Silentfirecracker

With 100% of precincts reporting, Bill deBlasio won the race for (the Democratic nomination) Public Advocate with 62.5%. DeBlasio faced off with former Public Advocate Mark Green who lost by 25%.

This win essentially guarantees a win for him in November, which is why this silly little primary which cost the city $15 million dollars for 11% of registered Democrats.

When deBlasio gave his victory speach, he first thanked his kids and then wife. He thanked Green for running a good campaign, even though I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having won two weeks ago. He also thanked the other two Democrats that tried to win the seat on the 15th, and said he would work with all three of the losers in the future.

After that, he congratulated John Liu who won the seat for Comptroller. Both of the candidates essentially ran on the same ticket, although not offically. They were very similar candidates and appeared on the same litarature. They were also both endorsed by The Working Families Party.

And after all of that, he finally thanked the most important people, the people of NYC.

Bill deBlasio's Win

After thanking everyone, deBlasio promises to devote himself for next four years with four major issues.
First off, he will devote him self to improving our schools and getting better communication with the parents.
Second, he would like to improve on the way we develop our city, with a focus on working people with affordable house and the creation of jobs.
Third, he wants to protect the most vulnerable member of society. This includes seniors and working poor, homeless and hungry, and mainly protecting our children.
His last promise is for the improvement of the safety for community. He would like better connection between people and police. He plans to make that into a reality by establishing a civilian complaint review board. We will have to see within the next four years if he can keep these promises.

For a better video, you can also go to the NY1 website.

Before the night was over, we heard Mark Green’s concession speech. After thanking his campaign manager and family, he said that for now he’ll just write, comment on Air America radio and possibly do some teaching. It doesn’t look like he’ll be running for public office anymore, although he’s given that promise 8 years ago. We’ll have to see about that promise in the future as well.

September 29, 2009. Four men go in, but only two will go out. I’m of course talking about the runoff election for two very important seats in NYC politics, but most people don’t even know about it.

John Liu faces David Yassky for Comptroller and Bill DeBlassio vs. Mark Green for Public Advocate. But what does this all mean and why should you care?

First off, let me explain why we are doing all this nonsense with runoffs and what not. A runoff occurs in nature when a single candidate for a citywide position fails to win at least 40% of the vote.

The Public Advocate is essentially the city’s ombudsman. That person (currently Betsy Gotbaum) basically watches our backs to make sure that we, the people, are not screwed over by greedy politicians and corrupt public agencies. That person tries to make our lives easier, supposedly.

During the primary election, the two men facing off on Tuesday also faced Councilman Eric Gioia and lawyer Norman Siegel. Green and DeBlasio were able to stay in the top two, so they have advanced to the next round.
The Comptroller, is a very important position. The Comptroller is like the biggest bookkeeper in NYC. That person audits city agencies and invests money into various companies. Lui and Yassky faced Councilmembers Malinda Katz and David Weprin on Primary day. This is not the last you will hear about me blabbing about this race.

We now come to the question as to why you should care about September 29th. Primary Day had the lowest voter turn out in modern history. Many poll workers had only 15 people, give or take, come out of their Electoral Districts (EDs) which could be 5 blocks long. September 29th will probably have about half that amount, if not less. Yet these few people (about 11% of registered Democrats, the first time around, and even less on Tuesday) will decided which individual will be fighting for us as a Public Advocate, and more importantly, which one will take care of our money.

So I don’t care who you vote for on Tuesday, as long as you vote. This time around, your vote actually does make a differnce.

John Liu

David Yasskey

Mark Green

Bill Deblasio

The amount of incumbents that have lost to insurgents in the last two decades in city council races can be counted on one hand. But the 45th district is one of five races that changed that statistic on Tuesday.

Councilman Kendell Steward lost by over 10% to community organizer Jumaane Williams during the Democratic Primary. This was incredible since Williams also had four others fighting for the seat. Some of the other challengers include Dexter McKenzie who advertised on dollar vans and Erlene King who was the only woman.

Most of time when there are many candidates running, along with the incumbent, the incumbent tends to win. But this time, that was not the case and Williams had many people to thank for it.  Low voter turn out (the lowest in modern history, according to the NY Times) played a major role in the victory. The Working Families Party’s efforts to get out the vote (GOTV) was also very helpful. Not to mention all of the unions and elected officials who endorsed him. Williams had some of the most powerful unions reaching out to their members to support him, including DC 27, 1199 and 32BJ.

One of the most important reasons he had beat Stewart, and why there were so many people running against him, was because of all the controversy that Stewart has found himself in. At the very least, Stewart had voted to over turn term limits. That is not as bad as the other major controversy that follows him. Two of his aides, including his chief of staff were indicted for embezzling tax-payer money.  Which leads the voters to think one of two things about the current councilman. Did he know what was happening and therefore should be prosecuted himself, or was he too incompetent to know what was going on right under his nose? Either way, he’s out of office in January.