Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo, BFFs
Bill de Blasio was swept into office as New York City's mayor last year in a landslide, riding a groundswell of liberal support to end two decades of Republican rule in the country's biggest city. He was hailed as a vanguard of the progressive movement, and a further sign that the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party was ascendant.
If only.
De Blasio, swiftly dealt a humiliating defeat over charter schools at the hands of New York's infamously reactionary Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, has since tucked tail. He lavished praise on Cuomo while formally nominating him as the party's gubernatorial candidate in May, then helped broker a deal that secured the Working Family Party's endorsement for Cuomo later that same month.
Now comes the ultimate act of betrayal. As you may know, a group of five renegade Democrats, known as the Independent Democratic Conference, is responsible for giving control of New York's state Senate to the Republicans, even though Democrats hold a majority in the chamber. A pair of stalwart progressives, Oliver Koppell and John Liu, are challenging two members of the IDC, who have blocked liberal priorities from passing into law. Daily Kos has endorsed both candidates, in order to help take back the Senate—which should rightfully be in Democratic hands—and to send a message to wayward Democrats everywhere that there are consequences for stabbing your party in the back.
Pathetically, de Blasio doesn't see things that way. He seems to have bought into the IDC's bogus non-promise to return to the fold next year and has now endorsed the two men Koppell and Liu are trying to defeat: state Sens. Jeff Klein (the IDC's ringleader) and Tony Avella. His stated reasons for doing so are just absolutely gross:
"Throughout this past session, Sen. Jeff Klein and Sen. Tony Avella worked tirelessly on behalf of the residents of New York City and helped make progress on issues that had been stalled for far too long," de Blasio said in a statement Tuesday.
De Blasio cited new funding for universal pre-K, but of course, that would also have passed had Democrats been in control of the legislature. How about
all the stuff that
didn't pass—or even come up for a vote—like the Women's Equality Act, serious campaign finance reform, a fracking moratorium or the state-level DREAM Act?
And really, a supposed progressive exponent is now hailing a bunch of power-hungry egomaniacs who threw an entire legislative chamber in a dark blue state to the Republicans just to satisfy their own ambitions? De Blasio obviously finds life a lot easier when he's in Cuomo's good graces, and going along with the charade that the IDC are now somehow good guys who will soon make nice with mainstream Democrats is a way to stay there. (After all, Cuomo has long been fond of the IDC, since they prevent him from having to sign or veto anything that might upset the 1 percenters.) This is just transactional politics at its very worst, and it's sick.