By: Gary Tilzer
In 1972 Frances FitzGerald ‘s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Fire in the Lake” concluded that fifty thousand American soldiers’ lives were lost needlessly. The U.S. wasted billions of dollars because the generals and politicians in Washington, DC running the Vietnam war never understood who we were fighting, or how local culture and its leaders operated. The same can be said for today’s developers and the rest of what the late journalist Jack Newfield called NYC’s “permanent government,” now trying to prevent a left-wing socialist’s movement from taking over the city & state; the city that was known for over 100 years as the capital of American capitalism.
Developers who are trying to stop the newly arriving and growing left-wing gentrification residents of the city from taking over City Hall, are using lobbyists/political consultants who are clearly not up to the task of stopping this new movement. In Brooklyn, north of Prospect Park, newly released census numbers indicate gentrification rapidly changing the areas racial make-up. Left-wing council candidates in June won almost every primary in that area, with the help of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and her interconnected left-wing machine and PACs. In other areas of the city AOC is helping to elect Socialist leaders like endorsed by AOC in recent years: state Sen. Julia Salazar in 2018, Tiffany Cabán’s in Queens and Jamaal Bowman defeated Congressman Eliot Engle in 2020. It is clear that AOC has become the left-wing opposition leader, if not in the media, in reality.
The developers, akin to Vietnam generals and politicians, know how to spend campaign money uselessly, by hiring lobbyists and by blasting mail attack flyers paid for by their political PACs. They, however, have no clue on how to win the war, fight back against the left-wing growing presence at City Hall. We know the generals who bombed villages to the ground had no effect on Secretary of State Robert McNamara goals of winning the war in Vietnam. Sadly, developers relying on campaign lobbyist/consultants to fight their battles are clueless and losing the war, akin to the generals described in “Fire in the lake.” The Working Families Party’s endorsed candidates who ran on the platform of “defunding, the police,” won over 14 council seats. The Democratic Socialists of America now believe that Cuomo’s resignation clears a path to winning many of the 2022 campaigns to take over Albany next year.
The consultant/lobbyist business is more about salesmanship than having the skills and understanding to win. Lobbyists “have created a permanent industry of political consultants who have guaranteed income, win or lose” said Hank Sheinkopf, a lobbyist who had gotten away with just about everything for 40 years. What Sheinkopf is saying is that many of the candidates who hire lobbyists have no idea of their abilities to win races. Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, who was ahead at the start of the race, spent over $10M for 12% of the vote and ended up in 4th place. Similarly, Ray McGuire spent over $12M for 2.7% of the vote, Shaun Donovan spent $5M for 2.4% of the vote, and Comptroller candidate David Weprin, spent over $3M for 7.2% of the vote. After spending millions on consultants/lobbyists, these candidates who lost poorly now know how ineffective consultant/lobbyists are.
To keep the left-wing progressives from winning seats in City Hall, the developers, led by Related Companies’ Stephen Ross funded a PAC “Common Sense” (CS). A review of the 24 city council races helped by the CS PAC indicates that CS attack mailing may have led to left-wing defeats in 4 races. Five other left-wing candidates targeted by the CS PAC for defeat won their races. Two other left-Wing candidates won against another similar PAC “Voters of NY, Inc.” run by the same lobbyists– Jeffrey Leb, who runs Capitol Consulting. Leb’s lobbying firm specializes in zoning, land use issues, budgetary matters, and legislative issues. Leb’s company is ranked by City & State as one of the top lobbyists in New York.
CNBC reported that Ross’s backed CS PAC, spent over two million against progressive candidates for City Council, representing a power play by the real estate community. However, a review of the PAC indicates that most of the PAC’s money (61%) went to support 18 candidates who easily won their races where left-wing candidates were not a serious threat. The 61% of allocated funds spent by the CS PAC was more helpful to Leb the lobbyist than Ross’s common-sense mission of stopping left-wing candidates from taking over city council.
Adams: “It’s a Left-Wing Movement I am Fighting”
This left-wing movement, coming to power in neighborhoods near you, is pushing out not only tens of thousands of voters, but also community leaders, who ran the poor and minority communities’ infrastructure, while working with the elected officials and the NYPD, protecting local residents from harm. In Brooklyn, where the left wing has had it greatest success, the NY Times reported that the borough’s Black population declined by 8.7%, while the white population grew 8.4%.
A half-century ago, the infrastructure of NYC’s neighborhoods was controlled by the political party machines, where district captains’ traded votes with elected officials who offered services to voters, protecting the community infrastructure safety net. The old-time district captains would never allow gentrification because it would destroy their voting base which they used to stay in power. The new consultants get their money from candidates and lobbyist clients, such as developers, and have no connection to the voters.
It’s up to permanent government and its spokesperson Kathy Wylde’s who have been taking credit for Eric Adams’ victory in the mayoral primary, to repair the minority communities’ infrastructure for their own good. Adams won by 7,267 in 2021. If his race was in 2025, census trends indicate that enough of his Afro-American base of voters would have moved out of the city for him to lose more than 7,267.
. We Met the Enemy and the Enemy is Us
Ironically, these progressives are the same group that the developers are now trying to keep from taking over the city, next year state government. As the late Hell’s Kitchen District Leader Jimmy McManus used to say–the developers were clueless about politics. He was looking at developer Fred Wilpon at a fund raiser at the time, who destroyed the NY Mets for a generation of New Yorkers.
The growing power of the left-wing gentrifies confirms what McManus said. In the past, the city’s publishing, media, garment industries, and Wall Street made up the city’s permanent government. Today, almost all of those major industries are gone or are planning to move out. Only developers need a healthy and growing NYC, and they are clueless on how to achieve it.
President Johnson said that he left the White House when he realized what the public already knew, the generals had no idea what they were doing in Vietnam. Jeff Leb, the “Common Sense” PAC’s treasurer said “none of our funders in the CS PAC played an active role in the operation or direction of Common Sense and they did not pick the races we engaged in.” Do the developers know what did he accomplish? Do they know about the movement or how to counter it?
In 2018 the Press Did Not Cover the Upset Victory by AOC, in 2021 the Press Did Not Cover the Creation of AOC Left-Wing Political Machine/Movement
The real estate PACs run by Leb, relying on boiler plate mailings to defeat left-wing candidates, was like trying to shoot down an F-18 with a peashooter. The Ross PAC ignored or was unaware that AOC was creating a machine with “Defund the Police” leader Brad Lander’s Comptroller campaign to take over the city’s government. Not only did AOC machine win over a dozen council races, increasing its influence in City Hall, it also played a key role in winning Brad Lander the city comptroller position and brought about the surprise win of Antonio Reynoso as the Brooklyn Borough President. Before AOC put together her political left-wing machine, she helped kill the Amazon H2 headquarters in Long Island City. Brad Lander flip flops (after the election) on BDS stance Supports Ben and Jerry’s Israel boycott.
Reynoso won most of his votes above Prospect Park where the AOC machine received a ton of votes. The left-wing political machine led by AOC’s PAC “Courage to Change” interlocked with dozens of PACs and left-wing public interests’ groups and unions at a sophisticated level of coordination and organizing. The same level of sophistication traits that the FitzGerald’s book pointed out was never picked up by the pentagon generals, CIA, and FBI about the Vietnam army it was fighting.
New York’s Permanent Lobbyists/Political Consultant Complex Speaks
CS PAC recognized Crystal Hudson’s victory over Michael Hollingsworth in the 35th City Council district as one of its most important wins. CS PAC ignored Hudson being also backed by the leaders of defund the police, the AOC’s PAC “Courage to Change,” left-wing comptroller candidate Brad Lander and lot of PACs supporting AOC candidates that the CS PAC was fighting. Furthermore, Crystal Hudson submitted a questionnaire for DSA’s endorsement last summer in which she states her explicit support for BDS and claims to be a socialist. More importantly, this year’s redistricting means that Hudson victory will last only two years. After reviewing the Census results that documented racial change in the 35th district, this council district is likely to no longer be a minority district in 2023, and it is just as likely to be connected to either Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights.
If the CS PAC wanted to stop the left-wing machine it should have helped Corey Johnson defeat Brad Lander, by convincing David Weprin who wound up in 5th place with 7.2% of the vote to endorse Johnson. The real estate CS PAC should have been registering voters in the past year and encouraging community leaders in areas where Weprin won to run voter registration drives and make sure everyone in the community understood their obligation to vote. In the 48th council district where Weprin was expected to do well only 7,725 people voted. That was the district where Steve Saperstein won the primary. By comparison, 33,266 people voted in the liberal 35th council district where Hudson won.
2018 Real Estate PAC Failures Taught the Developers Nothing
Ronald Lauder, also a billionaire and the youngest son of makeup legend Estee Lauder, contributed $500,000 to Ross’s (CS) PAC. In 2018 Ronald Lauder, the chairman emeritus of Estee Lauder, contributed $1.7 million to the PAC “Safe Together New York,” in a failed effort to keep the democrats from taking over the State Senate in Albany. The city’s “permanent government” should have developed a strategy in 2018 that a new very powerful block of left-wing voters was being created by the gentrification sweeping several NYC neighborhoods when the State Senate changed to democratic control.
A political committee launched by Lisa Blau, a Manhattan real estate investor and the wife of Jeff Blau, CEO of The Related Companies spent several million dollars to increase moderate voter turnout in the mayor race, by changing registrations to democrat. Their effort failed to get more than a few thousand New Yorkers to change their party registration to democratic. If Blau’s PAC “Be Counted NYC” wanted to allow 1,616,451 non-democratic registered voters eligible to vote for mayor or anyone else, they needed to run a public relations campaign to lobby the charter commission to allow a vote on non-partisans elections in NYC.
Socialist Tiffany Cabán who lost the Queens DA race in 2020 by 61 votes and won the democratic primary this year in the 22nd council district said on Twitter recently:
@tiffany_caban Aug 12, 2021
Tonight, we are kicking off our first deep canvass training on public safety! #TeamCabán knows that campaigns are about so much more than getting a single person elected to office. Campaigns are vehicles for organizing and building power in our communities. Flexed biceps.
It is clear that that the city’s left-wing leaders like Cabán are working harder that the developers who hire consultants who treat this fight like another campaign. In the movie Godfather II Michael Corleone when he was visiting Meyer Lansky in Cuba, after he witness one of Castro’s soldiers kill a cop by killing himself said “the Rebels have the fire in the belly, they will win.” If I were a developer like Ross, I would be up nights worrying that Maya Wiley backed by the AOC’s movement could become NYS Attorney General in 2022.
