| Well, yes. I know. Many many things, since the hazy origins of New York politics.
Lately, however, the machines are failing at their central purpose: electing candidates in areas where they (supposedly) dominate.
Yesterday, the folks at New York Capital wrote:
If Weprin loses, it will be the fourth time in two years a New York special election has gone badly for a candidate hand-picked by the dominant party.
I think most of us here cheered when Scott Murphy, Bill Owens, and Kathy Hochul won, all Democratic insurgents challenging Republican establishments Upstate.
Now we have Republican insurgent Bob Turner defeating the Democratic establishment Downstate.
None of these races were identical - Bill Owens in particular benefited from a massive split among the Republicans. You can always argue about the quality of the candidates and the campaigns.
All of them, however, were in Congressional districts that seemed dominated by one party, until you looked closely enough to see the smaller pieces, the neighborhoods, the fragmentation generally. The losers were all, I think, Assembly members.
Since 2006 and Spitzer's election, I've wondered if New York voters in general are just looking for change. There's a broad grumbling out there that our political institutions aren't serving the state (or country) well. People and parties in power are the natural target of that fury, especially when there's a local connection.
I'm not sure that the machines themselves have changed for better or worse than usual, but I do think that voters are much more interested in Davids setting off to slay Goliath than they used to be, perhaps especially in races where national issues seem to be at stake. |
