First, a matter of numbers and nomenclature: Bill de Blasio, who is being hailed like Eliot Spitzer before him as the new face of American liberalism, won his race to be New York City’s next mayor with a near-record victory margin but also record low turnouts in both the primary and the general elections. There was no “populist” surge as reported in the press. De Blasio won 40 percent of the 22 percent who showed up for the Democratic party primary. And he won not only because he has a beautiful interracial family; more important, he was backed strongly by 1199, the hospital workers’ union, which has the best get-out-the-vote operation in Gotham.
DE BLASIO HUGS HIS CHILDREN NOVEMBER 5.
NEWSCOM
In a city of well over half a million government employees—city, state, and federal—in which the largest source of “private sector” employment is government-subsidized health care providers, as well as numerous, often government-funded, “nonprofit” organizations, de Blasio’s “populist” vote came heavily from those with a direct personal stake in the outcome.
Populism in America has been traditionally associated with self-employed farmers and miners fighting the great railroads and agricultural combines, looking to get a fair shake from government. Gotham’s “populists,” better described as “statists,” are people looking for a greater transfer of wealth from the private to the public sector. And therein lie the limits of de Blasio’s agenda.
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