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      Tell Me the One About the Presidential Candidate Who Ran for Mayor

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      Or the mayor who ran for president.Bret Stephens: Gail, you’re a New Yorker and I’m now a former New Yorker, albeit one who is often in town. How are you feeling about the city these days? And do you have any preferences in the race to succeed Bill de Blasio?Gail Collins: Bret, my city (and yours — if you work here you at least have rooting rights) tends to switch back and forth between regular party Democrats and feisty independents. De Blasio, a deep, dull Democrat, was preceded by Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg, who were very, very different versions of the political outsider.Bret: Some might even call them Republicans. Go on …Gail: And before that David Dinkins, who was the city’s first Black mayor. But also a clubhouse politician.If it’s time for a new outsider, it does sort of seem that Andrew Yang ought to fit the bill. Yet he’s run a rather strange campaign — lots of interesting ideas but often the kind you hear from a guy who’s on a six-month internship at City Hall before being posted someplace else.Bret: I’m generally sympathetic to Yang because — math! New York got a bailout this year from President Biden’s Covid relief bill, but the city is still going to need a mayor who can balance its books and create a business-friendly climate, especially if the financial industry deserts it and the M.T.A. continues to lose riders and revenue. I’m less thrilled about Yang’s $2,000 a year cash-relief plan for New York’s poorest, but post-pandemic I can at least see the case for it.Also, who else has been supported by Anthony Scaramucci and Whoopi Goldberg?Gail: OK, that’s definitely a dynamic duo. Meanwhile, I hear Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew, is thinking about running for governor. You’ll be voting in that race — how would you rate him versus Andrew Cuomo?Bret: Hemlock or cyanide? Devoured by a saltwater crocodile versus bitten by a venomous sea snake? A year of solitary confinement in a supermax prison or an all-expenses paid trip to Cancún in the company of Ted Cruz? I’m trying to think of equivalently horrible alternatives.Gail: Wow, that was quite a mountain of metaphors.Bret: OK, I confess I don’t know a thing about Rudy’s son. And I try to subscribe to the words from Ezekiel: “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.” So I’ll, um, keep an open mind.Gail: Well, Andrew G. was introduced to the New York public on the day his father was sworn in as mayor. The little kid took over the ceremony, blowing kisses to the cameras while Rudy was trying to deliver his serious speech.Bret: Now I remember …Gail: Dad held up pretty well. I remember, at the time, saying that Rudy obviously had the right temperament for politics, since he could maintain such a show of good humor while losing the crowd’s attention to a cavorting child. So much for my talents at political analysis.Bret: Your talents were just fine. Rudy proved to be a mostly terrific mayor who restored the city to glory and led us through 9/11. However, sometime later, on a fishing trip in the Catskills, he was captured by a race of dyspeptic, prank-playing space aliens who removed his brain and replaced it with Roy Cohn’s, which they had been keeping in a jar of formaldehyde.That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.Gail: Not sure the real Rudy of 9/11 lived up to the later legend. But I do like that idea about Roy Cohn’s brain.Anyhow, I think Andrew’s high jinks back at the 1994 inauguration rank, so far, as the political peak of his life. More recently, during the Trump era, he did a great deal of golfing with the president. It was his job, more or less.Bret: Not what I would consider a qualification for high office. I definitely would like to see a sane Republican as governor. One-party rule is never a good thing, and a liberal state like New York could use a socially moderate, business-friendly chief executive like Maryland’s Larry Hogan or Massachusetts’s Charlie Baker.Gail: And New York has had some. But except for Nelson Rockefeller our gubernatorial Republicans weren’t very exciting. Have we ever discussed the George Pataki years? No? At least with Andrew G. we’d have a Republican who knows how to putt …Bret: I’ll take the Pataki years over the Spitzer-Paterson-Cuomo years!Gail: Because …Bret: Because Pataki-Not-Wacky? Because he never did what Cuomo is doing now, which is jacking up state taxes on the rich to some of the highest rates in the country. That’s just going to accelerate the exodus of people to income-tax free states like Florida. The large homeless population and rise in shootings isn’t exactly helping to keep people in New York, either.Speaking of shootings, we have another nightmare in Indianapolis.Gail: It breaks my heart because it feels so hopeless. We have a president who’s a champion of sane gun regulation, but lately there’s been a mass killing every week. Meanwhile, the House has passed a very, very, very modest reform to the background check system, which is in danger of dying in the Senate.And remember the El Paso massacre? Apparently the Texas House doesn’t, since it just voted to eliminate the requirement that people get permits to carry handguns.Why can’t we ever manage to get this dragon under control?Bret: You know, after 9/11 the country collectively accepted that we needed far tougher security at airports and on airplanes. And most of us, conservatives included, were OK with all of it — standing in lines; taking off our shoes; removing electronic devices from our bags; throwing away large bottles; all the rest of it — because we understood there was a national emergency and a common-sense need to improve security.Gail: While retaining the right to sigh deeply when those lines stretched on forever …The FedEx facility in Indianapolis where a former employee killed eight people last Thursday night.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBret: And aside from the ordinary griping, few Americans really considered it an infringement on our basic constitutional rights because we understood that personal safety is also a civil right and that a duty of government is to “insure domestic tranquillity.”But we’ve had more than 45 mass shootings in the United States just since the Atlanta killings last month. Many of which we haven’t even heard of because there were more injuries than deaths.Gail: True, a mass wounding doesn’t get as much attention as a road closing.Bret: And yet we won’t even undertake the kind of basic precautions that we accept as normal and logical when it comes to boarding airplanes. The killer in Indianapolis had his shotgun taken away from him last year because of mental-health concerns, but he was still able to buy two rifles after that.I wish I could convince my fellow conservatives of this. But noooooo. It’s like trying to talk someone out of an article of religious faith that seems preposterous to those outside the faith but fundamental to those within it. I’d offer an example of what I have in mind but I’d hate to insult anyone who believes in Immaculate Conception.Gail: Speaking as the product of 14 years of Catholic education, I’m gonna bet you don’t know that Immaculate Conception refers to the belief that Mary was born free of original sin.Bret: I stand chastened and corrected. To make amends, I hasten to note that Yiddish has at least 20 different words to describe useless Jewish men, of which I’m clearly a yutz, a putz, a schmendrick, a schlemiel, a schlimazel, or something else beginning with “sch.”Gail: Hey, never heard of a schmendrick before. I believe this conversation is going to provide one great step forward in cultural understanding.Bret: Or at least some mutual kvetching.Gail: Which I hope we can continue soon over drinks or dinner. Do you feel as if we’re actually being sprung from pandemic purgatory?Bret: It may be my congenital contrarianism, Gail, but after spending the better part of the pandemic feeling optimistic about the future, I’ve now sunk into deep fatalism. Cases are edging up again, driven by the new virus variants, and the steep decline in Covid deaths since January also seems to have bottomed out at an average rate of around 700 a day, which is just horrific.Gail: Yeah, never going to accept the idea that 700 daily fatalities is good news.Bret: The idea that we may all need boosters in six months or a year doesn’t faze me, and neither do the (very rare) instances of people reacting badly to the vaccines. But it also likely means continued social distancing, continued working from home, continued masking, continued nonsocializing, continued all-purpose nervousness.Gail: Have you noticed that the most faithful mask wearers seem to be blue staters? I guess accessorizing only counts in some places when it involves carrying weapons.Bret: I observe that Covid deaths in Texas have fallen by about 70 percent since the state dropped its mask mandate in early March. But I don’t draw any conclusions, since I really don’t know what to think anymore. Our colleague David Brooks wrote the other week that living through the last year has felt like one long Groundhog Day. Except that, unlike Bill Murray’s character, I’ve mostly been getting worse at everything.Gail: Maybe we’ve gotten better at personal interaction that doesn’t actually involve being face to face. It’s been even more fun conversing with you than prepandemic.Bret: Still miss the old kind of interaction. I’m getting my second shot in two weeks. Let’s get together for cocktails once I’m fully vaccinated — and not on Zoom.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Ray McGuire Wants to Show He’s Not Just the Wall Street Candidate

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      Mr. McGuire has landed endorsements from Representative Gregory W. Meeks and three hip-hop giants as his campaign for New York mayor enters a crucial phase.In the intensifying race for mayor of New York City, numerous endorsements have trickled out, but few with the star power of the one jointly given to Raymond J. McGuire last week: Jay-Z, Diddy and Nas.For Mr. McGuire, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street, the endorsement from the three entrepreneurial giants of the hip-hop world was meant to reinforce a message: He was not merely a candidate who emerged from, and was favored by, big business; he could be a mayor to heal New York from its financial crisis and its racial inequities.Six months ago, Mr. McGuire entered the crowded race for mayor at the urging of several top business leaders, who hoped that he could translate his success on Wall Street into a viable candidacy for mayor, and be a more business-friendly choice than most of the other major candidates. He quickly raised more than $7.4 million to fund his campaign, and a super PAC has raised another $4 million. He has also spent far more on political advertising than any other candidate: $1.2 million, with the super PAC spending another $1.7 million.On Sunday, Representative Gregory W. Meeks, the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party, endorsed Mr. McGuire, in what some of his campaign aides are calling their “Clyburn moment,” a reference to an endorsement given by Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina to Joseph R. Biden; the endorsement is widely considered to have helped save Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign after his poor performances in two early primaries.But with two months until the June 22 primary, Mr. McGuire’s campaign has yet to catch fire, and his goal of becoming the city’s second Black mayor is entering a critical phase.There is no question that New York City faces a series of severe challenges as it emerges from the pandemic. But Mr. McGuire has so far been unable to persuade voters, according to early polling, that he is best suited to guide the city’s recovery.Mr. McGuire, right, visiting the First Baptist Church East Elmhurst in Queens. He has begun to step up his in-person campaigning.Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesOther Democratic candidates have far more experience in city government, including the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer; the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams; the former sanitation commissioner, Kathryn Garcia; and the former head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Maya Wiley.Mr. McGuire is essentially hoping to use his corporate background — much like the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg did in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attack — to convince New Yorkers that a different type of nonpolitical leadership is needed in a post-crisis city. At the same time, Mr. McGuire is trying to broaden his appeal beyond business leaders. Earlier this month, Mr. McGuire appeared in Minneapolis outside the courthouse where the former police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial in the killing of George Floyd, praying for justice with Mr. Floyd’s family. Last month, he signed a letter with dozens of the most prominent Black business executives in the country calling on companies to fight restrictive voting laws being pushed by Republicans in more than 40 states.“Now more than ever, we need a mayor who can unify, who can bring together every walk of life, every race, every community and every industry,” Mr. McGuire said on Sunday.Mr. McGuire, seen on the steps of Queens Borough Hall, is trying to broaden his appeal beyond business leaders. Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesHe used the language of New York’s first and only Black mayor, David N. Dinkins, calling the city a “beautiful mosaic” and promising to revive it.Mr. McGuire also referenced fellow candidates who had been “running for decades” or others who were “gimmicking as if this were a game show.”On the streets, Mr. McGuire, who is 6-foot-4, seems at ease, mixing jokes with passers-by with more substantive discussions with a community activist about his plans for young people.“All that has to happen between now and June is more people getting to know and meet Ray,” said Assemblyman Robert J. Rodriguez, a Democrat from East Harlem who has endorsed Mr. McGuire and joined him at campaign events. “Some of the other candidates like Yang had the benefit of a presidential campaign to help solve that problem. If that’s our biggest issue, then it’s just really a race against time.”Indeed, Mr. McGuire has begun to step up the pace of his in-person campaigning, following the example of Andrew Yang, the presumptive front-runner who has aggressively courted voters in person during the pandemic.But it is Mr. Meeks’s endorsement that may carry the most weight among engaged voters, particularly in the Black community, whose support he and Mr. Adams, a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, are competing for. A group of 150 supporters from East Asian, South Asian and Black communities gathered on the steps of Queens Borough Hall for the endorsement.“Meeks represents Black homeowners who turn out to vote in primaries, have a nuanced understanding of policing and economics and a clear picture of what they want New York City and their community to look like,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “They are not looking for the most progressive candidate.”Asked about Mr. McGuire’s performance in early polls, Mr. Meeks said he was unconcerned because many voters remained undecided.“This is the beginning,” Mr. Meeks said. “I refer everyone back to eight years ago. At this time, Bill de Blasio was nowhere to be seen on a polling site.” Mr. de Blasio later staged a surprise victory.Unlike Mr. Adams and other candidates more established in New York politics, Mr. McGuire must “simultaneously introduce people to who he is and articulate his vision,” Professor Greer said, and he is trying to do so by using the “shortcut of celebrity to introduce himself and then talk about his policies.”He is also using television ads, spending far more than the rest of the field combined.Some ads relate Mr. McGuire’s rise from his childhood in Dayton, Ohio, where he was raised by a single mother. He would attend private school before going on to attain three degrees at Harvard University and launching a career in investment banking on Wall Street. Other ads emphasize that Mr. McGuire believes his management experience is what’s needed to help the city recover, but that he never forgot where he came from in spite of his wealth. The mayoral candidate speaking at Antioch Baptist Church of Corona in Queens. “We’ve got to come off Zoom and get into the streets,” Mr. McGuire’s campaign manager said.Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesOther ads showcase his endorsement from Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, a man who died after being placed in a chokehold by the police on Staten Island in 2014, or highlight his “comeback plan” to create 500,000 jobs, support small and minority-owned businesses and promote early childhood education.The ads do not make much of his ties to his backers on Wall Street, or his relationships with various celebrities. At a virtual fund-raiser earlier this year, Mr. McGuire held court with Jeff Bewkes, the former chief executive of Time Warner; the actor and comedian Steve Martin; Peter Malkin, the developer whose family controls the Empire State Building; and Charles Oakley, the retired New York Knicks star.The road to the joint endorsement began when Jay-Z called Mr. McGuire last year to ask for help with starting a fund to benefit Black and Latino people. The rapper and entrepreneur wanted Mr. McGuire to head the enterprise.Mr. McGuire told Jay-Z that he had a different plan in mind, divulging his thoughts about running for mayor of New York City.“I was like, man, there goes that,” Jay-Z said in the video unveiling the endorsement.Steve Stoute, a former record executive who heads an ad agency, also endorsed Mr. McGuire on the video with Jay-Z, Diddy and Nas.“If we don’t get this right, we got problems,” Mr. Stoute said in an interview. “You need somebody to come in who’s been successful at building something before, at fixing a problem. Politicians manage the status quo.”Mr. Meeks, left, with Mr. McGuire, right, his wife, Crystal McCrary McGuire, and their son Leo in Queens on Sunday.Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesFor now, Mr. McGuire is busy managing his image with average voters. Instead of doing his usual Friday night virtual chat from his home on Central Park West, Mr. McGuire held the forum from Jamaica, Queens, where he was greeting voters at the AirTrain.On Wednesday, he was supposed to spend the day with advisers and his finance team, but the campaign called a last-minute audible and sent the candidate up to Harlem for a rally to honor Betty Park, the owner of Manna’s soul food restaurant, and to call for an end to anti-Asian violence.Mr. McGuire wore a backpack and a face mask, and worked the crowd before the event handing out fliers. He talked about his plan to create affordable housing and keep the neighborhood safe after it experienced an increase in gun violence during the pandemic. With Mr. McGuire already standing on one side of Ms. Park, Mr. Adams suddenly appeared and stood on the other.Brian Benjamin, a state senator representing the area who is running for city comptroller, spoke at the rally and was surprised to see Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuire.“I said, ‘What’s going on?’” Mr. Benjamin said. “It is very rare to have this kind of mayoral presence.”Mr. McGuire may have to continue to be visible at small community events over the next two months if he expects to win, according to Lloyd Williams, president of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce.“He has major corporate supporters and money. What he doesn’t have is a history of working closely with the communities he wants to represent,” said Mr. Williams, who hasn’t endorsed in the race. “That means he has to spend more time, but he’s running out of time.” More

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      In a Changing Boston, a New Mayor Challenges the Police

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      Three weeks into her tenure as Boston’s acting mayor, Kim Janey has done something her predecessor did not: order the police to release documents about a leader accused of sexual abuse.BOSTON — Three weeks after her swearing-in as acting mayor of Boston, Kim Janey was enjoying a sort of honeymoon, enacting feel-good policies like forgiving library fines and basking in the spotlight that came with her status as the city’s first Black and first female mayor.Though she had landed the position in part by happenstance — she was City Council president when her predecessor, Martin J. Walsh, was tapped to be secretary of labor — Ms. Janey has moved slowly and deliberately to build her political profile, taking her place on the growing list of Black women running major U.S. cities.That cautious approach ended last Saturday, when Ms. Janey found herself responding to a police scandal.A report in The Boston Globe reviewed the handling of sex abuse allegations involving Patrick M. Rose, 66, the former president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, the largest and most muscular of the city’s three major police unions.The police, The Globe reported, had allowed Mr. Rose to serve for more than two decades after a 12-year-old accused him of sexual assault. Though the victim ultimately recanted and the criminal case was closed, an internal affairs investigation by the police subsequently found he had most likely broken the law.Those allegations resurfaced last year, when another child came forward, alleging abuse between the ages of 7 and 12, followed by four more victims. Mr. Rose was ultimately charged with more than 30 counts of sexual abuse of children.Patrick M. Rose, former president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, served on the police force for two decades after a 12-year-old accused him of sexual assault.Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe, via Associated PressMr. Rose maintains his innocence, both in the 1995 charges and in the more recent ones, said his lawyer, William J. Keefe.Ms. Janey, one of six candidates running for election in November, was faced with a choice: Should she keep the internal police records private, as Mayor Walsh, her predecessor in City Hall, had, citing the victims’ desire for privacy?Or should she take the path urged by fellow progressives in the City Council, demanding that the police release the records to the public — and risk unsettling the victims and poisoning her relationship with the powerful police union? This week, Ms. Janey’s choice became clear.“As a mother and as a grandmother I was heartbroken and angry to learn nothing was done to keep Mr. Rose away from children, or to terminate him, for that matter,” she said. “Transparency cannot wait any longer.”Her decision points to a larger political calculus, said Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University.“She has probably made the calculation that she is better off without the police, which is amazing,” he said. “Because the support of the police is, to some extent, code for the support of white voters in Boston.”This election will provide a snapshot of a city undergoing rapid change, as professionals move into neighborhoods once dominated by middle-income Irish-American and Italian-American families.Though Boston’s white population had dipped to 44 percent by 2017, white voters historically turn out in far greater numbers in city elections, and police union endorsements, telegraphed early in the race, were signals to them.This year, however, “none of the top-tier candidates are shopping for police support,” said Erin O’Brien, a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston.A poll released on Wednesday by WBUR and MassINC, a polling group, found that 46 percent of voters were still undecided. But it identified two front-runners — City Councilor Michelle Wu, with 19 percent support, and Ms. Janey, with 18 percent — who are both outspoken proponents of policing reform.Describing the way politicians viewed the police in the past, Dr. O’Brien said, “It’s like the boogeyman, in some ways — ‘don’t cross the police, don’t cross the police’ — well, no one’s done it, they’re afraid of them.” Rachael Rollins beat a prosecutor with police backing when she was elected Suffolk County district attorney in 2018.Cody O’Loughlin for The New York TimesBut recent elections suggest the clout of the police is waning, she said, pointing to the 2018 upset win of Rachael Rollins, a progressive, as district attorney in Boston, over a longtime prosecutor with police backing. Dr. O’Brien compared the union’s political clout to the Wizard of Oz, who appears formidable but only from a distance.“They have a lot of power until the curtain gets pulled,” she said. “The question is whether the curtain has already been pulled.”The internal affairs file on Mr. Rose, which will be made public early next week, should shed light on the decision to return him to street duty after a 12-year-old came forward with an allegation of sexual abuse.Although the victim’s complaint was dropped, ending the first criminal prosecution, a subsequent internal affairs investigation by the police, which uses the lower legal standard of preponderance of the evidence, found he had broken the law, according to The Globe.The findings should have been forwarded to the department’s legal adviser and the police commissioner at the time, Paul F. Evans, who would determine a punishment, said Daniel Linskey, a former superintendent in chief of the Boston Police, who is now a managing director at Kroll, a security consultancy firm.Mr. Linskey said he supported Mayor Janey’s decision to make the files public, which he said could help “restore trust and integrity in the system.”He added that, as far as he knows, police officers are not rallying to Mr. Rose’s defense.“I don’t think the police union is going to die on the hill for this one,” he said. “There is no rallying cry behind Pat on this because the information to date seems to indicate that there is some substance to the charges.”Mr. Keefe, Mr. Rose’s lawyer, said his client did not pressure any witness to withdraw the charges.“He denies anyone was pressured to do anything,” he said.A police spokesperson referred The New York Times to the mayor’s statement. An official at the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association did not respond to requests for comment.The Rose case is only one of the thorny police matters that Mayor Janey inherited, including the fact that the department has no permanent commissioner. Though Mr. Walsh appointed one, a veteran officer named Dennis White, he was placed on paid leave after The Globe reported that he had threatened to shoot his wife, also a Boston police officer, and was later ordered to stay away from his family.Many of the legal structures governing Boston’s police, like overtime rules and disciplinary practices, are outside the direct authority of the mayor, determined in collective bargaining between the city and the unions.Still, Mr. Walsh, before leaving office, had embarked on new steps to increase oversight of police, including creating a new Office of Police Accountability, which includes a civilian review board.Thomas Nolan, who served as a Boston police officer for 27 years and is now an associate professor at Emmanuel College, said Boston could follow the lead of cities like Oakland, Calif., or Chicago, which have increased civilian control over policing.“It may come to a point where we scratch our head and say, ‘Do you know there was a time when they let the police investigate themselves for wrongdoing?’” he said. “The accountability will come when they can’t basically absolve their own people of wrongdoing.” More

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      Dark Money in the New York Mayor’s Race

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      This year’s election is shaping up to be the city’s first in which super PACs play a major role.The New York City mayor’s race already has a national-politics tinge thanks to one guy: the businessman Andrew Yang, whose long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination sputtered out early last year, but who is now seen as a front-runner in the city’s mayoral election. (That’s despite his knack for eliciting groans on Twitter.)But it’s not just the personalities that are bridging the divide between local and national politics. It’s also the money.This mayoral election is shaping up to be the city’s first in which super PACs — the dark-money groups that sprang up after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission — play a major role.But it’s also the first race in which a number of candidates are taking advantage of a city policy that allows campaigns to gain access to more generous public matching funds, based upon their level of grass-roots support.With the potentially decisive Democratic primary just over two months away, our Metro reporters Dana Rubinstein and Jeffery C. Mays have written an article looking at how the hunt for super PAC cash is complicating the race — and raising ethical questions about some campaigns, including a few that are also receiving public matching funds. Dana took a moment out of her Friday afternoon to catch me up on where things stand.Hi Dana. So, the Citizens United decision was handed down in 2010. Yet it seems as if this is the first time we’re hearing about super PACs being used in a big way in the New York mayor’s race. How does this development interact with the city’s newly beefed-up matching-funds policy, which is aimed at encouraging small donations? Is this a case of contradictory policies — or, as a source in your story put it, “like patching one part of your roof and the water finds another way in”?There was some independent-expenditure (or “I.E.”) activity in the 2013 mayoral primary, but it wasn’t candidate specific — with one possible exception. There was a super PAC called New York City Is Not for Sale that was candidate specific, in the sense that it was targeting one candidate, Christine Quinn, and it got its funding from Bill de Blasio supporters. But this is really the first time we’ve seen candidate-specific I.E.s. As they’ve proliferated on the national level, New York City candidates have been taking their cues from the national scene.If you talk to folks at the Brennan Center, who are big advocates for the matching-funds program, they’ll point to it and say that voters should take heart, because in many ways it is proving itself to be a success. The six mayoral candidates who qualified for matching funds this year were the most ever. The matching funds are being doled out in accordance with how many voters from New York City are contributing to campaigns, and that means someone like Dianne Morales, who has no previous electoral history and was not at all a big player in the New York political scene before this election, is able to make a real case for the mayoralty. She is able to mount a real campaign. She got like $2 million in matching funds in this round.But then you have this parallel universe of super PAC money. And in some cases you have candidates who are getting matching funds — which are our taxpayer dollars — and benefiting from super PACs. Of course, super PACs are supposed to be independent and not coordinate with campaigns, but regardless, for some voters it’s hard to see that and think it’s an ideal scenario.Basically, what we have is two parallel fund-raising systems: One is almost completely ungoverned, and the other is very strictly regulated and involves taxpayer money.Who is leading the race for super PAC money in New York? And what’s the overall state of the race these days, money matters aside?Shaun Donovan, the former housing secretary under President Barack Obama, is participating in the matching-funds program, and he has a super PAC. Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, has a super PAC too — although a much less lucrative one — and is also taking matching funds. Andrew Yang has one super PAC that was formed by a longtime friend of his named David Rose; it’s raised a nominal amount of money, but no one is under the illusion that it won’t start raising a lot soon. And there’s this other super PAC connected to Yang that’s supposedly in the works, and that Lis Smith, who was involved in Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, is involved with.Then there is Ray McGuire, a former Citigroup executive and one of the highest-ranking African-American bank executives ever. He has a super PAC that has raised $4 million from all kinds of recognizable names. They’re spending a lot, with the goal to just sort of increase his name recognition.As far as the state of the race, we have no idea. As you can attest, there’s been virtually no credible polling here. In terms of the available polls, there is some uniformity to what they suggest: Yang has a lead, yet half of voters are undecided. You have Eric Adams, Scott Stringer, Maya Wiley, and then the rest of the pack.It is both too soon to say and also alarmingly close to the actual primary election day, June 22. We really don’t have a sense of where things stand. When you add to this ranked-choice voting, which is new this year, it’s really an open question.Earlier you mentioned Shaun Donovan, whose story figures prominently into the article you and Jeff just wrote. Fill us in on what’s going on there.In addition to being the former housing secretary for Obama, he was the budget director. So he’s a very well-regarded technocrat — who also is the son of a wealthy ad-tech executive. Someone formed a super PAC to support his candidacy for mayor; that super PAC has raised a little over $2 million, and exactly $2 million of that sum was donated by his dad.It’s completely within the realm of possibility that his dad was like, “You know what, I really love my son, I think he’d be a great mayor, I’m going to fund his super PAC,” without any coordination about how that money would be used. But it’s hard for some people to imagine a scenario where a father and son don’t talk about this kind of thing. Or maybe it isn’t! The point is that it’s almost unknowable, isn’t it?There’s a lot of winking and nodding involved in this stuff, and you don’t necessarily need direct coordination in order to have what is effectively coordination.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Andrew Yang Responds: ‘My Targeted Plan for the City Will Be a Lifeline for Many’

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      The candidate for mayor of New York responds to a column by Paul Krugman.To the Editor:In “Andrew Yang Hasn’t Done the Math” (column, April 16), Paul Krugman criticized a proposal I have not put forth as part of my run for mayor of New York.My plan is a targeted $1 billion cash relief initiative to distribute $2,000 a year to the 500,000 poorest New Yorkers.This will mitigate the disproportionate impact of automation on Black, Hispanic and Asian New Yorkers. A new report by the Center for an Urban Future found that nearly half of all job tasks held by Hispanic men can be automated.We know that targeted cash relief works. The Atlantic and Bloomberg recently reported on the success of a pilot in Stockton, Calif. Compared with the control group, several positive outcomes were found for the 125 people in lower-income neighborhoods who received $500 a month.Likewise, the federal stimulus checks also played a crucial role in lessening the economic disruption of the pandemic. Despite big job losses — most felt by women of color — the poverty rate actually fell after people received cash deposits.My 2020 presidential campaign elevated cash relief as an anti-poverty solution, and if I am elected, my targeted plan for the city will be a lifeline for many.The research is there.Andrew YangNew YorkThe writer is a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York. More

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      Outside Money Floods Mayor’s Race, Raising Ethics Concerns

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      For the first time since the Supreme Court allowed unlimited spending in elections, candidate super PACs are flooding money into a New York mayoral election.New York City’s pivotal mayor’s race has unleashed an army of super PACs the likes of which the city has never seen.Raymond J. McGuire, the former Citigroup executive, has one. So, too, does Shaun Donovan, President Barack Obama’s former housing secretary, and Scott Stringer, New York City’s comptroller. Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, has one and soon may get another.The proliferation of super PACs supporting individual candidates in the race — a familiar theme in presidential races, but unheard of in a New York City mayoral contest — points to the gravity of this year’s election in the midst of a pandemic.But it also raises the question of whether the super PACs are simply a way to get around campaign finance limits and may lead to scrutiny of possible coordination between the outside funds and political campaigns, a practice that would violate campaign finance rules.The issue came into sharp focus on Thursday, when New York City’s Campaign Finance Board withheld the release of public matching funds to Mr. Donovan’s campaign. The board said it wanted to ensure there had been no coordination between the campaign and the super PAC supporting him, which is largely funded by his father.In a statement he read during the Thursday meeting, board chairman Frederick Schaffer said the board required further information from the Donovan campaign and New Start N.Y.C., the super PAC created to support Mr. Donovan’s campaign.The board first reached out to New Start N.Y.C. for more information on March 25, following a New York Times article on the super PAC, according to its treasurer, Brittany Wise. The super PAC responded the very next day.Michael Donovan, Mr. Donovan’s father, said there has been absolutely no coordination between him and his son. They talk “about the grandchildren” and other personal matters, he said.“I’m very dis-involved, and my son is very very careful that we don’t talk about anything involving the PAC,” said Mr. Donovan, an ad tech executive, when reached by phone.Ms. Wise said there had been no coordination with the campaign. Jeremy Edwards, a spokesman for Mr. Donovan, said, “We follow the law.”The questions surrounding Mr. Donovan illustrate the continued repercussions of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed unlimited outside spending in elections.Coordination between super PACs and political campaigns is notoriously hard to prove. And the penalties, when there are any, are often slaps on the wrist.The stakes are particularly high in New York City, which is deploying its new, more generous matching funds program — designed to reward candidates who raise small-dollar donations from New York City residents — for the first time in a mayor’s race. On Thursday, the board doled out another $10 million to six qualifying candidates in the race, including Mr. Stringer and Mr. Yang.The board gave out $2.3 million to Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner; $2.2 million to Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit head; $900,000 to Maya Wiley, the MSNBC analyst and former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio; and $300,000 to the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams — candidates who so far have no apparent super PAC support.Critics argue that the rise of super PACs threatens the efficacy of the new system by allowing candidates to effectively have it both ways. Mr. Donovan, Mr. Stringer and Mr. Yang are participating in the matching funds program. Mr. McGuire is not.“Right now, independent expenditures are a monster that’s getting bigger and bigger, and the good guys have not figured out a way to slay it yet,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good-government group. “It’s like patching one part of your roof and the water finds another way in.”There were no super PACs explicitly supporting individual candidates in the 2013 mayoral primary, officials said.This mayoral election is different. Mr. McGuire’s super PAC has raised more than $4 million dollars from donors like Kenneth Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot; the art world philanthropist Agnes Gund; and the real estate developer Aby J. Rosen.Mr. Donovan’s has raised more than $2 million, nearly all of it from his father. The super PAC for Mr. Stringer, a collaboration between Food and Water Action and New York Communities for Change, a social justice group, was just formed on Monday. It aims to raise a modest $50,000 to $100,000, using those resources to mobilize a pre-existing volunteer network, according to its treasurer, Sam Bernhardt.Mr. Yang’s super PAC, Future Forward NYC, has only raised $35,000 so far, according to state records, though its founder, the entrepreneur and investor David Rose, said he aims to raise more than $7 million.Mr. Rose suggested that the existing spending limit for campaigns that participate in the matching funds system — $7.3 million — was not enough to win a New York City mayor’s race.“New York City is the single biggest market around, and to try to do a big campaign on quote-un-quote that kind of money is challenging in this media market,” he said in an interview. “My goal is to see if we can double that.”Lis Smith, a former adviser to the presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg, said she was also in the process of organizing a super PAC supporting Mr. Yang’s candidacy, aiming to counteract the bombardment of negative advertising that the presumptive front-runner is expected to face in the coming weeks.The goal is to raise $6 million, Ms. Smith said, so that Mr. Yang’s message was not “drowned out by millions of dollars in negativity.”The PAC, reported by Politico, is partnering with veteran ad makers and political operatives who have worked on behalf of Mr. Obama and Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.“Every day Andrew’s opponents wake up, get out of bed, attack Andrew, and then go to sleep,” Ms. Smith said. “We need to make sure their negativity doesn’t drown out Andrew’s message.”Kimberly Peeler-Allen, the treasurer of New York for Ray, the super PAC supporting Mr. McGuire’s candidacy, said the spending allows Mr. McGuire to compete. The PAC has spent more than $2 million on ads to introduce the candidate to the general public.Ms. Peeler-Allen acknowledged that super PACs are problematic. But she and Ms. Smith also argued that it makes no sense to unilaterally disengage in a race with so much at stake.“Until there is significant campaign finance reform in this country, we have to use the tools that we have to create the change that we want to have,” Ms. Peeler-Allen said.Mayor de Blasio, who has himself engaged in creative fund-raising efforts that have drawn legal scrutiny, agreed.“We need a reset in this whole country on campaign finance,” he said on Thursday. “We need a constitutional amendment to overcome the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, and we need to reset the whole equation to get money out of politics across the board.” More

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      Scott Stringer Has Trained to Be Mayor for Decades. Will Voters Be Persuaded?

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      He Has Trained to Be Mayor for Decades. Will Voters Be Persuaded?Scott Stringer’s deep experience in New York City politics has yet to translate into momentum in the mayor’s race. Could an endorsement from the Working Families Party help?Scott Stringer, center, hopes to use his eight years as city comptroller as a launchpad to the mayoralty.Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesThe New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the second in a series of profiles of the major candidates.April 14, 2021On a late February morning in Tribeca, the most seasoned politician in the New York City mayor’s race was sitting outside, futzing with his fogging-up eyeglasses as he wrestled with an assessment of an election that appeared to be slipping from his grasp.For Scott M. Stringer, every chapter of his steady ascent through New York politics — serving on a community planning board as a teenager; becoming a protégé of Representative Jerrold Nadler; moving from district leader to state assemblyman, Manhattan borough president and finally, city comptroller — has laid the groundwork for a long-expected mayoral bid.He has deep experience, boasts a raft of endorsements and verges on jubilant when describing his passion for his hometown. For much of the mayoral campaign, none of that has been enough to generate a surge of enthusiasm around his candidacy, according to polling and interviews with more than 30 activists, lawmakers and other New York Democrats.Mr. Stringer is working hard to change that.“If I was a book, and you’re in a bookstore and you saw the cover of the book, you may say, ‘I’m not sure I want to read that,’” Mr. Stringer said, framing a picture of himself with his hands, reaching from his head to his midline.“What my job is, is to get people of all different backgrounds to take that book off the shelf, open up the book, look at the different chapters of my career and the issues I’ve championed.”While several major labor endorsements have eluded Mr. Stringer, he won the backing of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesMr. Stringer, 60, would appear to have the resources, the résumé and the name recognition to do just that, trailing only Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, in funds on hand so far.He is hoping that his carefully cultivated political network and a mood of citywide emergency will help him attract voters motivated by both his progressive pitch and his pledges of steady managerial competence.On Tuesday, Mr. Stringer was endorsed as the first choice of the Working Families Party, aiding his efforts to emerge as the race’s left-wing standard-bearer.Still, in recent months, it is Andrew Yang — embraced as a celebrity from the 2020 presidential race — who has led polls and infused significant energy into the mayoral campaign. Mr. Stringer, who began the race as a top candidate, has scrambled to brand Mr. Yang as an unserious purveyor of “half-baked ideas” even as he dominates news media coverage.Mr. Adams and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, beat out Mr. Stringer for several major labor endorsements. Those candidates and others in the crowded field are also competing with Mr. Stringer for either the “government experience” mantle or the title of left-wing standard-bearer.And for all of his prominent supporters, detailed policy plans and ambitious ideas on issues like climate and post-pandemic education, Mr. Stringer is also a white man who spent his career rising through traditional political institutions. New York Democrats in several recent races have preferred to elevate candidates of color and political outsiders.Now he faces his most challenging balancing act to date, as he campaigns as a veteran government official while seeking to ally himself with the activist left.“He’s trying to thread this needle between new and old supporters,” said Susan Kang, a member of the steering committee of the New York City Democratic Socialists, in an interview late last month. “You know how if you try to make everybody happy, you don’t make anybody happy? That is something that has given people pause.”Yet with the Working Families Party’s endorsement, Mr. Stringer found new cause for optimism. It was a signal to deeply progressive voters that the group believes they should unite around supporting Mr. Stringer’s candidacy, at a time of growing left-wing concern about Mr. Yang.Mr. Stringer remains in contention for other major endorsements, including one from the United Federation of Teachers. And he is aware that many voters have just begun to pay attention. Major debates do not begin until May, and the race to the June 22 primary may not crystallize until more candidates hit the airwaves with television advertising in the final weeks of the race.Still, one supporter recently compared Mr. Stringer to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mr. Stringer’s choice in the 2020 presidential primary. Like Ms. Warren, Mr. Stringer has a long list of policy plans and is thoughtful about governance. But Ms. Warren, the ally noted, did not win.Mr. Stringer said his campaign planned to be “very aggressive” in the coming weeks, “reminding people of my record and who I am and what I believe in and what I would do as mayor.”“I need a message moment,” he said.A political upbringingAs a state assemblyman, Mr. Stringer made an unsuccessful bid for New York City public advocate in 2001.Robert Rosamilio/New York Daily News Archive, via Getty ImagesAny book written about Mr. Stringer would have a common theme: He is a political animal.Mr. Stringer, born to a politically active Jewish family, was raised in Washington Heights. His father was counsel to Mayor Abraham Beame, his mother was elected to the City Council, and his stepfather also worked in city government.He made his campaign trail debut at age 12, volunteering for Representative Bella S. Abzug, his mother’s cousin, who went on to run for mayor.At 16, he was tapped for a community planning board position. His appointment made the front page of The New York Times, and while on the board, he honed a version of at least one line that he still uses today: that the A train was his “lifeline.” Soon he was working for Mr. Nadler, serving on his assembly staff.“He was a little cocky,” Mr. Nadler recalled. “He learned to restrain that and to work with people very carefully.”Mr. Stringer, who did a stint as a tenant organizer, also served as a Democratic district leader in the 1980s, building a base on the Upper West Side, where the political culture reflects a vibrant Jewish community.Longtime observers tend to reach for Yiddish phrases of affection and derision to describe him. Admirers call the affable Mr. Stringer, a married public-school father of two sons, a “mensch.” Detractors privately dismiss the nasal-voiced candidate as a “nebbish.”Mr. Stringer and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, live in Manhattan with their two sons, who attend public school.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesNew York City voters have often embraced politicians with more boldly distinctive personas.Mr. Stringer, who once taught his parrot to say “Vote for Scott,” is working on it.Asked in a campaign video to share something about himself that might surprise others, Mr. Stringer insisted, “I really am funny.” After a reporter asked him to tell a joke, Mr. Stringer spent the rest of an hourlong interview sprinkling his remarks with wisecracks.“Scott, when he’s not doing his work politically, he’s actually quite funny, he’s got a great personality” said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers. “But I guess because of his years of experience, he’s guarded when he’s doing his governmental work.”Mr. Stringer was elected to the State Assembly in 1992, following failed efforts running bars. In Albany, he pressed for some reforms of the State Capitol’s insular political culture, including a requirement that lawmakers be present in order to cast their votes.In 2005, he won a nine-way primary race for Manhattan borough president.Over the years he forged a reputation as a liberal who supported marriage equality and tenants’ rights, was skeptical of stop-and-frisk policing tactics, and had strong relationships with labor leaders and some reform-minded candidates. And he sharpened his skills as a strong retail campaigner who delights in touring senior centers.Representative Jerrold Nadler, who served as a mentor to Mr. Stringer, said that over the years, his protégé “learned to work with people very carefully.”John Marshall Mantel for The New York TimesHe mulled and abandoned several options for higher office, including a 2013 mayoral bid. Instead, he ran for city comptroller. In the greatest test of his career, he faced a late entry from Eliot Spitzer, the deep-pocketed and aggressive former governor who resigned after revelations of his involvement with a prostitution ring.Many had expected Mr. Spitzer to steamroll Mr. Stringer. For awhile, he seemed on track to do so. But Mr. Stringer held his own in a brutally personal race and overcame a polling deficit, though Mr. Spitzer beat Mr. Stringer with Black voters by significant margins.“We were not just behind early, we were behind at the end,” Mr. Stringer said. “I fought back through the debates, through the campaigning, and I won. So for me, this positioning is what I’m used to.”There are key differences, though: In 2013, Mr. Stringer had overwhelming support from unions and the political establishment. Now, labor endorsements are more scattered.And this race is unfolding in a pandemic. He had been cautious about in-person campaigning, after his mother died from Covid-related complications. Now vaccinated, he is seeking to match the more frenetic pace that some rivals, most notably Mr. Yang, have maintained for months.In 2013, Mr. Stringer won the Democratic primary for comptroller, holding off the former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, left, a late entry in the race.Angel Franco/The New York TimesAs comptroller, Mr. Stringer handled issues from housing authority audits to promoting kosher and halal food in public schools.He also supported closing Rikers Island and was a key part of the effort to divest $4 billion in city pension funds from fossil fuel companies; he cited that initiative when asked to name the proudest accomplishment of his career.People who have watched Mr. Stringer in the role say that he has been active in issuing audits and reports on issues vital to the city’s well-being, while embracing a time-honored comptroller tradition of tangling with the mayor.“Have there been contracts that have gone haywire? It doesn’t seem so,” said State Senator John C. Liu, who preceded Mr. Stringer as comptroller and has yet to endorse in the mayor’s race. “Has the office conducted audits that improved the performance of agencies? I believe there have been some.”On the whole, Mr. Liu ruled, “He has done a fine job as comptroller.”Kathryn S. Wylde, who heads the business-aligned Partnership for New York City, said that she believed Mr. Stringer had been “bold on corporate governance issues, he’s been bold in taking on the mayor.”Mr. Stringer has pressed for more disclosures about board diversity, and he has sharply criticized the de Blasio administration over issues ranging from affordable housing to its handling of prekindergarten contracts.“He’s done an aggressive job — and substantive — on all the key responsibilities of the comptroller,” Ms. Wylde said.To many New Yorkers, Mr. Stringer retains a reputation of being a traditional Democrat. He supported Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race, and served as a delegate for Mrs. Clinton. In 2018, he supported Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over his progressive challenger, Cynthia Nixon.Mr. Stringer has since called for Mr. Cuomo’s resignation amid accusations of sexual harassment.A progressive wager Mr. Stringer has been willing to back progressive challengers in contested Democratic primaries, as he did with his support for Tiffany Cabán in the Queens district attorney’s race in 2019.Scott Heins/Getty ImagesLast September, a group of New York’s leading left-leaning lawmakers, many of them women and people of color, gathered at Inwood Hill Park to cheer on Mr. Stringer’s announcement for mayor.It was a scene years in the making.In early 2018, Alessandra Biaggi and Jessica Ramos were political unknowns, seeking to topple powerful moderate members of the State Senate. Mr. Stringer heard out Ms. Biaggi over a side of pickles at the Riverdale Diner; Ms. Ramos of Queens sought his support at drinks in Albany.He became an early champion of several insurgent progressives, cultivating genuine relationships over strategy sessions, phone calls and meals. Those endorsements were an uncertain political bet at the time.By last fall, they appeared to have paid off: As he announced his mayoral campaign, he was flanked by a diverse group of progressive lawmakers — including State Senators Biaggi and Ramos — who, to their admirers, represent the future of the party.It is less clear if their endorsements will translate into grass-roots enthusiasm for Mr. Stringer among voters who are skeptical of his left-wing bona fides.In his 2005 borough president race, a rival ran an ad criticizing Mr. Stringer for taking real estate developer money at a time when the city’s traditional power donors were looking for receptive politicians (the mayor at the time, the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg, accepted no donations). It wasn’t until much more recently that he said he would stop taking cash from big developers, as prominent progressives highlighted the issue.He has become a sharp critic of segregated schools, saying definitively that he wants to eliminate the admissions exam that determines access to top city high schools, which some critics say perpetuates racial inequality. But he has not typically been associated with major integration efforts in past years.And he appears uncomfortable discussing aspects of the policing debate.Amid protests over the killing of George Floyd, Mr. Stringer declared that it was time to defund the police.But Mr. Stringer no longer emphasizes calls to “defund,” a term associated with a specific movement — another reminder that he is not fully part of the activist left. Pressed on whether he believed the phrase was divisive, Mr. Stringer would not answer directly.“I have used it,” he said. “I don’t think you should be judged based on, you know, one word or another word. And I do believe that when you’re going to talk about these issues, you have to be prepared to come forth with a plan.”He has proposed reallocating $1.1 billion in police funds over four years and has been more specific on the matter than some of his rivals, though Dianne Morales, perhaps the race’s most left-wing candidate, has pushed for far more, urging $3 billion in cuts from the police budget.At the height of the racial justice protests last year, Mr. Stringer said he supported defunding the police. Now he typically avoids the phrase.Jeenah Moon/Getty ImagesNo saga better illustrates Mr. Stringer’s political high-wire act than his 2019 endorsement in the Queens district attorney race. His embrace of Tiffany L. Cabán, the choice of the New York Democratic Socialists, over Melinda Katz, a colleague from his Assembly days who narrowly won, delighted progressive activists but stunned old allies.Critics who spoke with him at the time say Mr. Stringer had privately described New Yorkers as moving to the left, and they sensed that he wanted to embrace that shift. Mr. Stringer has said he believed Ms. Cabán, who is now running for City Council, was the more qualified candidate, but he also sounded testy when pressed on his decision in an interview with a Jewish outlet, to the irritation of some activists.“Scott, you know, seemed to have changed some of his positions over the years,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, the chairman of the Queens Democrats. “That has caused him, in Queens County at least, which I can speak to, to have some difficulty.”Competence over ideology?Mr. Stringer often says that he is prepared to “manage the hell out of the city” if elected mayor.Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesFrom Mr. Stringer’s earliest days in politics, he learned to think strategically about relationships.He has maintained communication with business leaders, and his central message that he will be prepared from Day 1 to “manage the hell out of the city” is not ideological.Ms. Wylde said that some business leaders “know him as a steady hand.”“When I think he’s going totally off the deep end, we have a conversation,” she added.Ranked-choice voting, which enables voters to support up to five candidates, will test Mr. Stringer’s political skills like never before.Even if he is not the favorite of deeply progressive voters, he hopes to be their second choice. That could also work with moderates who see him as more of a manager than a firebrand. But first he must cement his standing as a leading candidate in the homestretch of the race.Mr. Stringer knows that he has significant work to do.In a campaign video he filmed to introduce himself to voters, he said that his favorite movie was “The Candidate,” a 1972 film that traced the arc of a dazzling young candidate, played by Robert Redford, who had little understanding of government process.He has little in common with Mr. Redford’s character. But Mr. Stringer, too, must prove that he can win. More