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      Andrew Yang Wins Endorsement from Left-Wing Rival Carlos Menchaca

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      Carlos Menchaca, who bowed out of the New York City mayoral race last month, will endorse his former opponent.Andrew Yang may be leading early polls in the New York City mayor’s race, but he has nonetheless faced skepticism from many left-leaning voters and trails most of his main Democratic rivals in endorsements.On Wednesday, Mr. Yang will try to counter that skepticism, announcing that he has landed the support of Carlos Menchaca, a city councilman from Brooklyn.Before dropping out of the mayor’s race last month, Mr. Menchaca had positioned himself as one of the most left-leaning Democrats in the field.Mr. Menchaca, who is Mexican-American and grew up in public housing in Texas, is best known for scuttling the Industry City rezoning on the Brooklyn waterfront last year — the city’s biggest clash over development since the collapse of the Amazon deal in Queens — and for proposing the legislation that created identification cards for undocumented residents.He also called for defunding the police, as has Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive whom Mr. Menchaca often praised on the campaign trail, and who would have been a more expected endorsement choice.But Mr. Menchaca said in an interview that he was drawn to Mr. Yang because of the candidate’s support for universal basic income — even though Mr. Yang’s plan for New York involves a pared-down model — and his proposal to create a public bank to serve low-income and undocumented residents who do not have a bank account.“We share a lot of values that are rooted in bringing community voices to the table to shape policies,” Mr. Menchaca said.Activists in the left wing of the party have viewed Mr. Yang and Eric Adams — the two perceived front-runners in the race — with suspicion for being too moderate and too friendly toward the business and real estate communities. Neither has embraced the defund movement as Mr. Menchaca has.But Mr. Yang does have backing from two prominent left-leaning Democrats: Representative Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, the first openly gay Afro-Latino member of Congress, and Ron Kim, a Queens assemblyman who has made headlines recently for criticizing Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic.Mr. Yang said in an interview that Mr. Menchaca was part of the “next generation of leaders” who were joining his campaign. Mr. Yang, 46, would be the city’s first Generation X mayor, and Mr. Menchaca, Mr. Torres and Mr. Kim are all younger than him.“Carlos is a young Latino L.G.B.T.Q. progressive leader, and we are excited to have him on board on so many levels,” Mr. Yang said. “He has been fighting for marginalized communities for years.”Carlos Menchaca has generally been associated with causes that are to the left of Mr. Yang’s stances.Gabriele Holtermann/Sipa, via Associated PressMr. Menchaca, who cannot run for the City Council again because of term limits, said he hoped to work in a Yang administration should Mr. Yang win.“We’re going to get him elected with this growing coalition, and then we can start talking about what the next government is going to look like,” he said.Mr. Yang is perhaps best known for promoting universal basic income on the presidential campaign trail. As mayor, he wants to provide 500,000 New Yorkers living in poverty with an average of $2,000 per year. He said the city will pay $1 billion each year toward the program, but he has not said where that money would come from, and critics say the payments are too low to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.He differs from Mr. Menchaca on some issues, most notably on development-related concerns. Mr. Menchaca has been a fierce critic of city rezonings that allow for new development and has raised fears over gentrification, while Mr. Yang says he is generally pro-development. Mr. Yang called the collapse of the Amazon deal a “black eye” for the city and lamented the jobs that could have been created.Mr. Menchaca said he hoped to advocate for community needs with Mr. Yang during future rezoning battles.“Government didn’t listen to constituents” during the Amazon deal, Mr. Menchaca said, “and that would not happen in a Yang administration. That’s not going to happen if I’m there or Ron is there.”Mr. Kim opposed the Amazon deal and a rezoning effort in Flushing, Queens, that was approved by the City Council last year. When Mr. Kim endorsed Mr. Yang early in the mayor’s race, he said he joined the “Yang bus” in part to influence him on issues like rezonings.“I chose to be on that bus so that I can steer that bus in the right direction,” he said.When Mr. Yang ended his 2020 presidential campaign, he related how several of his former rivals, including Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Vice President Kamala Harris, called or sent text messages to commiserate.He said he did the same for Mr. Menchaca when the councilman dropped out, sharing mutual experiences over what it feels like to end a campaign.“We connected on that human level,” Mr. Menchaca. “That’s the kind of mayor I want to have.” More

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      Teachers’ Union Backs Stringer for N.Y.C. Mayor, Giving Him a Boost

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      The endorsement comes at a critical time for the city comptroller, who has struggled to gain traction in the race.New York City’s influential teachers’ union endorsed the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, in the race for mayor on Monday, providing a much-needed boost to a campaign that has struggled to gain momentum thus far, despite Mr. Stringer’s deep experience in city politics.Mr. Stringer is a decades-long ally of the United Federation of Teachers and was long considered the front-runner for its support. With nine weeks before the June 22 primary, the endorsement comes at a critical time: In the limited public polling available, Mr. Stringer consistently trails the former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams.In recent weeks, some labor leaders, political operatives and his own allies had privately worried about Mr. Stringer’s viability in the race, as the more moderate Mr. Yang has threatened his Manhattan base, and left-wing activists and leaders — expected to be solidly in Mr. Stringer’s corner — have not yet coalesced around a single candidate.Mr. Stringer is hoping to assemble a broad coalition that includes both traditional sources of Democratic power — in particular, union support — as well as backing from the left-wing activist slice of the party that has been influential in several recent elections across the city. Last week, in an effort to build a unified progressive front, the Working Families Party endorsed Mr. Stringer as the party’s first choice, followed by Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, and Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.Mr. Stringer referenced his position in the race during a news conference to announce the endorsement on Monday. “This race is getting started,” he said. “I’ve been known to close strong, this union closes strong, and I promise you the race of your lifetime.”The U.F.T.’s endorsement is coveted, because of the union’s political influence and its ability to mobilize its roughly 200,000 members. Still, its members are split into several political caucuses and may not vote as a bloc, and the union does not have the same organizational prowess as other large city unions.Over the last year, the teachers’ union was at odds with elements of the city’s push to reopen schools in the nation’s largest school system during the pandemic, placing the U.F.T. under an unusual level of scrutiny. Some parents who were not politically active before the reopening debate became deeply frustrated by the pace of reopening and critical of the union.It is not at all clear whether there are enough parents who have turned against the union to actually make a difference in the upcoming election; the vast majority of city parents have kept their children learning from home this year, and most city parents do not play close attention to union politics.The city has now reopened all grades for in-person learning, with many younger students back full-time, though some high school students who have returned to classrooms are still learning online from inside their school buildings.Mr. Stringer, who is himself a public school parent, was not a vocal supporter of Mr. de Blasio’s push to bring students back into classrooms last fall and was sometimes sharply critical of the mayor’s effort. Mr. Stringer and his wife decided to send one of their sons back into classrooms last fall and keep their other son learning remotely.As comptroller, Mr. Stringer has also criticized the mayor’s handling of the city’s homeless student crisis, and appeared to briefly jeopardize the rollout of the successful universal prekindergarten program after he raised alarms about the contracting process for some of those programs.Mr. Stringer’s promise to put two teachers in every elementary school classroom as mayor is attractive to the union, since it would boost its membership. But the idea has also appealed to education experts who have said adding more teachers could make traditional public schools more attractive to parents who might have considered gifted and talented programs or private schools, which tend to have large teaching staffs.Mr. Stringer is also one of a small group of mayoral hopefuls who have committed to eliminating the high-stakes exam that dictates entry into the city’s top high schools, including Stuyvesant High School. Like many of his rivals, he is skeptical about charter schools, a position that is all but a prerequisite for the U.F.T.’s backing.Mr. Stringer’s campaign is likely to use the endorsement as fresh evidence that his coalition-building strategy remains viable. Perhaps more than any other candidate in the race, Mr. Stringer’s candidacy — already supported by a long list of prominent New Yorkers — will test whether endorsements move voters in an unpredictable election unfolding amid a pandemic.The U.F.T.’s choice of Mr. Stringer also carries enormous stakes for the union.Unlike other powerful city unions, the teachers union has failed to endorse a winning candidate since 1989, when it backed the former mayor David N. Dinkins. That has prompted concern among U.F.T. officials that the union’s clout in electoral politics could shrink if it again bets on the wrong candidate. The former mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who clashed with the U.F.T. throughout his tenure, went so far as to call the union’s endorsement “the kiss of death” during the 2013 race to replace him.“I don’t know what goes through voters’ minds, but maybe they understand if the U.F.T. wants it, it ain’t good and you don’t want that person,” Mr. Bloomberg said at the time.The outcome of the race could offer major clues about how much weight the U.F.T.’s endorsement — or the backing of any municipal union — still matters in local politics.With the U.F.T. endorsement settled, most major municipal unions have made their choices — with the notable exception of the union representing transit workers. Many prominent unions have backed Mr. Adams, but Ms. Wiley scored a major victory in February when she won the endorsement of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, the city’s largest union.In some years, labor unions have largely flocked to a particular candidate. Mr. Stringer, for example, had overwhelming support from labor groups in his 2013 race for comptroller, when he defeated the former governor, Eliot Spitzer. But this year, the labor endorsements are diffuse.One of the biggest open questions in the mayoral race is whether there will be any union-affiliated independent expenditure effort to stop Mr. Yang — but it is not yet clear which organizations, if any, would have both the resources and the inclination to mount one.Mr. Stringer has won the backing of other education unions, including the union representing school principals and administrators, and the union representing teachers and staff at the City University of New York. Mr. Yang has not earned a major union endorsement yet, but is leading in all publicly available polling.The teachers’ union membership includes about 75,000 active classroom teachers — as well as roughly 64,000 retirees, many of whom no longer live in New York. About 90 percent of the U.F.T.’s delegate assembly — a group of about 3,400 elected representatives, including educators from each school in the city — voted to back Mr. Stringer on Monday afternoon.The union has, for decades, played a major and occasionally decisive role in key education decisions, and that has been particularly true over the last year.The U.F.T. made a number of safety demands last summer, and tensions escalated to the point that the union president, Michael Mulgrew, suggested that teachers would strike if those safety demands were not met. Public health experts supported many of those demands, such as improved ventilation, but some families were angered by the union’s insistence that all rules remain in place even as teachers were vaccinated.Advisers for Mr. Yang are hoping to attract at least some of those disaffected families.During a recent interview on Fox Business, Bradley Tusk, the powerful political strategist and lobbyist who is, with his team, managing Mr. Yang’s campaign, said his candidate “takes positions that are a little at odds with the Democratic orthodoxy on things like education.“The teachers’ unions [have] blocked the ability for students to come back into the schools of New York City,” he added.Though Mr. Yang accused the union of delaying school reopening in an interview with Politico, he walked back his comments during a recent U.F.T. forum held to determine the endorsement. Mr. Yang said he and Mr. Mulgrew had agreed that the mayor, not the union, was primarily to blame for any stumbles on reopening. City Hall officials say that last summer, the union represented a significant obstacle to reopening.Dana Rubinstein contributed reporting. More

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      Yang Lands Last Place on Ballot: 5 Takeaways From the Mayor’s Race

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      The ballot order for the June 22 New York mayoral primary was decided by lottery, not alphabetical order, but Andrew Yang will still appear last.Much of the focus in the New York City mayoral race has been given to the eight best-known Democratic candidates, who lead in fund-raising and in early polling. But on the June 22 primary ballot, none of the eight will appear at the top; that honor will go to a more obscure candidate.For Republican voters, the ballot will be far less involved: There will only be two candidates, after a third dropped out of the race last week.The contest, after months of being largely conducted virtually through online forums and fund-raisers, has shifted to a more normal pace, with candidates hitting the campaign trail in earnest last week. But they can’t put away their laptops just yet — they would risk missing the next big televised debate in May.Here’s what you need to know about the race:12 Democrats will appear on the ballot. Who is first?In a crowded field, being at the top of the ballot could arguably be an advantage, and with a dozen Democrats in the mayor’s race, it is almost certainly better to be first than last.That theory may be tested this year: Aaron Foldenauer, one of the least-known Democrats running for mayor, won top billing in the Board of Elections lottery last week.A lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in Lower Manhattan in 2017, Mr. Foldenauer celebrated the news, tweaking Andrew Yang, who got the last spot.“I’m first on the ballot for mayor, Andrew Yang, and I had to look quite far down the list to find your name!” he said on Twitter.Mr. Yang, considered the current front-runner in the race, responded to his bad fortune with a smiley face: “This feels like grade school where I was always last alphabetically.”Here is the full lineup for Democrats, from top to bottom: Mr. Foldenauer; Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive; Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller; Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive; Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio; Paperboy Prince, a rapper; Art Chang, a former executive at JPMorgan Chase; Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner; Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Isaac Wright Jr., a lawyer who was wrongfully convicted on drug charges; Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary; and Mr. Yang.On the Republican side, there are just two names: Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, who is listed first, and Fernando Mateo, a restaurant operator who has led or founded Hispanics Across America, the state Federation of Taxi Drivers and United Bodegas of America.The only female Republican candidate exits the race.Sara Tirschwell dropped out of the Republican mayoral race after failing to get a sufficient number of petition signatures.Kholood Eid for The New York TimesSara Tirschwell, a former Wall Street executive and the only female candidate in the Republican field, ended her campaign last week after failing to gather enough signatures to make the ballot.“The common wisdom is that the Democratic primary is the de facto election, and that is going to turn out to be true without me in the race,” she said in an interview. “I truly believe that I was the only chance the Republican Party had in the general election.”She said that Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams or Ms. Wiley would be likely to win the Democratic primary and become the next mayor. And she offered to put her “financial acumen” to use for any of them.“I would serve in anybody’s administration — Republican or Democrat — except for Fernando Mateo,” she said, blaming one of Mr. Mateo’s allies for challenging her petitions during a pandemic.Her biggest lesson from the campaign? New Yorkers, she said, want city government to “get back to the basics — picking up the trash and filling potholes.”Ms. Tirschwell said she planned to vote for Mr. Sliwa, who had defended her and had said Mr. Mateo “should call off his henchmen and stop intimidating” her.The first major debate will not be in person.Maya Wiley called for three debates to be held in person.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAs the mayor’s race grows increasingly contentious, a number of the campaigns found agreement around one idea last week: A series of official debates should be held in person.“This election will decide what kind of city we want to be and doing the debates on just another Zoom is not going to cut it,” Ms. Wiley wrote on Twitter as she called for the three primary debates affiliated with the city’s Campaign Finance Board to be held in person. “When I am mayor, I won’t be in a box on a screen, I will be out with New Yorkers and our debates should be the same.”Nearly instantly, many of the leading candidates and campaigns agreed. Many hope to engage with each other directly — and in person — in the homestretch of the race and see the upcoming debates as one of the few opportunities for breakout moments in the contest.But as of now, the first debate, scheduled for next month, is not expected to be held in person, a spokesman for the Campaign Finance Board said.“With the first debate on May 13 less than a month away, and more than 2,000 Covid-19 cases reported daily in New York City, an in-person debate is not possible at this time,” said Matt Sollars, a spokesman for the board.He added: “The board and our co-sponsors share the view that the best debates are in-person debates” and left that possibility open for future debates.“We have a history of holding debates in front of large, live audiences,” he said. “We are confident that the 2021 mayoral debates will match or exceed the quality of those events and allow city voters to learn about and compare the candidates.”Will Stringer’s big endorsement translate into votes?The Working Families Party endorsed Scott Stringer as its first choice.Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesLeft-wing activists and leaders are growing increasingly worried as they contemplate the staying power of Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate who embraces some progressive positions but is undoubtedly one of the more moderate contenders in the mayoral field.One major open question, though, is whether left-wing voters can coalesce around a candidate or slate of candidates to stop Mr. Yang’s momentum.The Working Families Party last week moved toward trying to facilitate a unified progressive front by issuing a ranked-choice endorsement: Mr. Stringer was endorsed as the party’s first choice, followed by Ms. Morales, the most left-wing candidate in the race, and Ms. Wiley.After months of struggling to break through the crowded mayoral field — and often being drowned out by Mr. Yang — Mr. Stringer received a dose of energy from the endorsement. But he already had the backing of many prominent progressives. His task is to turn those endorsements into enthusiasm on the ground.Some Democrats hope that if left-wing voters list the three Working Families-backed candidates first on their ballot, in any order, then one could come out on top under ranked-choice voting.That’s what Chas Stewart, a 30-year-old teacher, plans to do. He favors Ms. Morales first, then Mr. Stringer and Ms. Wiley.“It appears that her politics align most closely with mine,” he said of Ms. Morales, “especially regarding reining in the N.Y.P.D., and what else is the point of ranked-choice voting if I can’t rank that person No. 1?”Viral Yang video creates opening for opponentsMs. Wiley called Andrew Yang’s behavior “unacceptable.” Mr. Stringer released a statement from several women calling Mr. Yang’s behavior “disqualifying for someone who is seeking to be mayor of New York.”What led to their denunciations?In an encounter outside a comedy club captured on video and then broadcast on Twitter and TikTok, a comic, Lawrence Reese, asked Mr. Yang if a man could keep his Timberland boots on while having sex with women, using a coarse word for sex and a derogatory word for women.Mr. Yang patted Mr. Reese’s shoulder and suggested that “if your partner is cool with it,” that was fine. Then Mr. Reese asked if Mr. Yang choked women, again using the derogatory word for women. Mr. Yang laughed — too uproariously, his critics say — indicated that the conversation was over and walked away.Mr. Yang’s reaction — that laugh — created an immediate opening for his opponents, who have been eager to highlight his every gaffe as they look for ways to gain traction in the race.Ms. Wiley held a news conference condemning his behavior that featured the local president of the National Organization for Women, and Mr. Stringer’s allies tied Mr. Yang’s response to the allegations of “bro” culture that trailed his presidential campaign.Mr. Reese, who said he has no horse in this year’s mayoral race, suggested that Mr. Yang’s critics were just playing politics.“His opponents are going to go against him in any way they can,” he said.The 25-year-old comedian said he was merely performing one of his regular bits, where he asks people on the street random questions about their lives. In his own remarks, Mr. Yang suggested that his laugh expressed how shocked he was, and that he shut the discussion down as quickly as he could. He noted that his wife was the victim of sexual abuse.But that was not enough for some critics.Mr. Yang “should have been straight-faced and unequivocal in his reproach,” Charlotte Bennett, who has accused Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment, wrote in an op-ed on Saturday. “Failing that, even a simple ‘That’s not funny’ would have sufficed.” More

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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