NYC Lessons: Shadow Cabinet &, Yes, Running a Big City Takes Skill
Why You Might Want To Read This: Before the drunken celebration of the impending end of the Establishment gets too boisterous, a suggestion or two, and an observation, about the progressive “movement”. It’s a teachable moment!
I know. Today, you thought: “I really, really, really want to read another hot take on the NYC mayoral election”!
I will not bore you with yet another in the endless stream of missives heralding the guaranteed collapse of “The Establishment” and the approaching “political earthquake” and a promise that “this IS the playbook to beat Trump” etc. etc…(is my sarcasm evident?). Been there. Done that. Everything has been said, and even though it hasn’t been said by me, I’ll pass.
Instead, I’ll offer three points—a suggestion to consider for the general campaign, and two other observations worth thinking about over a longer time horizon.
Just quick background: I no longer vote in NYC but was mired in the city politics for a good three decades. I had the misfortune of crossing paths now and then with the newly-humiliated Andrew Cuomo—the primary walloping could not have happened to a more deserving person. Defeating a massively disliked, creepy, immoral guy who ran a soulless campaign that appeared more like “I deserve it” rather than based on any real vision, not to mention replete with a Mount Everest level of ethical baggage, should not have been a surprise, even if the pollsters (mostly) got it wrong.
It also is worth noting: when you knock on doors to talk about real issues on behalf of a really good candidate (Mamdani) that’s a way to win and something to replicate. It was wonderful to see how many new voters came out because of a campaign that was both creative (in the use of digital media) and what we might think of as old-school (thousands of volunteers speaking one-to-one in neighborhoods with folks). BUT BUT, even with a great campaign, people should be cautious about jumping to the conclusion that the “revolution is around the corner” because of a single campaign in New York City (ranked choice voting has its own particular dynamic mostly absent everywhere else) and its uniqueness owing to the Cuomo ickiness noted above.
Those are the asides…
Ok, now, to the central points.
Mamdani Needs A Shadow “Cabinet”…STAT!
In the United Kingdom and Australia, the opposition party leader, who hails from the largest party out of power, cobbles together a public “shadow cabinet”, with a specific individual (usually a sitting member of Parliament) holding down a “shadow” title, say “shadow minister for finance”. The “shadow cabinet” essentially says to voters, “hey, if you elect us, here are the people who will be running the government”.
Right out of the box, before the end of July, Mamdani would be wise to do the same, which I don’t believe has been done before: unveil a complete roster of all the people he will hire to run his Administration, from deputy mayor down to the person in charge of garbage collection. Starting in the summer but ramping up after Labor Day, he should take those folks on weekly road trips in the city, featured in forums, and streamed live. Show who will be doing the peoples’ business.
That accomplishes two things. First, presumably he will surround himself with folks who will be on-board with his big-picture policy (e.g., the existence of billionaires is a failure of economic policy). That’s a message to the vast number of people who voted for him that, once in office, he will govern alongside people who will work to actually follow through on the promises made in the campaign.
Second, in the various public debates likely to be had—whether with general election opponents, editorial boards or other entities—the theme of “how can this guy run a city with a $116 billion budget when he’s never run anything at such a scale” will repeat itself. It will be a fair point to raise (unlike the racist bullshit already floated out there) because running a city, even a modest sized one, not to mention a behemoth, isn’t a small task.
Being able to point to a stout team ready to take the reins will be part of the answer. Comparing a future Mamdani team to the numerous folks under Eric Adams will be entertaining since Adams surrounded himself with a cast of characters who reek of either incompetence and/or corruption (more than one have had their homes raided by the FBI looking for evidence of bribery, payoffs and pay-to-play). And should Cuomo run as an independent, well, you’all already know what that devastating response will be to his management track record, based on the primary.
Just don’t dismiss the critique out of hand, and answer it with a killer team waiting in the wings.
Which leads to…
It’s a Good Time To Get Serious About Executive Skills
Truth: progressives give short shrift to the business of actually running governments. When you raise that shortcoming, people get either defensive or they think you have some secret business agenda because obviously to effectively administer a big organization means you must be a sell-out.
Progressives have been really bad at running organizations, whether municipal government or non-profits. There is a very high premium on electing or promoting leaders who have wonderful passion, vision and commitment—all important attributes!—but far too little scrutiny is afforded to whether the person can master the thousands of details to make it all gel, from reading a financial statement to managing people. A whole slew of progressive organizations get by on the generosity of rich people or foundations who don’t peer too closely at the internal operations and there’s rarely accountability.
Hey, it’s hard to run a city. Most people fail. To be clear, we could fill a book of all the “business” friendly or “moderates” who ran cities and states into the ground.
But, right now, progressives are, and will be, held to a higher standard, fairly or not. We are arguing for a very different vision of the economy, and radical transformation is perhaps an even bigger administrative challenge than just picking up the reins of a free-market economy from the prior person.
Take Bill DeBlasio, the former mayor of NYC. Let’s assume, for the moment, that he actually had deep progressive principles; he strikes me, now, as someone who was mostly interested in self-advancement and had a wide vein of narcissism running through him.
Either way, he made a mess. Aside from the mind-boggling habit of finding it challenging to get out of bed before 10 a.m. at the earliest to run one of the biggest cities on the planet and setting the standard of being habitually, rudely, late to meetings with city folks, he was, at the end of the day, a political operative who did not have the skill set to direct agencies or even his own City Hall staff.
So, there should be a multi-year project to train thousands of great progressives in the soup-to-nuts of being at the head of a big bureaucracy. "If “Run For Something” is the flavor of the day (it is“dedicated to recruiting and supporting young candidates running for down-ballot office”), I’d edit and shorten the meme slightly to read, in parallel: “Run Something”.
What’s The Bigger Strategy To Win?
Here is a quiz: please list the names of the state legislators who make up the majority in the state Assembly and Senate who will ratify the increase in taxes on the wealthy needed to fund Mamdani’s plans, not to mention a governor ready to sign such a bill?
I’m waiting…
Ok, you can stop trying: The hard truth is, if elected, Mamdani will likely fail—not because of personal shortcoming but because there will not be a tax bill to provide the revenue to pay for the important ideas he is advancing; the city cannot, on its own, raise the scale of revenue needed.
I make this point not to bang on Mamdani. It’s simply a recurring template: progressives notch isolated wins and hail a turning point, but there is not an actual strategic template for progressives to win longer term power, expand beyond a few victories and reshape the economy. As I wrote back in April, Bernie Sanders’ flashy rallies makes everyone feel good but isn’t an actual long-term plan.
In this case, it would have meant running candidates, alongside the mayoral candidate, for New York state legislature and governor who could actually turn beautiful campaign poetry and a terrific candidate into facts on the ground.
Accept the fact that Mamdani will really be in a bind—and, I fear, be chalked up as another failed mayor. Not because he doesn’t have a terrific vision. Rather, the power structure that he needs as an ally will stay the same and will undercut him from his very first day in office.
His victory, and before he takes office next year (I’m betting he will win the general election), should come with a five-alarm project to admit that the progressive movement doesn’t have the coherence and an overarching strategy to seize electoral power and expand beyond one-off victories.
Please do comment about why this is not the obvious outcome—with a specific plan, not hopes and dreams.