To understand what he did and why he did it, you have to understand the realities of elections. Since about half the eligible people don’t bother to vote in presidential elections, the name of the game is to get your voters to turn out. When Romney chose Ryan he was offering a huge incentive for 
by Alan Chartock Conservative predictions about gay marriage haven’t come true What was all the fuss about? Gays and lesbians wanted to marry. You’d have thought the world was going to explode. Nothing made for better news copy. Some evangelicals literally raised hell; we were Sodom and Gomorrah. God would punish us. Leviticus in the 
Cuomo is dedicated to anything but transparency By Alan S. Chartock You cannot have democracy without good information. How are any of us expected to vote intelligently if we don’t know what is going on? Andrew Cuomo campaigned for office on a platform of transparency in government. As attorney general, he employed Blair Horner to
By Alan Chartock Cuomo will horse trade with legislators Like most of us, politicians prefer to avoid pain—they’d much prefer to take the easy route than tackle the tough issues. Here are a couple of examples. The Legislature has gone along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tough fiscal regimen on its agencies and citizens. Tax caps,
Move to strip DiNapoli’s auditing power doesn’t pass smell test By Alan S. Chartock Political theorists have long raved about the advantages of balanced government. It is always best to have one independent branch looking over the shoulder of the others; balanced government helps prevent abuses. When the very popular Andrew Cuomo was elected governor, it
ACC presents potential for political corruption By Alan S. Chartock With Chief Justice John Roberts supporting the congressional right to pass the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), the politics of health care rises to the top of the list in New York state. Let there be no mistake about it: Politics in New York can get
I used to turn down pot so I could someday run for Congress By Alan S. Chartock When I was a young man, I refused to smoke marijuana when offered the opportunity. I thought that it might interfere with my future career—at the time, I thought I might like to run for Congress and that
There are some interesting clues to insider politics. Clinton has announced that she is not interested in serving another term. She says she will not campaign for the president. Her husband, Bill, says he wishes his wife would run for the top job. The woman who replaced Clinton in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand, says she
By Alan S. Chartock Everybody knows you can’t run for president without writing a book. As my mom used to say, “They’re all doing it now.” Many of the new political books are about Andrew Cuomo. In fact, Cuomo himself is writing a book, and a New York Post columnist and a writer for Vanity
By Alan S. Shartock Meanwhile, something else is going on. An interesting group of people is encouraging the immensely popular Hillary Rodham Clinton to run for president, despite her having said she’s done with politics. There is her successor as United States senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, for example. I know Gillibrand, and I can tell you 
