Mayoral Campaign -- Garcia Rises, Stringer Gets Hit Again, Morales Drama, Part 4 - Top aide jumps to Wiley, AOC And Bowman endorse , Turmoil is ‘Déjà Vu’ for Some Ex-Staff, Was Morales knifed in the back?

The Mayoral race is looking like the Belmont. A long mile and a half to go. Am I going to get canceled for comparing the candidates to horses? With Wiley taking a great leap, I expected some quick hit on her. And sure enough:

Lee Fang

@lhfang

· 20h

Maya Wiley, the NYC mayoral candidate who wants to cut $1 billion per year from police, pays for private security on her block in upscale Prospect Park South. A neighbor recounted her demands for more aggressive NYPD policing after her partner was mugged. https://nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-ope

This will be front page of the NY Post. But actually, Lee Fang misrepresents what the article was saying --- but Wiley will also have to respond and it will be a tough ride as she tries to thread a police reform needle.

 

Garcia is a sudden convert to the cause of charter schools, which have become, over the last two decades, emblems of the neoliberal project.... Garcia had no history discussing any kind of education issues before this mayoral race. She’s made it clear, thanks either to her genuine belief in charters or her awareness that rich people who support charters will donate to local campaigns, that’s where she stands now.... The editorial board[NYT] , which prides itself on its liberalism, did not seem to know or care that Garcia’s views on housing are not very different than Bloomberg’s—or even Adams or Yang’s, for that matter. Voters who take their cues from the Times may not care either. .... Ross Barkan, https://rossbarkan.substack.com/p/kathryn-garcia-reclaiming-the-neoliberal?

Garcia/Wiley rising, Yang/Stringer/Morales falling.

There are a few election lanes - the left/progressive with Wiley seizing control as Stringer/Morales fall, the right with Adams/Yang and the neo-liberal right-center with Garcia whom the NYT and Daily News endorsed. Reminder to Trumpies: The NYT is NOT LEFT. The business community apparently now sees Yang as a joke, incapable of managing this city. Capable management is at the top rung now which is helping Garcia and even keeping Stringer alive -- even from the business community which sees him as taking a progressive lane for this election and would move center if he wins. 

Ross points to Garcia on housing, which as we saw with Bloomberg who built built built often half empty housing while ignoring infrastructure to go with it, allowing public housing to go under in the hope that unliveable conditions will drive people to move to Florida, will make the city even more affordable and when there are no people, there is no commerce. Bloomberg is a major cause of homelessness and the city housing crisis.

Someone [Garcia] who believes landlords with millions of dollars in equity experience struggles similar to what tenants, many paying most of their income to rent, endure is not going to side with the working class. Garcia is a Park Slope home-owner, which likely makes her a millionaire on paper. The suffering of a city tenant isn’t something she can possibly know. And it’s not clear she wants to know it. It’s a myth that small, hard-working landlords control most of the housing stock in the five boroughs. They are not lavishly funding the Real Estate Board of New York.

Mulgrew ignores Garcia threat

It was interesting that the left and center occupied by Mulgrew have told people not to rank Yang or Adams but do not include Garcia who may echo Bloomberg more than anyone. Tell me again, which side is the UFT leadership really on when it ignores Garcia on the charter cap?

Ross Barkan:

For all the revolutions in politics today—the rise of the democratic socialists, the ascendance of AOC—the neoliberal approach, in municipal politics at least, has not left us. As predicted in the 1970s, CUNY never would be tuition-free again. The stock transfer tax, effectively ended in 1981, would not come back. The massive affordable housing projects of midcentury and earlier—Parkchester, Electchester, the Coops, Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, the vast tracts of NYCHA housing—would be no more, replaced with market-rate development that would, from time to time, parcel out units to a few middle-class residents.

Barkan digs deeper than we've seen on Garcia - who in some ways is an empty vessel too - moving her politics to where the money is:

[Garcia's] platform has several progressive proposals.... But there is another Garcia, a truer Garcia—a manager, a technocrat, a neoliberal skeptical of the most fundamental safeguards against the violence of the free-market in a city that is chasing out its working class and poor. She doesn’t hide this, exactly—she’s a blunt person—but it comes out only with enough prodding. Garcia is a sudden convert to the cause of charter schools, which have become, over the last two decades, emblems of the neoliberal project. If government-run education is said to be failing, why not have the public pay for private schools and circumvent those nasty teachers’ unions? Charter schools did not exist in New York for almost the entirety of the 20th century. Now, we’ve been conditioned to believe that a school system can’t function without them. Yang and Adams are supporters of charters too, and the left-wing Dianne Morales actually founded one. Garcia had no history discussing any kind of education issues before this mayoral race. She’s made it clear, thanks either to her genuine belief in charters or her awareness that rich people who support charters will donate to local campaigns, that’s where she stands now.

Morales dramedy continues, as former employees are pro and con

The Morales dramedy continues to resonate as some top Morales people defected to Wiley so quickly, some are thinking conspiracy.  Dianne Morales’ NYC Mayoral Campaign Turmoil is ‘Déjà Vu’ for Some Ex-Staff - THE CITY   https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/6/1/22464152/morales-nyc-mayoral-campaign-turmoil-deja-vu-for-former-staff

THE CITY spoke to more than a dozen of Morales’ former staffers about their experiences at Phipps under her. Most wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely without professional consequences. The people broadly fell into two camps: those who had been working at Phipps before Morales took over and detailed how she fostered a work environment rife with anxiety and mistrust, and those who praised what they called her inspiring, visionary leadership. The latter camp was made up overwhelmingly of employees she hired. ‘[It was] like the cult of Dianne.’ Overall, all the former employees agreed: Morales was charismatic, extremely smart and fiercely loyal to her people....
The progressive Democrat’s current woes reflect past management issues, some ex-employees said, while others defended her as a strong leader. Morales charges she’s being undermined, but is “managing the disruption.”

https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/6/1/22464152/morales-nyc-mayoral-campaign-turmoil-deja-vu-for-former-staff

Here are parts 1-3 where I pin some of the blame people connected to DSA. Ross Barkan led the "Morales is a faux leftist campaign." Part 3 digs deep --

• The Dianne Morales Drama Graphic - Part 3 - Hits C... 

• Dianne Morales, Part 2: Hits from the left - Ross...
• The Dianne Morales Mayoral Dramedy - an Ed Notes n...

There is no question that the implosion of the Morales campaign and the second charge against Scott Stringer, this one 30 years later - I know, I know, sometimes things need to marinate - have boosted Wiley to the top of the progressives. And yesterday with the endorsements of AOC and Bowman (both of whom had pulled their Stringer endorsements) Wiley now has an unencumbered progressive lane since even of people vote for Stringer or Morales I can see Wiley will be in the top 4 and will get the votes of progressives as they drop off, though according to Barkan, Garcia is fooling enough progressives to deny Wiley. (I was sort of shocked to see some lefty teacher friends choose Wiley and Garcia and some Wiley and Adams -- like the hard left NY State Nurses (NYSNA). A head scratcher.

I think Yang has crested and you see that the business community is not interested in him. The leader is still Adams and I'm going to bet that going into the final week it will be Adams, Garcia and Wiley maybe pulling even with Yang - a sort of right, center and left lineup. I might have actually ranked Garcia if she didn't take the strongest pro-charter stance of them all and joined parents who were demanding schools be open no matter what.

If Wiley starts rising quickly in the polls, I expect somewhere, some way a political hit on her -- some kid she knew in 6th grade will accuse her of grabbing his balls.

More historical perspective from Ross Barkan:

Since 1975, every mayor of New York City has been something of a neoliberal. These men may have varied by party or vision—a couple hewing left while others took a more ruthless approach—but all ultimately governed under the constraints foisted upon them by the era we still live in today. The difference between the left-leaning Democrats (David Dinkins and Bill de Blasio) and the oligarch-friendly Republicans (Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg) could only be so dramatic when a certain segment of the power elite was determining the course of events...The social democratic era, buoyed by New Deal largesse under Fiorello La Guardia and continuing through a number of liberal Republican and Democratic mayors, abruptly came to a halt when the city nearly went bankrupt. The crisis mattered because it would reorder the city’s politics indefinitely: instead of expanding the social safety net and creating new services for the working class and poor, the new aim of the modern city would be to make it as attractive as possible to capital. Economic growth would be the new religion, with tax breaks showered on wealthy men like Donald Trump....

Some sidelights

I was out with a bunch of old colleagues and one of them was ranting against teachers in general and claimed gold-bricking -- that they just didn't want to go into work and should have been made to and fired if they didn't. A former chapter leader, yet. Oy! There's troubling times ahead

Stringer probably did something. Men are sleaze, me included.

Did he pat the ass of an 18 year old waitress working for him when he was 32 and then sort of ask her out and plant unwanted kisses which she rejected - I think that is very possible. Look, I'm even older than boomers and guys used to be told that girls had to reject you at least once - or more - to appear pure. Today is my 50th anniversary and I'm thinking back to our first date almost 53 years ago when we made out on Campus road behind Brooklyn College. I asked her if she told me NO on the first move I made --- which was so inept, I'm surprised we lasted that evening.

Below is the full City article:

Former UFT High-Up reveals thinking about Dem Progressives, echoing Pelosi and Dem Center-right - Prep for Attack on opposition next year

If you don't think there's war has been and is brewing - and will continue to brew in the Dem Party -- this one's for you.

In a listserve discussion of mayoral candidates, those in support of charters were being identified and echoing one of her blog posts, Diane Ravitch said,  "Morales said she favors school choice, so strike her. "  

Note: On the debate Morales took the strongest stand AGAINST charters, but some progressives have doubted her true commitment.

But then this comment came from a now retired person who was very tight with the UFT hierarchy until retirement:

She [Morales] should not even be a candidate...thank the so-called circular firing squad Dem progressives that are driving our City into the ground more than any GOP ever did!

Yes there is much disdain for progressives inside the UFT leadership and Unity Caucus. You can see that on social media where Unity hacks chime in to challenge progressive ideas --- and all of them echo the same talking points - it's like Unity has its own FOX news propaganda channel. Oh, that's the NY Teacher. Thank goodness no one reads it.

 

So imagine how they view the opposition, which varies on various levels of the left

--  if there is a credible threat to Unity in next year's UFT elections, just watch the fur fly with red-baiting  ala Republican playbook - being played out. In fact Trump may be writing the Unity script - and if the opposition every did win, Unity will be calling Stop the Steal and invade the Delegate Assembly by climbing the walls of 52 Broadway with grappling tools.

 

The Dianne Morales Drama Graphic - Part 3 - Hits Came from the Left - Evidence points to DSA - The Question is Why?

“We learned a lesson,” said Susan Kang, an active member of Democratic Socialists of America who previously was supportive of Morales. “You don’t go with an unvetted first-time candidate who tries to claim the progressive mantle when you have never seen them before.”

Gabe Tobias, a former campaign aide to both Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman, is now working on an effort to educate voters about how the city’s new ranked-choice-voting system will work and telling them to leave moderate candidates like Yang and Adams off of their ballots. But even those moderates, he notes, talk about left-wing ideas like reforming the NYPD and meaningfully addressing poverty in the city. And had someone like Ocasio-Cortez or Bowman or Public Advocate Jumaane Williams run, he said, they would likely have been cleaning up in this race.

“The candidate is the problem to solve,” he said. “Not the ideology.”... Dianne Morales and the Implosion of the Left in NYC’s Mayoral Race

June 2, 2021

Why? The simple answer is Morales' lack of history on the left created suspicion she was a faux leftist using a left lane in an opportunistic way.

Parts 1 and 2 of the series on the Dianne Morales mayoral campaign situation: 

•  The Dianne Morales Mayoral Dramedy - an Ed Notes n...Part 1
• Dianne Morales, Part 2: Hits from the left - Ross...
• 
  

Follow the bouncing ball in the graphic above. Today we get into the nitty gritty of who did what to whom. DSA provided a lot of staffers for Morales and, in particular the Queens branch. Did sentiment inside DSA toward Morales shift away from her? Realizing her activism was short-lived but as long as she was not attracting attention, they could live with her. But as she began to make headway, what was viewed as a faux leftist became a possible threat to the DSA long-term project which is to infiltrate the Dem party with socialist ideals and candidates. They have strength in certain areas of the city to be able to elect state senators, assembly, congress and this year focused on city council. They were clear they would stay out of the mayoral race due to lack of resources but even if they did get involved on a citywide basis, it is not clear they hierarchy would have backed Morales since her career was so far from socialist ideals. 

It is interesting to see what has come out of MORE Caucus which seemed to be backing Morales. She gave them an hour interview and they castigated the UFT leadership for not including her in their final four. At the May DA a reso from a MORE ally called for Stringer to be dropped from UFT endorsement and I did read some MORE comment calling for Morales to be reconsidered. (I can't verify where I read that.) The key thing is that MORE is loaded with DSA people and they run MORE. Forming unions is of the highest priority and the DSA labor group is loaded with MOREs. So how to square the revolt by people calling for a union with support for Morales? If MORE is silent on Morales now after pushing her, there is a signal of DSA abandonment.

Before we go into more detail I'd like you to check out the new version of Rising in its first edition since Krystal and Sagaar did their final show on Friday. I was pleased to see Ryan Grim repping the left and I like Emily Jashinsky for the right.  

Ryan delved into the Morales campaign mess and castigated the activists. In this must see video Ryan breaks news with a story of a similar revolt in Bernie's Iowa campaign where Bernie said - don't hire so-called activists who often put themselves and their interests ahead of the campaign -- the ME generation, I guess. Since so many were from DSA, these socialists weren't acting very social. I mean, you join a campaign a month ago and with a month left you want a union?

[UPDATE - In today's Rising Ryan goes deep into the charges against Stringer and the connections to is accusers lawyer to billionare anti-Stringer Steve Ross who formed an anti-Stringer PAC https://youtu.be/bjbY8iWjoPY].

On the other side, Morales brought into the campaign her personal assistant, Amanda van Kessel, who felt she had special rights and most likely came into conflict with campaign manager Witney Hu. Both are from Queens branch of DSA so that makes it interesting.

“We learned a lesson,” said Susan Kang, an active member of Democratic Socialists of America who previously was supportive of Morales. “You don’t go with an unvetted first-time candidate who tries to claim the progressive mantle when you have never seen them before.” The collapse of the Morales campaign signals a low moment for a resurgent left that not long ago looked set to dominate the race for mayor this year. Back in 2020, New York’s financial and real-estate elites were so concerned that this year’s mayoral election would herald a sharp leftward turn in city politics that some of them started meeting together in secret, trying to figure out how many millions of dollars to deploy to fend off the rising tide.... With the mayoral election less than four weeks away, the furrowed brows of Wall Street can unclench. The spectacle of the Morales campaign staff blowing up their own candidate seems to mark the end of any dream of a leftist victory in the June 26 Democratic primary, and many of the progressive organizers and activists who worked years for this moment are left to look only with despair at the waning days of this race......

For most of the past year, progressive hope was centered on Scott Stringer, who, as a 60-year-old straight white male city comptroller with a long career in government and a comptroller’s flair for spectacle, didn’t exactly fit the young, diverse, and hype-house mood of the moment. Stringer was surging when his campaign was derailed by an accusation that he sexually harassed a volunteer on a 2001 campaign for public advocate. The left-wing lawmakers whom he helped put into office in 2018 and 2020 by backing them early and campaigning vigorously on their behalf quickly abandoned him (even as some have since expressed regrets for acting hastily.)

Morales seemed like a better fit. An Afro-Latina, she, like Bowman and Ocasio-Cortez, came from outside politics. Unlike Stringer, she had never taken money from real-estate interests (Stringer swore off the donations once the campaign got under way), argued that the police “don’t keep us safe,” and pledged to defund $3 billion from their annual budget while creating “a care economy.”... had someone like Ocasio-Cortez or Bowman or Public Advocate Jumaane Williams run, he said, they would likely have been cleaning up in this race.

“The candidate is the problem to solve,” he said. “Not the ideology.”.... NY Mag

The hot mess in the Dianne Morales mayoral campaign: I began writing this article a month ago. "A month ago", you ask? All the current drama over her campaign came out in the past week. Well, there was other stuff way before. And throughout, when you'd expect attacks on the most progressive candidate to come from  the right and center, I was seeing the critiques coming from the left. And they rang true, while the current revelelations from her former staff, many of whom are connected to DSA Queens branch, need further examination, especially given some of the tactics - like demonstrating outside Morales headquarters and demands for severance pay for people who quit, demands for a union, and more.

Earlier in her career, our "most progressive" primary candidate worked at New Visions for Public Education, the privatizing non-profit that profited handsomely during those dark years of school closings.

As a general rule, it's wise to be skeptical of, if not allergic to, non-profit/NGO leftists...

https://www.theuprising.info/p/time-for-self-care-dianne-morales 

I'm always cautious about the kinds of attacks and where they come from.

But from day one I was wary of the fact she had a high profile job with Joel Klein and I remember complaints from parents over the actions of that agency she was in charge of though I can't say for sure if it was under her tenure which seemed to not last very long.

What is interesting are the attacks are from progressives who doubt her progressive credentials. 

It is possible she got religion in the past year and a half after a career that didn't indicate progressive politics.

 

Like no endorsements of people like AOC or Bowman or others. And hedging on whether she voted for Cuomo. They view her as an opportunist who took the lane left open. 

There is a lot of info about Diane's links to charter school industry people in this article.

 

https://vulgarmarxism.substack.com/p/private-equity-the-dianne-morales?fbclid=IwAR1WISP8A4WMhX4j6W9KRNatT6lVzUBuyuMF4pNrLRr9qKhhmLmS5JHkRxE

She also came under  fire on a podcast with Brianna Joy Tayler, with fire from a tenant organizer who said her boss had the highest eviction rate in the Bronx.

MORE Caucus called on UFT to cancel Stringer and replace him with Morales 

There's been a lot more reporting on the story since but I thought this NYMag story is worth a read.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/05/dianne-morales-and-the-lefts-implosion-in-nyc-mayoral-race.html

the city politic May 28, 2021

Dianne Morales and the Implosion of the Left in NYC’s Mayoral Race

By David Freedlander

Dianne Morales, Part 2: Hits from the left - Ross Barkan

May 31, 2021 - I posted Part 1 on Morales yesterday

The Dianne Morales Mayoral Dramedy - an Ed Notes never ending serial - Part 1 - the NYT Take - Attacks on Progressives

Apparently there are some people - some white people - who feel I have no right to post critical pieces about a woman of color. The same kind of attitude that allowed Neo-liberal in Chief Obama to skate by. With every passing day as I hear more stories -- like his labor cabinet member Tom Perez, taking a legal job with a major anti-union firm focused on stopping unions from being established. Or press spokesman Jay Carney running PR for Bezos. 

Whereas a progressive candidate like Morales would expect to take hits from the right, she seems to be getting them from the left not just for not being a true leftist, but for not being involved in any of the major struggles over the past 20 years, even going back to two years ago.

But given the state of the candidates I will still put her as one of my choices. 

Here are two Ross Barkan articles a month or so apart, with the latest from today coming first but read the older one for context since it predates the events of the past week but may have been the first real shot. Part 3 will delve into more details on the current crisis.

https://rossbarkan.substack.com/p/its-not-enough-to-talk-like-the-left?

It's Not Enough to Talk Like the Left

On the perils of the Dianne Morales campaign

Ross Barkan May 31

The Dianne Morales Mayoral Dramedy - an Ed Notes never ending serial - Part 1 - the NYT Take - Attacks on Progressives

A quick summary before we start:

A key person we need to pay attention to is Amanda van Kessel who worked with Morales at her previous job and still works there. She used her relationship apparently to lord it over others. She's also white in a sea of people of color. She was first demoted and then fired. She's also DSA, as was the campaign manager, Whitney Hu, who quit. It is not clear if she quit because van Kessel was fired or because she wasn't fired quickly enough. But both are Queens branch DSA --- which I am also a fringe member of. Oh, the drama to come there as many other Morales staffers also came out of DSA Queens branch.

May 30, 2021, 9 AM

The Morales campaign implosion, apparently unique in political lore, is going to have consequences for how some campaigns are organized in the future. There are lessons about bringing good friends into a campaign. See what happened to Scott Stringer whose supposed friend, Jean Kim, who he says he had a brief relationship with, turned on him 20 years later and imploded his campaign. 

Let me say right up front - I've always had doubts about Morales but this strikes me as a hit job and I intend to pick her as one of my mayoral choices.

Lesson 1: Beware of friends in high campaign places

NYT... two campaign staff members, Ramses Dukes and Amanda van Kessel, had been dismissed. She said they were the employees accused of misconduct. Ms. van Kessel had previously worked with Ms. Morales at the social services arm of Phipps Houses, a housing development group. Mr. Dukes could not be reached for comment, and Ms. van Kessel did not respond to requests for comment.

The two leading progressives in the race have had their campaigns undermined. It is ironic that Morales and many of her supported immediately attacked Stringer and are now claiming Dianne needs a chance to explain. Ironic in that one person charged Stringer while 60 complained about Morales -- obviously not as serious a charge but numbers do count. If no other shoe drops on Stringer, on June 23, when Stringer who had been in the running loses because of that one charge and we end up with who knows who, we might see a reassessment of how to deal with the metoo movement.

I'm going to examine the Morales story in depth because there are many lessons for progressives. Was this a hit by the left, led by DSA members who felt that Morales was a faux leftist - which I have come to believe - but if they didn't know what they were getting into it's on them. Morales has become an instant leftist - she voted for Cuomo and didn't endorse any of the new leftist candidates - but DSA people, including her campaign manager, knew that going in.

In Part 1 I want to share the NYT take which with the comments is an attack on progressives. (Remember - the Times endorsed Garcia who has promised to lift the charter school cap -- do not even list her.) And not all if it is undeserved though we have a lot of unpacking to do. I mean,  a campaign is not a long-term job and some staffers have only recently been hired. A union in the midst of a campaign with one month to go? That's progressiveness gone too far.

Comments at NYT emphasize the anti-progressive pov:

This sounds like sabotage at the highest level. Trying to unionize with four weeks left in the campaign? The staff knows they are sabotaging more than this race; her career is on the line, her name splashed all over the media while the team gets to walk away & join a different campaign. Sad state of affairs all around.

------

Welcome to progressivism 101. Any success is met with claims of “toxic workplace.” The very values one holds get weaponized against you by people who don’t like it when they don’t feel “centered”. And because you built your campaign on “centering” everyone, you can’t call it what it actually is: selfishness, when they don’t like the fact that you are actually the boss and have to make decisions. It’s lose/lose. And why progressives- despite caring deeply about actual policy, will never win.

----

This is why kids with no experience doing anything probably shouldn’t gain control of large governments. Reading through Twitter feeds of her staffers reads like the angry message boards of high schoolers upset about a school dress code.

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Was really excited about Morales....but she is turning out to be yet another DeBlasio: all talk, 0 action, and considers herself above it all. Depressing to say the least.

---

She messed up with handling this, but I will say it is peak irony that a "progressive" candidate is sunk by her own truly progressive staff. Also, I agree with the post from the portland guy talking about activist politics. I have seen the exact same thing. It's like my pops always said: "When you're a hammer, everything is a nail." Activist staffers can make for virtually ungovernable teams leaving leaders stuck between a rock and a hard place. The devolution into chaos can be swift thereafter.

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I stopped calling myself a progressive when I saw this same circular firing squad happening over and over again in activist politics here in Portland. Noble objectives, but terrible tactics and ungovernable team dynamics hamper the progressive movement’s ability to make change happen.

 More to come in parts 2 through infinity.

Here's the entire article:

Dianne Morales Tries to Calm a Sudden Crisis in Her Campaign

Two staff members have quit, two have been fired and four others involved in a unionization drive have been terminated.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/27/nyregion/dianne-morales-mayor-campaign.html