberg’s campaign payroll (if anyone wants to challenge this, I can name names).
The insurgents challenged Goldstein’s petitions When Goldstein was ordered removed from the ballots by the courts, manipulations, which pointed to the County Organization prevented the Board of Elections from meeting to carry out its legal obligations, and then, malingering by Board of Elections employees, which also pointed to the County Organization (as well as to the usual incompetence of that agency), prevented the removal of Goldstein’s name from the ballot until such removal was too late to implement before the machines had to be delivered to poll sites.
The end result was that dozens, if not hundreds, of poll sites did not open until the afternoon, resulting in the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, while at other polls sites, Goldstein’s name illegally remained on the ballot.
During the aforementioned Board of Elections meetings, Brooklyn’s Democratic Board member would sometimes speak, but witnesses say the Party’s Executive Director’s voice always seemed to be coming out of his mouth.
It was as ugly a spectacle as ever has been seen in New York politics, although the sins of the election were soon overshadowed by the rot and corruption of Feinberg’s administration
We know all this only because Mark Green investigated and did a report on it, detailing with total credibility where each and every body was buried.
There was no advantage to doing such a report. Green had a decent relationship with Norman he petty much threw in the garbage (Norman backed Alan Hevesi for Mayor). The faction backing Gold had had little history as Green allies, and their lack of interest in him mostly continued; even his best friend among the group has not backed him consistently since then. There was nothing to be gained from putting out such a report.
Nothing but the truth. Mark Green the Public Official has never shied from the truth.
This may, in Bill DeBlasio’s rendition, be ancient history, but can anyone conceive of Mark Green ever operating any differently? And can anyone ever conceive of Bill DeBlasio ever doing anything remotely similar, without precisely calibrating the political advantage, if any, to be obtained?
Mark Green is really the last of the Independent Liberals. He has a belief system, and a strong one, through which he processes his information, and his answers are almost always liberal ones.
But Mark Green does not put on blinders. He is an innovator who thinks out of the box and does not disdain a good idea merely because of its provenance, or the toes it would step upon. Mark Green crusades for public policy with liberal goals, but is not afraid to embrace a conservative idea or step on a liberal toe to achieve those goals.
Mark Green is the real deal. An arrogant prick, but he’s earned the right.
As a chief executive or a legislator, Green’s sometimes abrasive approach raises some questions about whether it can be the best route for achievement of its worthy endgame.
But I cannot think of a person better suited to be Public Advocate. Perhaps, this position should not exist. But, as long as it does exist, I cannot think of a better person than Mark Green to hold the job.