A New York Times editor once described his personal rule for judging politicians. “The best you can hope for is that they don’t make things worse,” the late Sheldon Binn told me.
That was years ago and while I was very fond of Binn, I regarded his standard as far too cynical. Surely we can aim higher and demand more from mayors, legislators and every official who gets a government paycheck.
Or maybe not, as the case of Cynthia Nixon vs. Gov. Andrew Cuomo demonstrates.
Nixon, an actress, is the shiny new thing making her first political race in a primary against the two-term Democratic incumbent and has come out swinging. She calls Cuomo a bully, says his office has spawned corruption and declares his management of the subways a giant failure.
And in what counts as the lowest of low blows among Dems, she claims the governor “reminds me of the behavior we see from Donald Trump.” Ouch!
The media is eating it up, and not just because they love conflict. Many veteran New York journalists believe Cuomo displays all his father’s worst qualities and none of his good ones.
Where Gov. Mario Cuomo harangued critics in early-morning phone calls, the current governor avoids the media and often has aides deliver his insults.
Even some Cuomo donors are enjoying Nixon’s jabs. “He has it coming,” says one who is weary of the governor’s ever-shifting positions on education.
Yet to follow Sheldon Binn’s Rule, voters ought to be careful what they wish for. Because along with her clever zingers, Nixon is offering some very bad ideas that would dig the state deeper into the economic hole.
For example, she wants to raise taxes on upper incomes and opposes Cuomo’s 2 percent annual cap on property tax hikes outside the city, saying it squeezes local spending.
Duh — that’s the point. With property taxes the largest source of revenue for most local governments, too many homeowners are being priced out of their homes. Even now, property taxes in New York suburban and rural counties are much higher than in most bordering states, which reduces home values and acts as a barrier to potential residents and businesses.
Nixon also criticizes Cuomo for trying to keep annual state spending increases to 2 percent, calling it “disastrous.” While Cuomo often uses gimmicks to meet the goal, it would be truly disastrous to have no limit on spending.
Indeed, despite imposing one of America’s highest tax burdens, the state faces a $4.4 billion deficit this year. It is far outspending its enormous revenues, so Nixon’s claim that the state doesn’t tax or spend enough is absurd.
Her criticism is especially off the mark when she joins a group pushing for about $3 billion more in education spending, nearly double what Cuomo proposed. New York already has the highest average cost among the 50 states, spending more than $21,000 per student, or 86 percent above the national average, according to one estimate.
As Cuomo asked in a recent radio interview, “How much more do you want to spend?”
Nixon is on solid ground when she hits Cuomo over corruption, especially with the recent federal conviction of his friend and former aide, Joseph Percoco, on charges of taking bribes to help Cuomo donors get contracts on economic development boondoggles.
But the ground turns shaky when Nixon plays semantics about her political mentor, Mayor Bill de Blasio. She wants to get dirty money out of politics, she claims, but de Blasio did brazen end runs around campaign finance laws to raise and spend millions of dollars. Even worse, a federal felon, Harendra Singh, says he bribed the mayor and received City Hall favors in return.
While it’s true the mayor wasn’t indicted, that’s hardly a test of whether he runs a clean government. Yet Nixon sees no evil, which is not reassuring.
Without question, Cuomo deserves a stiff challenge in the primary. And if he defeats Nixon, Republicans need to unite behind a compelling candidate to have a chance of beating him.
But most important for all New Yorkers is that the next governor moves the state forward. If that’s impossible, then we should follow the Binn Rule and elect the candidate who won’t make our bad situation worse.
Online liberal belies bigotry
I’ve written before about supposedly smart people who say the dumbest things online — and sign their names.
The latest example is one Robert Derbabian, who identifies himself as senior director for business development at Marcum LLP, an accountant and advisory firm with more than 20 offices across the country.
“Goodwin wakes up in the morning to see how far he can get Trump’s c – – k down his throat,” Derbabian tweeted Sunday in response to my column on the president’s personnel changes.
To judge by other comments and attacks on his Twitter feed, Debabian considers himself a liberal. Yet, as I have noted before, much of the vile mail I get from liberal Trump haters uses anti-gay language. Derbabian and his ilk must secretly hate gays if that is their idea of the worst possible insult.
At any rate, I sent the tweet to Marcum executives and asked whether they approved of Derbabian’s language while identifying himself with the company. I never got an answer despite waiting nearly two days, though a company official did try to call me once.
Then again, maybe I did get an answer. The attack on me is no longer on Derbabian’s Twitter page, nor is there any reference to Marcum.
Exceptional idiocy
David Swanson touts his book, “Curing Exceptionalism,” in a press release where he claims American Exceptionalism is “no less harmful than racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry. The purpose of this book is to persuade you of that statement.”
No thanks.
Another cloud over the FBI
A former federal official told me recently that when he got to Washington, he learned the derisive nickname for the FBI: the “Federal Bureau of Incompetents.”
Exhibit A could be the screw-up in the trial of the widow of the Pulse nightclub shooter — if there weren’t so many other examples of incompetence. And worse.
Noor Salman is accused of helping her husband, Omar Mateen, plan the 2016 attack in Orlando, where he killed 49 people before being shot dead. Yet it was only when Salman’s trial reached its final stages that prosecutors — on a Saturday night, no less — told defense lawyers that Mateen’s father was an FBI informant for years.
Prosecutors also said the father, Seddique Mateen, sent money to Turkey and Afghanistan in the weeks before the slaughter. Defense lawyers say that suggests the father knew the attack was coming and might have been involved.
The judge denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, but a conviction would bring a strong appeal. And, given its sloppy handling of some terrorism suspects, it’s possible the FBI is sitting on other evidence that will damage what should have been an open-and-shut case.