Which, in my case, will arrive in June of this year. Yes, in New York City there will be primaries for municipal elections. Mayor, comptroller, city council, borough presidents and what all else.
There are a number of candidates for mayor, some of them good — if you accept “good” as meaning competent, intelligent, honorable, experienced and with degrees in government and/or law. And this year we’ll get to use ranked choice voting for the first time. Excellent.
But can we all agree never again to vote for a candidate whose only credential is making a lot of money in business? Remember what happened the last time some people voted for a guy who claimed to be a billionaire? A guy who had zero experience in or knowledge of government?
Thing is, wealthy business people make lousy elected leaders. There is a radical difference between running a company as the boss who has the final say, and collaborating in managing a government for the good of the people — who have not only the final say but a lot to say during.
Rich business people do not understand government and laws. They do not understand how government works. And they don’t like government because it’s complicated. Government gets in their way. They don’t want to haggle with legislators. They don’t appreciate hearing criticism from voters. They get sulky, often publicly. It is not an attractive thing to watch.
Their ideas for governing are fairly…dumb. They present no practical plans for implementing their ideas: they think tossing some ideas at us (like paper towels) is all they need to do to win us over.
In New York City’s mayoral race there are some good candidates, and then there are some businessmen.
Remember November 2016. Let us all take an oath not to vote for those businessmen, or any businessman.
Never again.