Another Shutout for New York
June 4th, 2008
The apparent demise of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign (the Times is reporting she’ll endorse Barak Obama on Saturday) means that, once again, neither major party has chosen to a New Yorkers as its election standard bearer. And so the Empire State’s losing streak continues. The last major party presidential candidate from New York was Thomas Dewey, who lost to Harry Truman in 1948. The last victorious New Yorker was Franklin Roosevelt, elected in 1932, ‘36, 40 and ‘44.
For New Yorkers who have seen their presidential hopefuls fade (Nelson Rockefeller, John Lindsay, Shirley Chisholm, Al Sharpton), this year was supposed to be different. Remember the heady days of 2007 when those considered in the know saw Hillary Clinton as the Democratic frontrunner, and Rudy Giuliani led in the polls for the GOP nomination (hard to believe, given he managed to come in behind Ron Paul in several states before finishing a distant third in “must-win” state of Florida. Former Gov. George Pataki weighed a presidential run, while Michael Bloomberg polled and pondered.
Now they’ve all faded, leaving New Yorkers to wonder why Texans have headed tickets in five of the last 14 elections (seven if you count Eisenhower, born in Texas, bred in Kansas as a Texan), with a similar tally for California, followed by Massachusetts and now apparently Illinois with three.
By Gail Robinson on June 4, 2008, 9:06 pmIn category: Electoral Politics, Gotham City | 1 Comment »



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June 5th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Al Smith, Roosevelt, and Dewey were all Governors back in the days when we had one of the best-run state governments in the country. Now we have one of the worst.
Hillary Clinton was not from New York. Our pols are so bad they had to bring someone in from out of state to run for Senate. I’m not sure that would have even counted.