Ruth Messinger, indeed, used to be a member of the Democratic
Socialists of America. She remains close enough to DSA to attend their
fundraisers, but she quit DSA, and here I think she has been explicit
about this, to distance herself from the Left. The New York local
endorsed her campaign, although there were moves afoot to endorse Sharpton
by some and no one by others. Despite its endorsement, the local did
nothing organizationally. The lack of action may have resulted from
Messinger's absense of interest in mobilizing voters. Or, perhaps, DSAers
may have been turned off by her attack on City workers (not cops). She
decided in what seems like a patently opportunistic ploy for NY Times
coverage to solve the problem of funding public education by increasing
the work week of municipal employees and jettisoning the sabaticals of
Board of Ed. hires.
DSAers were not the only ones to lose interest in Borough
President Messinger. Her core constituency of left-leaning liberals
did not vote. Hopes for Messinger had at one time been quite high because
in part she had the best network of grassroots supporters in the City.
Over the years she had built up a fairly impressive cadre of campaigners,
but many of them abandoned ship when they felt that she wasn't interested
in their support. Her office staff has been demoralized for a long time,
and it is hard to believe her campaign staff feels anything but
devastated.
Ruth moved to the center to capture more votes, and I'm sure she
had the polling data to tell her it was the politically "intelligent"
thing to do. Unfortunately for her, she became a hollow candidate winning
the hollow vote, I guess.
A similar phenomenon occurred with Deborah Glick who was soundly
beaten in the race for Manhattan Borough President by C. Virginia Fields.
Glick, an outspoken lesbian and generally independent Council Person, ran
a campaign in the lower half of Manhattan, i.e., the mostly white and
higher income half of Manhattan. Glick was probably the most left of the
candidates for Borough President, but she made the "rational" decision to
spend her resources in the socially liberal-friendly half of Manhattan.
Glick's problem was not so much that she moved to the center but that she
gave up on a better part of the City.
BTW, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think Messinger got support
from the police unions.
Robert Saute
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
