The New York Political Circus Has Not Changed Much!!
(2012-06-19 at 19:28:34 )

The New York Political Circus - by Murray N. Rothbard

For political junkies like myself there is nothing quite so bracing as
the tangle, the complexity, the ethnopolitics, the back-stabbing, and
the downright sleaze of New York politics in an election year. The state
elections law establish, for each primary, a state convention in late
May, or early June, followed by a primary in September. A party
convention endorsement carries more than moral or f inancial clout; one
crucial clause mandates that a losing candidate for a state post gets
automatically on the ballot in the party September primary, provided that
he gets at least 25 percent of the vote at the convention. Getting
anything less than the magic 25 percent means that the poor candidate can
only get on the primary ballot via petition, a route which, in New York,
has been deliberately made arcane and extremely diff icult by the states
ruling political class. Going the petition route costs a great deal of
time, money, and energy, and only someone with the unlimited funds or
support of Ross Perot in 1992 never has to worry about the process.

1994 is an election year for all the major New York posts: governor and
lieutenant-governor, comptroller, and attorney-general in the executive
branch, and U.S. senator. All these plum jobs are now in Democrat hands,
and the Republicans, rising up throughout the nation in this horrible
Age of Clinton, have been feeling their oats this year. Unfortunately,
as usual, the New York Republicans quickly began their traditional mode
of shooting themselves in the foot.

There have long been not two but four major (or at least quasi-major)
parties in New York. In addition to the Democrats and Republicans, there
is the Liberal Party, founded by Jewish Social Democrats in the Ladies
Garment Workers and Hat Workers Unions after World War II to provide a
left-Democrat alternative to the Communist-dominated (now defunct)
American Labor Party; and the Conservative Party, founded by the Buckley
family to form a principled conservative opposition to the then
Rockefeller-dominated, leftist Republican party. Ever since, the
Conservative Party, now dominated by Brooklyn Conservative head Michael
Long, has been struggling between principle and pragmatism, with the
latter, of course, all too often winning out.

This year seemed to present a golden opportunity to topple the famed
three-term governor: the smart, eloquent, witty, alert, thin-skinned
pretend-philosopher and left Catholic lay theologian Mario Cuomo. A
disciple of the late left-heretical French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin,
Mario is the well-known expounder of the view that America (the world?)
is an organic "family." The result is the sort of collectivist ideology
one might expect from that kind of world-outlook.

Mario, however, has palled in off ice; New Yorkers are tired of Mario, of
his lousy performance, the rampant crime, the high taxes and spending,
the visible decay of New York in his twelve years of off ice. His coy and
evasive performance in every national election f inally irritated and
exhausted his supporters after he f inally pulled out of the presidential
race in 1992. The Republicans sensed victory, and their theme at this
years convention is the plausible "It Is All Marios Fault."

In 1988, however, Mario seemed vulnerable too, and the Republicans kicked
away any chance of toppling him by alienating their natural allies, the
Conservatives, by nominating the unknown and tom-fool leftish economist
and former adviser to President Nixon, Pierre Rinfret. Rinfret, the only
Nixon adviser who actually believed in price controls, proved to be a
clown and a disaster on the stump, and as a result he barely edged out
the Conservative nominee, Jewish academic Dr. Herbert London.

The 1994 lesson for Republicans, and for Conservatives, seemed clear:
unity against Mario. But, on deeper look, the question is not so simple.
For both parties, the question soon became: Unity at what price? How
much principle would have to be abandoned?

Unity turned out not to be easy to achieve. For one thing, the two major
Republican leaders, both Italo-Americans: U.S. Senator Alfonse D Amato,
and State Senate Majority Leader Ralph Marino, are ferocious enemies.
D Amato, the abrasive product of the notorious Margiotta machine of
Nassau County, is the leader of the center-right of the party. As the
champion of conservative forces, however, D Amato is, to say the least,
a weak reed; if ever there was a politician who fit the word
"opportunist" D Amato would be it. Marino, for his part, is the leader
of the Republican left; a close friend of the governor, he might well
be termed a "Mario Cuomo Republican."

As the Republican convention approached in late May, it was clear that
the D Amato machine was in charge of the delegates. Unfortunately,
however, D Amato could come up only with a hand-picked unknown, State
Senator George Pataki of Peekskill. Running hard against Pataki was Herb
London, appealing to the conservative elements of the party, and fresh
from his sterling campaign in 1988. One of the critical issues in the
New York right is the vexed abortion question; D Amato had been pledged
against abortion, but, his f inger characteristically to the wind, he has
begun to move leftward on the issue. Pataki, an economic conservative
and a Hungarian-American Catholic, is pro-choice but opposed to taxpayer
funding of abortions. London, an Orthodox Jew, is strongly anti-abortion.

Herb London came into the Republican convention with a pledge of
something like 35 percent of the votes. If D Amato had only treated his
opposition with respect, he would have gotten the 65-70 percent of the
delegates for Pataki, and allowed London to get his merited automatic
spot on the primary ballot. But since no one, including his own state
Senatorial constituents, had ever heard of Pataki, D Amato did not want
to take the chance. As a result, D Amato and his machine played hardball,
exercising an unseemly display of political muscle, and managed in 24
hours to jimmy London votes down to just below 25 percent. It was
reminiscent of one of Clintons one-voters, and all hands denounced
D Amato for being "thuggish," "disgusting," etc. Displays of political
muscle should never be that blatant, for then they become
counterproductive.

Herb London was justif iably livid. He felt he had been robbed, and he
denounced D Amato and the convention in no uncertain terms. But if
London was permanently alienated, what would happen to the Conservative
alliance (Conservatives were coming up with their convention in early
June). London was threatening to run for governor on the Conservative
ticket.

Something had to be done, but to D Amato that something was all too
narrow: buy off Herb London and thereby corral the Conservative Party
line. I do not know what D Amato had his henchmen tell London in the next
24 hours. It must have been a wild time, for at the end of it, Herb
London had taken his place as a happy nominee for comptroller on the
Republican ticket for the fall. There had, of course, never been a
smidgen of interest displayed by London in the comptrollers spot; on
the contrary, the popular Assemblyman James Faso had been running for the
comptroller position for a year, and expected to get it. Poor Jimmy Faso
was induced to take the fall, and to withdraw gracefully from the
comptroller nomination on Londons behalf.

The rest of the ticket engineered by D Amato, however, was a slap in the
face to the conservative principles, if not the Conservative Party.
Shifting dramatically leftward, D Amato decided to discover - Women! Or
is it "Womyn"? Sex! For U.S. Senate against Daniel Patrick Moynihan
D Amato put up Bernadette Castro, who has no political experience, and is
only known to the public for her longtime Castro convertible sofabed
commercials. Castro favors not only abortion, but also taxpayer funding,
and gay rights. While putting up for attorney-general the little-known
Italo-American U.S. Attorney for Buff alo Dennis Vacco, D Amatos major
publicity coup was selecting for lieutenant-governor under Pataki, the
beautiful blond bombshell Dr. Elizabeth (Betsy) McCaughey.

The conservativish Murdoch-run tabloid New York Post went ga-ga at this
choice. Grabbing the heaven-sent opportunity to combine its two favorite
things: Sex and conservatism, the Post ran a large picture of Betsy
replete in clinging evening gown (from Vanity Fair), and the choice was
particularly heralded by Post sob sister Andrea Peyser, who gushed all
over the page: She is beautiful! She is blond! She is sexy! She is
brainy! Is it not wonderful how the Republicans have become mature, and
now realize that brains and beauty can go together? And on and on.

The Brains of La McCaughey was attested to by the fact that she has a
Ph.D. in political science (Ooh! Wow!), and is also a certif ied brainy
free-market economist. The certif ication came from the fact that Betsy
Baby is on the staff of the left-libertarian/neocon Manhattan Institute,
a New York think-tank. Not only that: Betsy wrote a celebrated article in
the New Republic, attacking the Clintonian health plan for imposing price
controls and medical rationing, and criminalizing the free choice of
doctors by patients, whenever such choice breaks the decrees of the
Clintonian Health authorities. McCaughey won the accolade of drawing
bitter attacks by the White House, which McCaughey and Manhattan
Institute justif iably treated as a badge of honor.

Brains, beauty, and free-markets too; ethno-religiously, McCaughey, like
the colorless and virtually unknown incumbent Lieutenant-Governor, Stan
Lundine, is an authentic WASP. The diff erence is that Lundine is a WASP
from Upstate New York, where WASPs indeed abound, whereas Betsy is an
Episcopalian from New York City, where such folk are virtually on the
endangered species list. No one knew Betsys views on social matters, but
everyone assumed she took the Pataki line of pro-choice but anti-taxpayer
funding, thus, she seemed to f it the new ideal Image for a Republican of
the 1990s: "economic conservative" but (moderately) social liberal. All
this and a blond too!

Thus, two WOMYN had gotten key slots on the Republican ticket, and the
hordes of militant Democrat womyn looked at the looming Democrat ticket
and they were not pleased. Cuomo, an Italian male; Lundine, a male WASP;
Carl McCall for comptroller, a black male from Harlem; and of course
Moynihan, Irish Catholic male from Manhattan, for U.S. Senate. Where in
the world were the WOMYN in their Democrat heartland? The only possible
female spot was for attorney-general. After the hapless Bronx-based
Attorney-General Bob Abrams had resigned to run for Senate and was
roundly beaten by D Amato, Cuomo appointed a fellow-Democrat hack from
the Bronx, the undistinguished Assemblyman Oliver Koppell. Koppell, of
course, had every intention to run for re-election, but he was opposed at
the Democrat convention by two left dissidents. One was Queens U.S.
Attorney Charles Hynes, an Irish Catholic who had won notoriety by
persecuting alleged "white racism" in the Howard Beach incident. The
other was a WOMYN, if not perhaps a woman, the beloved Jewish ultra-left-
lesbian activist State Senator Karen Burstein from Nassau County,
formerly from New York City. As a leftist and as a lesbian, and also in
possession of an androgynous personality, La Burstein had a lot of
brownie points going for her; and the organized WOMYN were demanding her
nomination.

In its own quiet way, however, the Cuomo machine at the Democrat
convention proved every bit as ruthless as the D Amato crew among the
Republicans. Charlie Hynes threw his support to La Burstein, who came
into the convention, once again, with a pledge of about 25 percent of
the vote; but once again, come the vote, she got slightly excruciatingly
under the magic 25.

It was now left for the Conservatives to have their convention in early
June. Among the Conservatives, it was Michael Longs turn to wield the
Bludgeon. Long had determined upon unity under Pataki, and now that Herb
London had caved in, nominating the entire Pataki ticket seemed easy.
(Except that the Conservatives refused to swallow La Castro, and selected
instead Henry Hewes, senatorial candidate of the small single-issue Right
to Life Party, which often functions as the conscience of the
Conservatives on abortion matters. The Right-to-Lifers pose no real
challenge to the Conservatives, however; if anything, their leadership
is left-liberal on all questions except abortion.)

The principled opposition among the Conservatives was led by Thomas Cook,
head of the Rochester party, as well as several other upstate county
leaders. Cook looked desperately around for someone to run against
Pataki. Michael Long, denouncing Cooks opposition, waded in with absurd
rhetorical overkill. Cook, he thundered, suffered from a "Napoleonic
complex," and Cook ruled by "force, fraud, and terror." Come again?
Among the conservatives? Finally, after several biggies such as former
Republican state chairman J. Patrick Barrett refused to run, Cook and
Company fell back to support the unknown Robert Relph from upstate
Watertown. Relph did get the requisite 25 percent of the delegates,
however, and so at least there will be a primary challenge among the
Conservatives.

Thus, the lines were drawn, although how many people will be able to make
the petition route will not be known until later. Richard Rosenbaum,
former New York State Republican chairman and the booming, bald voice of
Rockefeller Republicanism for many years, and long hated by conservatives
in the party, issued left-wing denunciations of the Republicans, and
threatens to go the petition route for governor.

We are left with the beauteous La McCaughey. Exactly how free-market, how
much of an "economic conservative," is she? The answer, despite her
Manhattan Institute credentials, is not very. Allegedly Our Gal against
Clintonian Health, her phoniness as a free-marketeer was revealed by our
own Lew Rockwell on a conservative panel on health. For Betsy turns out
to be a strong supporter of the crucial plank of Clintonian Health:
guaranteed universal access. In other words, her criticisms in the New
Republic article were peripheral, not central. In fact, she was stunned
that anyone such as Lew was, in this day and age, opposed to guaranteed
universal access, i.e., opposed to socialized medicine. Betsy went so far
as to accuse our Lew of "lacking compassion," which is, of course, the
ultimate charge of every statist scoundrel.

If Betsy McCaugheys "economic conservatism" is mostly malarkey, how much
of a "social liberal" is she really? Republican leaders were stunned in
early June to f ind out that the beautiful Betsy did not exactly take the
moderate Pataki line on abortion. On the contrary: they found, to their
horror, that Betsy is strongly in favor of taxpayer funding for
abortions. So once again: "economic conservative, social liberal" turns
out to be a formula that merely provides a convenient camouflage for our
old buddy, left-liberalism, with an updated, blond and evening-gown
patina.

At this writing, Pataki and the Conservatives are livid. Fred Dicker, the
New York Post expert on New York politics, writes that McCaughey has
struck political professionals as a "prima donna" and "even more
narcissistic than most politicians." Will it all be smoothed over? Will
McCaughey back down? Or will she be dumped from the ticket after all the
Hoopla?

And what of Daniel Patrick Moynihan? I do not want to disillusion any
idealistic readers, but Moynihan is set for life in his senatorial
position. Why? Because he is a centrist Irish Catholic, touched with the
requisite bit of blarney, neatly fueled by Irish whiskey. Centrist Irish
Catholic Democrats who have the advantage of incumbency cannot lose in a
state-wide race in New York. In his f irst race for Senate, Moynihan beat
out the then leader of the Democrat ultra-left, the loud-mouthed, big-
hatted Jewish Congresswoman Bella Abzug by a very small margin. Once he
squeaked through the primary, however, Moynihan was as good as elected,
and this has continued ever since. Why? Because left-wing Jews vote
heavily in the Democratic primary; centrist Irish and Italian Catholics
are generally evenly split between Democrat and Republicans; blacks and
Puerto Ricans vote overwhelmingly Democrat but do not bother voting in
primaries; and Upstate WASPs constitute the mass base of the Republican
party in the state. Once Moynihan got past Abzug, the Irish and Italians,
who constitute the wing vote in the state, were bound to vote heavily for
a centrist Catholic, and the pattern has continued to this day. In 1988,
the Republicans put up virtually no campaign against Moynihan, and it is
only the new liberal-WOMYN ticket that got them to surface this year. But
in the senatorial race, it will not matter a bit. Unfortunately, Moynihan
and his rococo rhetoric are a permanent f ixture in the U.S. Senate.

There is nothing quite like New York in a year where a governor and
senator are both at stake. One decision made by all the biggies in both
parties: that they would not challenge petitions to get on the September
primary ballot by candidates who were muscled out of the minimum 25
percent needed at the May convention to get automatically on the ballot.
Why did the leaders of both parties make this decision? A sudden attack
of fairness? Not hardly. Undoubtedly because it would look bad to the
public in a tight election year.

In the latest New York Post poll Cuomo has a 9-point lead over Pataki
(46-37) but this is by no means fatal, since a hefty 17 percent are
listed as undecided, and Patakis name recognition is still very low.
Old-time Rockefeller Republican Richard Rosenbaum is running against
Pataki in the primary by petition route, and the policy of no-challenge
assures him of a ballot spot. Rosenbaum is clearly a stalking horse for
Cuomo, timing his attacks on Pataki to coincide with the Cuomo line.
Although he has virtually no chance of beating Pataki, Rosenbaum has
adopted a cunning strategy to embarrass the front-runner. Under the
tutelage of prominent conservative political strategist Dick Morris,
Rosenbaum has maneuvered sharply to the right of Pataki: advocating very
large tax cuts, budget cuts, and substantial privatization; and then
calling for Pataki to unveil his own undoubtedly puny program.

On the other hand, the pull-out of Howard Stern from the race on the
Libertarian Party ticket will probably mean a several percentage points
edge to Pataki. In the polls, Stern ranged from 5-to-12 percent of the
vote, most of which probably came from Pataki.

In the senatorial race, "the Rev." Al Sharpton, clownish black radical,
was muscled below his 25 percent in his challenge to Democrat Senator
Daniel Patrick (Pat) Moynihan. Sharpton is running against Pat in the
primary, and with the newfound "tolerance" permeating the state, the
bonaf ides of his primary petitions will not be challenged. There is no
problem for Moynihan: his poll lead is a phenomenal 78-to-12 over
Sharpton. But there is more involved. Sharpton is threatening, after
losing the primary, to set up his own "third party" Freedom Party, to
run someone against Cuomo in November; in particular, Sharpton expressly
desires to punish the Liberal Party for endorsing Giuliano for mayor last
year against his beloved Mayor Dinkins. Sharpton wants Cuomo to repudiate
the Liberal endorsement this year; of which there is a chance of a
snowball in Hell. Moynihan is safe whatever happens; but if Sharpton
actually gets the Freedom Party on the ballot, black def ections from the
Democracy may just cost Mario the governors mansion.

Another fascinating race is for attorney-general of New York State. Bob
Abrams, previous holder of the off ice, fell on his sword in opposing Al
D Amato for senator; he later resigned, and his place was taken by
appointment only last December by veteran Bronx party hack G. Oliver
Koppell. Since Koppell is running for election to legitimize his recent
appointment, few people know who he is, and his most formidable primary
challenger (under the no-challenge rule) is the tough, abrasive,
ultra-leftish lesbian Jewess, former assemblyman and former Family Court
Judge Karen S. Burstein. Burstein has a unique style of grass-roots
campaigning, a style that could only hope to succeed in sado-masochistic
New York City. Burstein stands near a subway station, and stretches out
her hand to greet the passing voter. When, as usually happens in New
York, the mark rushed by refusing to acknowledge the intruder, La
Burstein denounces him! "You know, that is rude," she snaps. "Would it
hurt to shake a hand?" she yells out. Finally, Burstein proclaims to a
reporter that as attorney general, she will be obliged to transform human
nature: "I have got to get these people better prepared as human beings.
As attorney-general, I have got to do something about this absence of
civility." And you are the one to do this transforming eh babe? That is
all New York needs: another "politics of meaning," a Jewish version of
Hillary Rodham.

The latest A-G poll in the Democrat primary rates the race as very close:
Koppell at 22 percent, Burstein at 19, and "anti-racist" Brooklyn D.A.
Charles Hynes at 14 percent. Unknown former Asst. D.A. Eliot Spitzer,
who is been running a lot of ads on TV, is only getting l percent of the
poll so far, perhaps the least productive TV campaign ads in memory. The
undecided vote is very high at 44 percent. Whoever wins the primary will
face former Buff alo U.S. Attorney Dennis Vacco in the general election.

The final statewide race is over comptroller; here, Manhattan black
incumbent Carl McCail, will face Republican Conservative Herb London.
So far, in the early going, McCall is leading London by only f ive
percent, 27 to 22.

Finally, former New York Republican chairman, the self-made millionaire
(Avis) J. Patrick Barrett, has been denouncing the antics of the D Amato
machine at the convention, and has threatened to refuse to back Pataki,
even if he wins the primary. Strange behavior for a recent Republican
party chairman! But that is New York.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was dean of the Austrian School, founder
of modern libertarianism, and chief academic off icer of the Mises
Institute. He was also editor - with Lew Rockwell - of The Rothbard-
Rockwell Report, and appointed Lew as his literary executor.

Copyright © 2012 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Permission to reprint
in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided full credit is given.