“I was 40 years old. I had a life... I didn’t want to do that."

YankeeFan · May 22, 2014

Webster said:

To say that Democrats "hadn't allowed" an African-American to run is silly. There weren't many minorities who ran (I can only recall Percy Sutton and Herman Badillo) but the primary races were often pretty crazy and wide open affairs.
Click to expand...

C'mon Webster. You know the history.

African-Americans were given certain jobs. In exchange, they were not to run for mayor.

That was the deal, and Dinkins bucked it. And he was only able to do so because he was running against a weakened incumbent, and because there was a power vacuum, due to the corruption among the county leaders like Donald Manes, Stanley Friedman, and Meade Esposito.

Webster · May 22, 2014

YankeeFan said:

Webster said:

To say that Democrats "hadn't allowed" an African-American to run is silly. There weren't many minorities who ran (I can only recall Percy Sutton and Herman Badillo) but the primary races were often pretty crazy and wide open affairs.
Click to expand...

C'mon Webster. You know the history.

African-Americans were given certain jobs. In exchange, they were not to run for mayor.

That was the deal, and Dinkins bucked it. And he was only able to do so because he was running against a weakened incumbent, and because there was a power vacuum, due to the corruption among the county leaders like Donald Manes, Stanley Friedman, and Meade Esposito.
Click to expand...

I have no doubt that the "Gang of Four" were told at various times that they wouldn't get support of the outer borough bosses, but it wasn't a tight coalition which spit out a single candidate.

YankeeFan · May 22, 2014

Webster said:

I have no doubt that the "Gang of Four" were told at various times that they wouldn't get support of the outer borough bosses, but it wasn't a tight coalition which spit out a single candidate.
Click to expand...

Each borough had its own machine, and within each borough, various political "clubs" held sway. (Esposito's base of power was the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club of Canarsie.)

To win the Mayoralty, you had to have the backing of more than one borough's machine. Now, how this was dealt with, whether trough primaries, or back room deals, in which olitical patronage was pledged in return for votes may have differed in various election.

But, one constant was that an African-American wasn't going to be the nominee.

Do you think Manes, or Esposito, or Friedman, or their predecessors were going to allow that?

No. Percy Sutton was supposed to be content with being Borough President. Could he run in the 1977 primary? Sure. How'd he do? I'll tell you, he came in fifth, behind three white candidates from Manhattan, and Mario Cuomo from Queens.

Under the system that ruled before most of the leaders went to jail (or committed suicide), please tell me how an African-American could possibly be the Democrat nominee for Mayor in New York City?

Harlem and Borough Hall was their fiefdom. That was the deal.

Webster · May 22, 2014

I looked it up, Sutton finished 5th, but all of the top 6 were all pretty tightly bunched (Koch got 181k and Bella Abzug, who finished 6th, got 101k, while sutton got 132k). So there wasn't some grand scheme among the bosses unite against the black vote.

The Big Ragu · May 22, 2014

The party bosses didn't keep Percy Sutton from being mayor in 1977. Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo did. By the way, that was the "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo" election. That was a time when there actually was passion among the electorate about various candidates and what they supposedly stood for. There was actually a race for that election, because after losing the Democratic primary, Cuomo put himself on the ballot anyhow as a liberal. There is nothing like the cast of characters from those days in NYC politics now. Koch, Cuomo, Abe Beame, Bella Abzug. They were for the ages. There was even a Roy Goodman appearance on the ballot for the general election. Compare that to the primary last year and then the general election.

YankeeFan · May 23, 2014

I'm a bad dad!

I was my daughter’s sole caregiver long enough to know that I was ready for it to be over. That doesn’t mean I regret taking paternity leave. In fact, realizing that I felt that way was one of the best things about it.

Spending five weeks at home with my daughter after my wife returned to work was wonderful. Nothing compares with seeing your child develop in real time. During my wife’s much more challenging months of maternity leave, I would learn about the cool new things the baby did when I got home from work. But while I was on leave, I got to watch my daughter enter her grabby phase (fortunately she never managed to snap my glasses in half). I watched her start to figure out how to turn from her back to her belly and back over again, accompanied by a lot of tears. She got pretty good at sitting upright without too much assistance. I may be back in the newsroom when she takes her first steps or speaks her first word. But I’ll always have those experiences.

I will also always remember that every afternoon felt endless. My daughter would be at her crankiest right when I most felt as if I needed a break. And I’d despair at the realization that I had to parent my way through the next few hours until my wife got home from work. That helplessness gave way to a selfish craving that I suspect anyone who is parenting full time can at times relate to: I wanted to do something else.

During the weeks I was away from the office, I often felt as if I was compressing too much of myself into this single role of full-time parent. For that reason I have found myself identifying with Chirlane McCray, the wife of New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the remarks she recently made about her own struggles adjusting to motherhood. I’m a little bit younger than when her first child was born, but I’ve also spent many years of adulthood going through my own process of self-definition. And when you spend so many years thinking of yourself as something other than a father, parenting around the clock forces you to confront your sense of self and how you connect with the people in your daily life. Especially how you relate to one little person in particular.

So I struggled with two contrasting feelings: a desire to do everything I could for my daughter; and a gnawing need to return to something like the work, socializing and relaxing that have been the basis for my adulthood.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/what-i-learned-on-paternity-leave-im-glad-to-be-back-at-work/
Click to expand...

Alma · May 28, 2014

De Blasio's transparency is for shit, his administration vows to do better. We'll see.

bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-nyc-mayor-bars-media-dozens-events

Log in or Sign up

“I was 40 years old. I had a life... I didn’t want to do that."

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Webster Well-Known Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Webster Well-Known Member

The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Alma Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

“I was 40 years old. I had a life... I didn’t want to do that."

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Webster Well-Known Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Webster Well-Known Member

The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Alma Well-Known Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches