New York – It was, as Eric Schneiderman said in his victory speech at the Sheraton on election night, an improbable journey. A year ago, after all, he had wavered about and then aborted a long-expected run for Manhattan DA. When he finally pulled the trigger on his attorney general run, Schneiderman stayed further to the left than anyone would have thought possible to win statewide in New York.
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But really, November was not all that improbable for Schneiderman as Tom DiNapoli’s election made abundantly clear, even a Democrat with pretty much the entire universe aligned against him will win in New York by being a Democrat and having the labor machine’s nomination, along with the surplus of Democraticinclined voters committed to not filling in a GOP bubble.
And the primary win was not so improbable either Schneiderman is the latest candidate propelled by the new coalition that has taken control of New York politics. The axis spins through the progressive heartlands of the Upper West Side and brownstone Brooklyn on campaigns that now regularly connect the New York Times editorial board to the Working Families Party, and all the constituent parts of each. In recent years, to have the support of one of these is nearly always to have the support of them all. To have the support of most, if not all, is usually to win.
At the center is Jerry Nadler, the man Schneiderman identified in that victory speech as his mentor. Nadler was there for Schneiderman at the beginning, at the official kickoff of the attorney general campaign on the steps of City Hall in April. He was there a year earlier on a colder, wetter day for Bill de Blasio, preemptively sealing up the public advocate race. David Yassky tried desperately to get him there in last year’s comptroller’s race, calling him nonstop and even cornering him for some frantic arm waving after most of the others had left Charlie Rangel’s last birthday party at Tavern on the Green in August, but to no avail.
Schneiderman won. De Blasio won. Yassky, left to campaign outside of Fairway by himself, never really had a chance.
So looking back on 2010, the improbable part was not that Schneiderman won.
The improbable part was that despite Andrew Cuomo’s concerted effort to box him out, Schneiderman stayed in the race at all. No one needed a poll to know that Cuomo could have effectively ended things by coming out publicly for Kathleen Rice, or even, at the end of the campaign, for Sean Coffey. Schneiderman’s supporters held him off, and then, once the nomination was secured, helped force that awkward endorsement in Columbus Circle almost two weeks after the primary.
That had a lot to do with Nadler, too. The Harlem machine is waning. Unions are strong but not what they used to be. The Working Families Party, though now rebuilding, was clipped by the investigations and legal troubles of the last year. Vito Lopez is still strong in Brooklyn but threatened, and Joe Crowley’s grip is only a little looser locally in Queens, but no longer has the same sway over larger politics that Tom Manton’s did.
With his money and his popularity, Mike Bloomberg wins elections in New York. But as Dan Donovan and Harry Wilson showed again this year, Bloomberg’s power does not transfer. Nadler’s does.
He is the heir to the progressive mantle at a time when the New York electorate, especially in local primaries, has keeled to the left. He is a hero on the West Side, where there are more votes to be had in primary and general elections than in any other part of the city or state, and his sway stretches out to parts of Brooklyn he has never represented, but is full of his former constituents.
The Jews in the tip of his district, which goes into Boro Park, love him, and so do the Jews far beyond. Union leaders connect with him. The New York Times editorial board always takes his calls. He may not be Boss Tweed, or really any kind of stereotypical boss, but right now, Jerry Nadler rules local politics.
Nadler professes not to notice the organization he has built up under himself or the sway he has acquired. He seems surprised by the suggestion. The furthest he will go is, “I think of myself as trying to advance certain things, progressive public policies, and people who will be effective in promoting those.”
I have a different analysis:
(1) Schneiderman was (not perfectly inaccurately) identified as the more liberal candidate, Coffey and Rice as less so — dividing the not quite so liberal primary vote.
(2) NY Republicans essentially abandoned the statewide races — especially when their primary voters nominated an outspoken bigot for governor — to concentrate on congressional races and (especially) the State Senate races, as control of the State Senate is essential to their ability to funnel government money to their supporters. The strategy may have succeeded.
I wish Sen. Schneiderman all the best as AG.