The Latest

The Difference Between Democrats and Republicans (an anecdote recovered from my digital wastebasket)

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One morning, in a prior life, I was dispatched to work on a campaign in Queens. Another “volunteer”, similarly dispatched from my office, had been sent out to buy bagels, and had returned with two dozen, all plain.  

 Peeved at the prospect of sinking my teeth into bland white bread without getting anything stuck between them, I questioned her about her choice. She said that she wasn’t sure what variety people would want, and therefore chose the lowest common denominator.

A Card Carrying Abomination (REVISED-shaggy dog opening anecdote now replaced by some histortical perspective)

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“25th AD (Queens): Evidence would seem to indicate that both Morshed Alam and Rory Lancman are insufferable egomaniacs. But, the evidence also indicates that only one of them is an insufferable egomaniac who sucks up to Republicans. Frank Padavan is almost a case study of what is wrong with Albany. Morshed Alam is Frank’s padawan Therefore, three cheers for Lancman." —Gatemouth’s Voter’s Guide (9/7/06) 

Taxman

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Full disclosure demands that I admit the following: I have been a friendly, but not familiar acquaintance of Councilman Michael McMahon’s brother, Tom, for about 25 years. Despite this, Councilman McMahon was not my preferred candidate in his 2001 race for City Council (that would have been John Del Giorno). However, in late 2002, my family moved to an apartment on Tom McMahon’s block and during one winter snowstorm, Tom leant me his snow shovel so I could dig out my car. Therefore, I am not without personal bias concerning the McMahon clan, including the Councilman, who’ve I’ve met twice, once in 2003 and once recently, for a combined period of about ten minutes.

What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (Corrected and Revised)

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"[Congressional candidate Steve] Harrison also questions [City Councilman Michael] McMahon's position on the Iraq war: Was McMahon for it before he was against it?

Harrison was irked in particular by a line in the city delegation's endorsement of McMahon [for Congress in the 13th CD] last week that said McMahon "will play an important role in bringing our troops home from Iraq."
 
‘I will not let that statement stand,’ Harrison told us. ‘Mike clearly endorsed the war.’

As evidence, Harrison points to the fact that McMahon was one of 17 Council members who voted against a 2003 resolution, which passed the Council, opposing any U.S. attack on Iraq until all diplomatic avenues were exhausted.
 
‘To me, this is somebody who is pandering,’ Harrison said. ‘The question is where he really stands. We won't know until he gets to Washington.’

How to Settle the City Budget

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From what I understand, the Mayor and City Council are having trouble agreeing to a New York City budget because they disagree how bad the city’s fiscal situation is likely to get. The Mayor wants to raise taxes on the less important people who don’t get Bloomberg checks, don’t sell clothes, and are not retired, and reduce services that less important people rely on, to start getting people used to what the future will hold. The Council wants to pretend all will be well, but tax people from out of town staying in hotels at a much higher rate than is paid in tax for other services, while continuing to allow out-of-towners to buy expensive clothes made in China with cheap dollars without paying any city sales tax at all. Like most U.S. politicians, if they aren’t creating a future which is truly horrible, the Council Members feel they haven’t done enough today to “fight for the people” who don’t care about that future.

My own view is that both the Mayor and Council are underestimating how bad things will get. The city’s revenue base is somewhat insulated from the coming recession because the property bubble is only partially reflected in property tax revenues here, and (if we don’t discourage them from coming and make they pay it) spending by foreign visitors will support sales tax revenues even as city residents become poorer and spend less. But the city is heading for a massive decline in personal and corporate income tax revenues. More importantly, the state will be hit even harder by those declines, because such taxes are a bigger part of its revenue base, it the likely result will be state tax increases and spending cuts specifically targeted to hurt New York City as much as possible while sparing other parts of the state, as in the past. We are heading for a crisis a bad as the early- to mid-1990s, with the exception that this time most of the country will be even worse off, not better off as it was back then. In the face of this, I suggest the following…

Insane/Fine Goal (AKA Tutti Fruiti)

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“The excitement underpinning Senator Barack Obama’s campaign rests considerably on his evocative vows to depart from self-interested politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has come up short of that standard with his decision to reject public spending limitations and opt instead for unlimited private financing in the general election.”
-New York Times Editorial 6/20/08

WRONG!

Michael Kinsley’s famous rule that “the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal“, now has “Gatemouth’s converse“: “the ideal imperfectly replicated in a reform may be preferable to the status quo (or status quo ante), but it is not to be mistaken for the ideal itself.”

Muslim Voter Turnout

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Tuesday New York Times features a story about leaders of the American Muslim community complaining about the Obama campaign not treating them well enough.

I was struck by one paragraph that didn’t pass my smell test:

In 2006, the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee arranged for 53 Muslim cabdrivers to skip their shifts at Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to transport voters to the polls for the midterm election. Of an estimated 60,000 registered Muslim voters in the state, 86 percent turned out and voted overwhelmingly for Jim Webb, a Democrat running for the Senate who subsequently won the election, according to data collected by the committee.

Coincidence?

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“A north country state senator has apparently opted to stand for re-election rather than accept an offer to run a state authority.

Reliable sources say Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent, was offered and turned down the chairmanship of the New York Power Authority.

Neither Mr. Aubertine nor a spokesman from the governor's office returned phone calls seeking comment by Friday evening.