Dana Goldstein has an interesting left-of-center take on the Obama White House’s effort to convince David Paterson to stay out of next year’s gubernatorial race. But first, some scene-setting: The main danger for Democrats is that Paterson might polarize the party’s primary electorate. In 2002, Democrats were divided between Carl McCall, the state comptroller and an African American with strong ties to Harlem’s political establishment, and Andrew Cuomo, son of former governor Mario Cuomo and HUD secretary during President Clinton’s second term. To put it bluntly, Cuomo, a prodigious fundraiser, forced McCall to draw down his war chest well before the general election. And once McCall won the primary, the DNC, led by Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, refused to provide him with the resources he needed to mount a serious challenge to George Pataki. Though Pataki first won office as a budget-cutting conservative, he neutralized the Democrats by spending massive sums to curry favor with the most left-of-center public sector unions, most prominently Dennis Rivera’s Local 1199.
It is easy to see why the Harlem political establishment, and African American primary voters more broadly, might not have the warmest feelings towards Andrew Cuomo. Now, of course, Cuomo is New York’s popular state attorney general, and it is all but certain that he will run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination against Paterson, New York’s first African American governor who, like McCall, has his power base in Harlem.
Further complicating this byzantine picture is the looming specter of Rudy Giuliani, which, per Goldstein, has caused considerable anxiety in the White House:
Paterson’s refusal to cede the office, though, allows for the reemergence on the national scene of Rudy Giuliani, who remains popular among upstate conservatives and suburban moderates. Giuliani has shown a real facility for exploiting conservative populist moments like the one we’re in right now, with the grassroots revolt against Obama’s health plan and the racial animus bubbling over throughout the country. As New York City mayor, his approach to crime, police violence, and public hiring alienated the black community.
Equally important from the White House’s perspective, Giuliani could energize Republican voters, increase turnout, and help down-ticket races, leading to New York Democrats losing their weak hold over the State Senate. Why is dysfunctional Albany of interest to Obama? Because it controls the congressional redistricting process, and the administration, looking ahead to even its second term policy priorities, does not want to lose a single Democratic House seat.
As Goldstein goes on to note, the Obama campaign was far-sighted enough to invest considerable resources in Texas to influence state legislative races to that same end. Goldstein also identifies Patrick Gaspard, the publicity-shy director of the White House Office of Political Affairs, as the architect of Obama’s New York strategy.
The key administration player on the New York story is White House Director of the Office of Political Affairs Patrick Gaspard, a former New York union operative and veteran of the David Dinkins and Jesse Jackson campaigns. Gaspard has Karl Rove’s old job. And there’s no love lost between Gaspard’s former employer, the SEIU 1199 Health Care Workers East, and Gov. Paterson. The union has marched against Paterson’s proposed $3.5 billion in health care budget cuts, even as he opposed raising taxes on the super-rich.
Lest we forget, 1199 endorsed Pataki in 2002. Though it is possible that Gaspard objected to this decision at the time, it is certainly worthy of note. More interesting still, Goldstein ends her post with a reference to the great admiration that New York pols have for Gaspard’s organizing prowess.
PolitickerNY writer Jason Horowitz reported that Al Sharpton has told members of the Obama administration, “It’s hard for me to march against you if I ever get mad, because you’ve got our best organizer.” Sharpton was referring to Gaspard.
Late last year, Sam Stein of The Huffington Post wrote a detailed profile of Gaspard, who is, despite his low profile, clearly one of the most impressive political operatives of his generation. One of his most successful efforts was a multi-pronged campaign launched on behalf of Amadou Diallo.
By 1999, Gaspard was working as the chief of staff for councilmember Margarita Lopez, when a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers. Amadou Diallo would become a symbolic crest to the anything-goes, oftentimes brutal police work that personified the Rudy Giuliani administration. Unarmed at the time of the shooting, Diallo’s body was riddled with 19 bullets (out of 41 shots fired). When the four officers were acquitted of charges of second-degree murder, demonstrations erupted across New York.
One of the city’s most powerful unions, SEIU’s 1199, needed someone to coordinate their Diallo efforts. And the group’s political director, Bill Lynch, turned to his old aide for the task. “[Patrick] took the lead on that,” he recalled. “He helped organize city-wide efforts and was instrumental in bringing leadership together.”
The protests were massive in their scope, with multiple elected and religious officials as well as a scattering of celebrities taking to the streets. And while they did not result in legal vindication, in March 2004 Diallo’s family did receive a $3 million settlement from the government. Gaspard had his entrance into union life. Over the next few years he would help augment 1199 as a political force in the city and nationally. His work took him from Florida — to help with the 2000 presidential recount — to the streets of New York. And he took to the task with his usual vigor.
There was some dispute as to whether the Diallo incident was a mark of structural racism and police brutality, the view shared by Sharpton and Gaspard, or a tragic accident that can be traced in part to the training police officers receive. We can’t settle the issue here. But one can safely assume that Gaspard is not an admirer of Rudy Giuliani. Gaspard’s later successes in building effective coalitions can be traced in part to his remarkable ability to unite New York’s fractious Democrats.
What I find most striking about Gaspard is his ability to compartmentalize: during the 1990s, he was an ally of Al Sharpton, who continues to praise him, yet his union also played a prominent role in keeping George Pataki in office. Now, as a White House political strategist, he is orchestrating what you might call the defenestration of David Paterson, a Democrat who, unlike the Republican Pataki, has called for fiscal discipline. This is about to get interesting.