Blog: September 2005

The NYPD continued its ignoble tradition of stifling freedom of speech and of assembly. Cindy Sheehan, tolerated by the police even in Crawford, Texas, was kicked out of Union Square Park on Monday. The Village Voice's Ward Harkavy writes, "It should be front-page news in this country that a prominent, peaceful protester, speaking to a crowd of 150 people, was silenced not far from a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, but it won't be. And that's frightening, because the bulwark of our security as a country is our cherished freedom to speak out."

For those not outraged by an administration that believes citizens' only right is to go about their orderly corporate lives, never to stand out, speak out, or assert any perogative to publicly participate in national or local civic discourse, the Prospect's Greg Sargent outlines the many reasons why a Bloomberg mayoralty is bad for New York and bad for America:

Bloomberg, for all his leftward feints, has at times been quite the loyal GOP partisan. He has defended the Iraq War, a hugely symbolic gesture coming from the mayor of the city attacked on September 11. He's raised millions of dollars for the national GOP. During last year's GOP convention in New York he presided over the highly questionable arrests of more than 1,500 protesters, in effect placing the GOP's desire for a peaceful convention above his own constituents' right to peaceful protest. . . .

Bloomberg has foresaken the New York Mayor's traditional role as someone who raises his voice to communicate the wants, needs and aspirations of his constituents to the national audience and the ruling party in D.C. It's a void that New Yorkers need filled more than ever, given the enormous ideological gap between this city's residents and the national GOP, as well as the Republicans' ongoing exploitation of Sept. 11.

There's another reason Dems should care if Bloomberg wins re-election: The success of Republicans like Bloomberg in Democratic strongholds is extraordinarily helpful to Karl Rove's strategy for building an enduring Republican majority. That strategy rests on offsetting the party leadership's endless pampering of the right wing base with hollow gestures designed to keep moderates from getting scared away by the party's hardcore conservatism. Hence Rove's much-ballyhooed outreach to blacks, which isn't really about winning over African Americans but is actually about signaling to white moderates that the party is tolerant and inclusive. To the extent that mild-mannered liberal Republicans like Bloomberg put a gentle face on today's GOP -- particularly in New York, the supposed capitol of liberalism -- they're helping Rove achieve his objectives.

1. Carefully select targeted questions for your panels and breakouts. The number one biggest mistake of well-meaning conferences is to pack way too many diverse concepts and topics into a small number of panels and breakout sessions. When a panel simply comprises a group of people whose work bears a thematic similarity, the session almost always devolves into each person separately talking about their area of expertise. Building a successful panel requires the conference organizers to pose a specific, narrow, thought-provoking question, and to pick panelists who would enjoy explicitly addressing that question.

2. Choose an unbiased moderator. At the National Conference on Citizenship today, I attended a panel about driving youth involvement in public service and civic participation, which turned out to mean mainly careers in government service. The moderator, Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, turned out to be a partisan hack who would dismissively answer any question from the audience he didn't agree with.

One attendee asked how we could overcome the messaging coming from national Republicans that government doesn't matter, that it should be "cut down to the size where [they] can drown it in a bathtub." Rather than asking panelists for their points of view, Stier started by blaming Jimmy Carter, calling him the first to discourage government service, and then made the preposterous, and irrelevant, claim that Americans are encouraged by the government's response in the Gulf of Mexico. He then turned to a former Republican Congressman on the panel, Mickey Edwards, asked "what do you think," and when Edwards replied "I couldn't agree more," immediately called upon someone else for another question. I wanted to stand up and shout, "you are a worthless partisan hack," but instead I just left the room.

Campaigns are serious matters. Education, health care, development, taxes... the summer saw Mayoral forum after forum sponsored by different issue groups. Sometimes it's nice to just kick back and see candidates in a fun, silly environment, and celebrate Democratic unity.

Last Thursday, candidates for New York City offices from Council to Borough President to Public Advocate came to The Tank for a night of karaoke: Mayoroke, presented by Democracy for NYC and, of course, Drinking Liberally, and featured in Gawker and Time Out New York. District 4 5 Council candidate Eric Cesnik and his chief of staff sang "I Got You Babe", and Public Advocate hopeful Norman Siegel performed "In the Still of the Night" with his staff as a do-wop backup troupe. Borough President frontrunner Scott Stringer and incumbent Councilwoman Gale Brewer both attended, though only their younger staffers sang songs.

But the best performance of the night was from Borough President candidate Carlos Manzano, who had never done karaoke before and by his own admission was "terrified," yet he got up on the stage and crooned to the tune of INXS's "I Need You Tonight" to rousing applause. Liza Sabater, liveblogging the event, was impressed . Carlos was congratulated by so many people afterward that he has since started joking that if politics doesn't work out, he could try a career as a rock star.

As I explained to one reporter when she asked who did the best job, karaoke isn't about being musically talented or putting on a "good" performance. It's about getting into the spirit of fun and pushing your boundaries of comfort, having ordinary people do something - singing on a stage - that only a small handful usually engage in. Democrats believe in making the political process accessible to the masses, not just a few wealthy elites. So what's more appropriate than having political elites, our professional politicians, join in a true activity of the masses - karaoke?

From The Daily Show:

They skipped G, though. Maybe this is it.