Doug is correct, I believe, that Mark Green is not the marvelous progressive some make him out to be: he does not approach Villaragosa, the progressive union-Latino candidate for the LA mayoralty. The notion that he stands heads and shoulders above the other Democratic candidates, especially Ferrer and Hevesi, just does not hold water. Much of the endorsements of him, such as the Nation endorsement that made that completely overwrought evaluation of his superiority, are based on personal-political associations of many years, rather than an evaluation of his merits and demerits as a potential mayor. An actual evaluation of the different candidates does not sustain the claims of superiority from a progressive point of view.
I had a real fight on the DSA listserv with Jim Chapin, someone with whom I don't usually have such disagreements, over NYC DSA's and the Working Families Party endorsements of Green. I characterized Green as a patrician liberal -- a particular NYC type, straight out of the Upper East Side, with a know-it-all, noblese oblige worldview. In this respect, he follows very closely the last NYC mayor from the Upper East Side, John Lindsay. Green parades his Harvard law degree like it was a royal pedigree, and he is known inside NYC progressive political circles as a very obnoxious person -- right up there in the Bella Abzug league -- with whom it is difficult to maintain civil relations and virtually impossible to work for. His support is relatively broad at this point in the contest, but I do not think that it is that deep, and it may well be tested in a two person run-off primary.
Like Lindsay, Green has a strained relationship with the NYC trade union movement. His campaign speaks of being endorsed by 22 different unions, but it carefully avoids going into particulars since the list does not include any of the big three in electoral terms [1199/SEIU, UFT, DC 37/AFSCME]. Rather, the list has a number of Teamster locals endorsements, and some small outfits -- the Deputy Wardens Association and the Fire Department Fire Protection Inspectors -- that most people in the labor movement would not recognize. DC 37/AFSCME endorsed Vallone; there is some disagreement among the locals within it on that endorsement, but not in Green's favor; they would rather have endorsed Ferrer. The UFT Executive Board vote to recommend the endorsement of Hevesi yesterday, and the Delegate Assembly is most likely to support that recommendation. My friends in 1199/SEIU tell me that an endorsement of Green from that quarter is unlikely. Certainly, there will be no Central Labor Council endorsement of Green.
The UFT endorsement of Hevesi makes perfect sense from the vantage point of our particular concerns for public education and teachers. On these issues, Hevesi -- and Ferrer, too, to a lesser degree -- is far better than Green. Despite two terms as Public Advocate, Green has no record to speak of public education. The main educational plank of his platform is to lower class size in the K-3 grades, a proposal which has already been under implementation for a number of years, so it would provide minimal change for the better. [Since NYC public schools are so overcrowded, a lot of schools lack the physical space to create more, smaller classes, even if they were given the additional teachers.] He equivocates on raising teacher salaries, despite the fact that the current gap of approximately 25% with suburban teacher salaries is creating a massive teacher shortage in city schools. He talks about rewarding merit in ways that sound very much like Guiliani's merit pay schemes. By contrast, Hevesi has a very thought out plan for how to improve the public schools, and has pledged to raise taxes for that purpose, if he can not find sufficient funds in the general budget. [This is important because Guiliani is creating a 'poison pill' budget now with significant tax decreases which would make it very difficult to have any spending initiatives in the budgets of the coming years.] Ferrer has also detailed a plan on how to pay for improvements. Neither Vallone nor Green has done so. Hevesi has flaws as a candidate, but they are not in the area of public education.
There is a history of bad blood and antagonism between Green and the UFT President, Randi Weingarten, to the extent that it has been discussed in the NY Times on several occasions. I would not be entirely surprised if there was a teacher strike during his first year of office, since teachers have waited far too long for a new contract to put with some of the antagonistic nonsense he has communicated to the UFT. This could well be his undoing, just as the TWU strike led by Mike Quill was the undoing of Lindsay when he first entered office.
I disagree with Doug, however, in his general maximalist approach to this and other elections, always seeking the politically correct candidate on every issue. Moreover, I believe that a progressive candidate can and should have a position of how to reduce crime. Crime is highest in the inner city, and it is poor folk and folk of color who suffer most from it. On top of that, under the Guiliani regime, they have had to fear an out of control police that often posed as much of a threat to them as the criminals. A progressive platform on crime would advocate policies to ensure that poor communities received the same quality of protection as the rich, and that police respected people of color.
I also think that Doug is off the mark on what he thinks NYC unions could and should have done under the Guiliani regime. But it is late at night. I will go into it tomorrow if anyone cares to know.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010817/0a6d76e0/attachment.htm>