Horsing Around in New York

One of the benefits of living in the Connecticut suburbs of New York City is that I get to see first hand many of the political battles in the city without ever having to live with the consequences of the choices made by city residents.  Right now, the mayoral election is underway in NYC; the primaries are next week.  As a result, the campaign pandering is in full swing.  It has been amazing to watch the Democrats trying to out-liberal each other.  Just this morning, Christine Quinn who is the president of the city council, has been stridently condemning mayor Bloomberg for appealing the order by a federal judge that put limits on the city's stop and frisk policy.  Among the Democrat candidates, the NYC police can do no right.  They are a bunch of racist thugs who prey upon minorities just for fun.  Of course, once the election is over, that rhetoric will be toned down, but right now these candidates know that their principal audience hates the police.  Another candidate, Bill diBlasio, who actually seems to be the most radical of all, announced he would ban the horse drawn carriages that carry tourists through Central Park; the carriages are a cruel use of innocent horses according to diBlasio.  While this is pandering to the animal rights crazies, it is, nevertheless, a position taken by a major candidate for mayor (diBlasio is ahead in most of the Democrat primary polling.)  So using horses to pull carriages is cruel?  How about riding horses; is that cruel too?  Is diBlasio kidding?  Sadly, the answer is no.

The Democrats are not alone in their craziness.  While there are many fewer Republican ads on TV, the ploys are similar in their vapid nature.  The likely winner of the primary here is Joe Lhota who used to run the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  His opponent, however, is attacking Lhota because he once called one of the Port Authority police a "mall cop".  As a result we are being bombarded with ads featuring an angry former officer of the Port Authority police who growls that he is no mall cop.  Sadly, this ad has even less to do with being mayor than the issue of whether or not pulling carriages is a cruel use of horses.

There are so many issues of importance facing New York City.  Most are economic.  Most are not being discussed.  I'm glad I live in Connecticut.