A shot of gray - in the arm
The New York Times today endorsed Mark Green, delivering a major shot across the bow for Andrew Cuomo and reinvigorating Green's candidacy.
If there are excellent Democratic candidates for governor this year, the race to succeed Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is a lot more contentious and a lot less promising. But there’s little question that the former public advocate, Mark Green, is the candidate whose experience and record best fit this job.
From the beginning, this race has been a contest between Mr. Green and Andrew Cuomo, the former secretary of housing and urban development. Two other candidates, Sean Patrick Maloney and Charlie King, are interesting politicians who have little chance to win this particular contest.
I still say that Maloney is the best and most interesting choice of the four (with Charlie King also great, but with a somewhat misplaced message, as I told him at his pre-campaign cocktail reception), but he's been pigeonholed, partially by design and partially by default, as the gay candidate; which is not per se a liability in this state, but did keep the rest of his message from getting out. He'll likely wind up with a juicy job in a Spitzer administration and be on the watchlist going forward. But back to the Times:
Mr. Green has run for a lot of offices and has frequently been undone by his prickly personality. But when elected, he has always repaid voters by doing the job well. For attorney general in the Democratic primary, we recommend Mark Green.
In short, he may be an S.O.B., but he's damn good at what he does. They're right; you only have to compare Green's tenure to that of Betsy Gotbaum - yes, I know, Betsy who? - to get a measure of what he could do as Attorney General. Arguably, Cuomo would do a better job than Gotbaum (faint praise indeed), but Green would keep the office sexy and relevant. So what if he pisses people off? isn't that what we want from the next AG?
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2006 Elections | Attorney General | New York Times | New York
Cuomo
Submitted by mole333 on 28 August 2006 - 6:58am.
Yes, as the Imperial Candidate Cuomo has the state backing. We saw what that means at the state convention: sleazy intimidation, nastiness beyond anything Green could imagine and behavior that was described as making the Clarence Norman machine look like pussycats.
Cuomo may well win easily. But there is no way I could ever support him after his attempts to deny New Yorkers a choice in the primary.
Green may be mean, but he (unlike Cuomo) has a record that makes him well suited for being Attorney General in NY State. Since O'Donnell dropped out, Green seems best qualified, though Maloney has his strong points as well. Cuomo is the handpicked candidate of the state party, but that doesn't mean he's qualified.
I, too, think Cuomo will win but
Submitted by Daniel Millstone on 27 August 2006 - 2:16pm.
what will we do about the scorched earth campaign style Green brings to Democratic Party primaries? Even though he has had good record, it may be time to ask Mark Green to stop running.
I agree that it would be
Submitted by Dave D (not verified) on 27 August 2006 - 6:09pm.
I agree that it would be best if Green stopped running. I think that after Cuomo beats him, he will. That is why he is so deparate now. He knows this is his last campaign.
I'd note that "Dave D"
Submitted by Bouldin on 27 August 2006 - 7:02pm.
...seems to be either a Cuomo staffer or supporter. Someone under that handle is posting on the Daily Politics, in much the same vein as here, where nobody with that handle has ever posted before.
Green is not mean...
Submitted by mmhirsch on 28 August 2006 - 3:06am.
The real knock on Mark Green is not that he's mean, it's that he acts as if he's the smartest kid in the room. Most of the time he is, but a dose of humility would have made him fewer unnecessary enemies. And we are the poorer for it, because he'd have made a great mayor.
But will Latinos forget?
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 28 August 2006 - 5:52am.
You can count me as one who can't forget what he did to Freddy Ferrer.
I would note...
Submitted by mole333 on 28 August 2006 - 6:54am.
I would note that Ferrer and Green have made up sufficiently for Green to have endorsed Ferrer for mayor in 2005.
Green got sandbagged
Submitted by mmhirsch on 28 August 2006 - 10:49am.
Lisa,
Ultimately a candidate is responsible for what his or her staff and supporters do in the heat of the moment or in a cool calculation. But Mark Green's not entitled to your enmity five years later when we know now that he got sandbagged by the Kings Highway and Canarsie Democrats and the feral Micah Lasher, then an ankle-biter and now a bit of a big deal operative, at least in the minds of some other bloggers. It was no sin for Mark to run against Freddie in 2001. It was a huge blunder to let campaign lit be done by locals without oversight, especially when those locals can be expected to use the race card like others use a toothpick. And that whole swath of Brooklyn, from Midwood on down, went for Bloomberg in the general. My knock on Mark; besides telling the Bronx machine that he could win without them (though he also sagely said he couldn't govern without them)was putting the word out that he'd agree to let Giuliani stay in office a bit to "finish the job." To the degree there was a "left" in the city committed to him as the policy antidote to Giuliani--that was the point we began wondering what was on TV that night.
He's still preferable to Andrew.
Anderew Cuomo Will Still Win
Andrew Cuomo will still beat Mean Mark Green. Cuomo will have a far stronger GOTV effort (unions and Dem leaders and organizations across the state). Cuomo also has a lot more more in the bank to up his TV and radio ad buys if needed. Mean Green has no comparable resources -- no way, no how. Cuomo will win by a decent margin on Sept. 12.