New Yorkers helped re-elect President Barack Obama, but not without some technical difficulties.

The damages wrought on the city by Hurricane Sandy prompted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to issue an order allowing evacuated residents to vote at any poll site in the state by using affidavit ballots. Many sites failed to get word of the order, which went out only the day before the election, however, and some city polls quickly ran out of the 250 affidavits that the city printed for each election district.

Jammed ballot scanners added to the confusion of relocated polling sites and affidavits, which combined resulted in lines that stretched blocks. At some sites, voters waited three hours or more to cast their ballots.

The city’s Upper East and Upper West sides were particularly burdened with delays. Many storm-struck New York residents fled to friends’ and relatives’ homes in the city’s less-damaged neighborhoods, so these polling sites were disproportionately crowded.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized the Board of Elections for failing to be organized. The Board of Elections, in turn, argued that it did not have enough time to train poll workers following Cuomo’s order.

PIZZA-DELIVERY RAPE SUSPECT INDICTED

Cesar Lucas, the 16-year-old delivery boy accused of raping a woman in her West 61st Street apartment in September, was indicted Nov. 8.

Lucas reportedly entered the 35-year-old tenant’s unlocked home around midnight on Sept. 29 after delivering pizza to one of her neighbors in the building. He found the victim in bed with her 7-year-old daughter, and raped her with the daughter in the room.

“Women should not have to sleep with one eye open for fear of intruders,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in announcing the indictment. “The defendant is not only charged with committing a rape, but with doing so in the presence of the victim’s child. I commend the victim for her tremendous courage in coming forward.”

Specifically, Lucas was charged with rape, sexual abuse, endangering the welfare of a child and burglary, the latter for taking money from the victim’s wallet before fleeing the scene. He wrote a confession to the crime after he was arrested, citing his motive as feeling “horny,” but pleaded not guilty.

Last month, the victim sued Lucas, and also his employer Sal’s Pizza, her building’s management company, her building’s condo board and the on-duty doorman.

KRIM PARENTS LAUNCH LULU AND LEO FUND

Marina and Kevin Krim, parents of the two siblings stabbed to death by their nanny in their West 75th Street apartment on Oct. 25, have established a fund in their children’s honor. The Lulu and Leo Fund, named after the 6-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy, will fund education in two subjects the Krims say their children loved: the arts and sciences.

“Our children have loved the many art and science programs in the cities in which we have lived, such as Lulu’s beloved ‘Art Afternoons’ class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” the parents wrote on the fund’s website, www.lululeofund.org. “Unfortunately, there are many children who do not have access to these programs. We created the Lulu & Leo Fund to help more children benefit from these education experiences in art and science.”

In a statement on the site, the Krims express thanks for the outpouring of support they have received from the community over the past weeks, and ask for help ensuring their privacy, so that their third child, 3-year-old Nessie, who was out of the apartment with Marina at the time of the murder, can grow up “like any another kid.”

Yoselyn Ortega, the 50-year-old nanny, was formally charged with the murder on Nov. 3. She cut her throat following the stabbings, and remains in treatment at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

“Obama won, but he’s got no mandate,” said Charles Krauthammer. That may be the dumbest thing I’ve seen all day. And I read Trump’s tweets.

— Touré (@Toure) November 7, 2012

Some pointed out that winning both the electoral and popular vote does, in fact, signal a mandate.

Since Obama won almost all the swing states, and we somehow elected them our deciders, shouldn’t that be considered a mandate?

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 7, 2012

And some rightfully called attention to the fact that the more times you say “mandate” out loud, the less sure you are of the definition.

Everyone is wondering if Obama got a mandate. If he wants one, he should just ask Biden to a movie or something.

— Justin Robinson (@JustinSRobinson) November 7, 2012

Which brings us to the question, what is a mandate, and does Obama have one? I prefer not to answer that question, because I’m really tired of the word mandate. Instead, let’s just all agree that despite whatever grumblings Republicans will put forth in the next days/weeks/months, Obama won the election, and shockingly, that’s the only thing he needs in order to, you know, be the president. (I won’t even go into all the Democratic, progressive candidates who won their Senate races, or the marriage equality measures that passed in three states, or the legalization of marijuana, or the fact that voters have affirmed that “legitimate rape” is not a thing.)

If we’re going to get all into-the-weeds about it, the last true mandate given to a president, it could be argued, was to President Reagan over Walter Mondale in 1984, when the incumbent Republican beat his challenger with 58.8 percent of the popular vote. Bush the First won his election with 53.4 percent of the popular vote, then Clinton won with 43 percent and then again with 49.2 percent. And THEN, Gore won the popular vote with 48.4 percent, and Bush STILL got to be president with only 47.9 (one might call that a nega-mandate). He nudged the needle a bit to win 50.7 percent to Kerry’s 48.3 percent in 2004, which inspired many a Republican pundit to declare that Bush had scored a mandate at the time. Obama won his first election with 52.9 percent, and according to Nate Silver, Chief Numerical Witch of the U.S.A., has received 50.8 percent of the popular vote, to Mitt Romney’s 48.3, in yesterday’s election.

Numbers! Do they make a mandate? I don’t know! The fact is, Obama won re-election and will now proceed to carry out his agenda. You can like that or not like it, but arguing about a mandate doesn’t change that fact. Now can we please stop talking about it and let the man go back to leading the country? If he needs it, he can totally have my mandate, if I ever find it under this mess of papers on my desk.

When I started this piece I found myself writing the same story everyone else has about the emergence of President Clinton as the star of the 2012 election cycle. His incredible Democratic convention speech made the arguments on behalf of President Obama better than the candidate himself – leaving pundits speechless and the party faithful hungry for more. And by cleverly extending his speech into the local evening news, he grabbed millions of viewers otherwise disinterested in politics.

The Obama cultivation and inclusion of Clinton in his reelection effort is no real surprise. Recent polling shows that 68 percent of Americans view Clinton favorably – 18 points higher than President Obama and more than 50 points higher than Congress. President Clinton oversaw the greatest economic expansion in recent history, creating 22 million jobs under his watch. But it’s not just his record that is appealing. Democrats appreciate the Clintons more in hindsight because they remember not only his ability to connect with voters, and enthusiasm for the Party faithful – but also his political acumen. Everyone misses the old days, when no one was above a good partisan fight, but politics wasn’t nasty or mean.

If Obama’s embrace of President Clinton is inherently logical, the opposite could be said about Mitt Romney. At first glance, it is stunning to think that the GOP nominee would ever see any advantage in playing up Clinton. But it was the best option he had.

While the GOP faithful still hold President Ronald Reagan in the highest esteem–and Mitt Romney referred to Reagan during the GOP primary–Reagan’s presidency was almost 25 years ago. A nice chunk of the electorate just isn’t familiar with Reagan, and think of him more as an historical figure rather than relevant to the politics of today. So while invoking Reagan might work with seniors, Reagan is not a useful standard-bearer for the voters Romney needed to reach.

Of course, Mitt Romney’s campaign also knew they couldn’t associate with President George W. Bush — the person most Americans still believe wrecked our economy and got us entangled in an unnecessary war in Iraq that cost us dearly in both lives and monies. Romney has gone out of his way not to discuss George W. Bush, and Romney is quick to change the subject if the Bush Presidency comes up.

So that left Clinton as the ‘go to’ guy. Romney may have made the calculation that Obama and Clinton had too much baggage between them to ever join forces. He was wrong.

I also believe that Romney may see much in common with President Clinton: a former governor with a focus on creating jobs; a politician who worked across the aisle when necessary, and a politician who believes he can triangulate himself in the model of Clinton. The Clinton association for Romney is about appealing to the middle, about beginning perceived as moderate. But here’s where Romney miscalculated.

The politics of the Great Recession are very different than in the Clinton era. In our hyper-partisan, Internet-fueled news cycle, Romney’s attempts to grab the middle just aren’t credible. Voters are paying more attention to the details than ever before. In the Bush years, they felt they were sold a false bill of goods – and they are now sensitive to Romney’s blatant flip-flops, like claiming credit for the auto bailout and now supportive of leaving Afghanistan in 2014 — that are spin rather than moderation.

We are now days way from determining the next President of the Untied States, and this is arguable an even more important election than 4 years ago.  We have two very different choices for president with very different ideas about government.

While both candidates have tried to associate themselves with President Clinton, only one can do so with credibility. There is a reason Bill Clinton is happily packing his schedule full of events to help re-elect President Obama, which I’m certain Clinton is enjoying. He knows that America cannot afford a President who says one thing, but will do another.  We had 8 years of that recipe and it was a disaster.

I know Bill Clinton, and Mitt Romney is no Bill Clinton. And the good news is the American people know it too.

Most recently, Clyde Williams was a congressional candidate for CD 13.  He served as National Political Director at the Democratic National Committee under President Barack Obama, Domestic Policy Advisor to President Bill Clinton, a Vice President at the Center for American Progress, and as Deputy Chief of Staff of the U S Department of Agriculture. You can follow him on Facebook@clydewilliams2012, on twitter@clyde2012.

America loves the underdog story. We want to hear how out of the most improbable of circumstances rose the greatest of victors. This is an American story: to find glory in the dimmest chances. We see it play out in presidential politics, in the very founding of our country, in literature, music, even branding. In 2010, Harvard Business Review published the article “Capitalizing on the Underdog Effect,” highlighting a study where consumers were given the choice between two different chocolate brands. The article explains, “One brand had an underdog story: We described it as small and new, competing against powerhouses like Lindt and Godiva. The other brand had a top-dog biography, characterized by experienced founders and a big marketing budget. The result: 71% of subjects chose the underdog chocolate.” The more consumers related to the underdog story themselves – historically marginalized groups such as “women, blue collar workers, ethnic minorities” – the stronger their alignment with the underdog brand.

What is it that makes us prefer a certain chocolate because of the businessperson’s journey to make the chocolate? Is it reclamation of our own personal hardships as springboards to success? Is our own “underdoggedness” actually fertile ground for our greatest growth? Or is it just a band-aid we give ourselves to accept the unmerciful casting of “a person in adversity or in a position of inferiority” as the dictionary describes?

In the impending presidential election, each candidate is vying to be the underdog, and each can claim it in different ways. In October of 2011, George Stephanopoulos asked President Barack Obama if he considered himself an underdog in the campaign to reelection, and the president said without hesitating, “Yes. Absolutely.” One could argue that Obama’s history unequivocally makes him an underdog.  A son of a single mother, odds against him, becomes the leader of the free world. Unlike his opponent, Mitt Romney, who, despite his privileged background, has also touted the coveted title of underdog, as every challenger to an incumbent has the ability to do. There is something so American about the branding of candidates as underdogs. It’s the story we want to hear, especially coming out of a recession and feeling like underdogs ourselves. We want someone to relate to, we want to see the restored vision for our own lives played out so that we can believe in it. As the late Democratic Governor Happy Chandler once said, “We Americans are a peculiar people. We are for the underdog, no matter how much of a dog he is.”

There are really two parts to the underdog story – first, the odds stacked against her, and then, her glorious victory. We love the journey from part one to two. We can look to the Revolutionary War as an historical context for the underdog story. Americans were set to lose – no navy, no military, no economy, no odds. However, as stacked as the British may have been in military, skill, training, and resources, there is a great distinction between those who want to fight and those who need to fight. This is the grit of the underdog – the American inspiration was the idea of a free country. The hope of the future was more compelling than the odds of the present. Americans did not win the war on sheer motivation alone (the French had a little something to do with it), but it was the one tool Great Britain did not have in its chest.

As a people, when the odds are not in our favor is when we perform the best, become the most innovative, creative, determined. Perhaps even the Great Recession has only been the groundwork for what will prove to be the most productive time in American history. The bipartisan and often vitriolic rhetoric we have become accustomed to in the past decade could turn out to be the rock bottom we need to strengthen our democracy – not because we embrace it, but because we once again learn that the humility that results from a broken practice gives us crystallized insight. That’s the gift of the underdog. We can only shift when we have finished falling and reached that hard-learned lesson at the bottom.

The book is called Obama’s America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity, released by Potomac Books this summer, and it’s Reifowitz’s study of the way Obama has used his language to construct an alternate narrative of America.

“The book is really about Obama’s attempt to change or transform our national identity, to really make it live up to our true values, which go back to the Declaration of Independence,” Reifowitz said. “It’s something we haven’t always lived up to, but something we’ve tried to strive toward.”

Reifowitz argues that the way Obama speaks forges a feeling of inclusiveness that other presidents and prominent people before him have not been able to achieve. To research the idea, he listened to every recorded speech that Obama has made throughout his career, first as a lawyer and then as a senator, and read all of his published books, papers and written speeches. What he found was that Obama has been using similar rhetoric throughout his professional life, speaking in a way that emphasizes the unity of the American population rather than the factors that divide.

“Obama is focused on equality,” Reifowitz said. “He’s speaking about American identity in ways that make groups that have historically been excluded feel a sense of inclusion.”
Reifowitz devotes chapters of the book to expounding on how Obama’s word choices reinforce that idea of a diverse but unified America. As a history professor at SUNY’s Empire State College, Reifowitz has experience studying how large communities are formed and identify themselves.

“I’ve been studying multiethnic societies like ours for a really long time,” he said. His first book was on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which he said has many similarities to our current country’s makeup. “Multiethnic societies create a sense of unity among people who aren’t from the same ancestral tribe.”

Reifowitz said that a society valuing a collective identity that’s not based on race or ancestry works against the tendency to value one’s own tribe over others, which historically has been the impetus for violent clashes and horrific policies like those of Nazi Germany.

In the book, Reifowitz argues that Obama has tried to move the country between the extremes that have at various points been the dominant cultural forces, movements that promote separation and inhibit inclusion. The obvious example of this is the systemic racism the U.S. has struggled to eradicate, but Reifowitz said that the radical multiculturalism of the 1980s and ’90s went in the opposite but just as exclusionary direction.

The book also presents some concrete examples of Obama’s policy mirroring his speech.

“[Obama] pushed forward some policies that have worked toward a sense of connectedness and inclusion,” Reifowitz said. “His attempt to bring in the children of illegal immigrants who have the opportunity to apply for a work visa—it’s not just the policy, it’s the way he talks bout them. He says they’re Americans, they came here when they were 4 or 5 years old, they don’t know any other home. His move to support gay marriage is another area where he pushes for inclusion.”

But Reifowitz emphasizes that it’s not just in his liberal or Democratic polices that Obama’s rhetoric signals a call to unite Americans—it’s in everything he does.

“On an overall perspective, it’s not an easy thing to get a really diverse population like America to feel itself as one community,” Reifowitz said. “We’re not born with an American flag stamped on our head. We’ve got to teach each other. We teach our child that some kid in Idaho or Ohio is part of one American community.”

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 Bible was quoted again and again: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” We were about to revisit Jonah’s Nineveh. The cry urging repentance was heard throughout the land.

Incredibly, an awful lot of people went along with the bigotry and nonsense and more than a few still do. But, as so often happens, an oppressed group followed Joe Hill’s advice and went on to organize. Since the Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village, gays have been turning on their oppressors and saying “Enough.”

From then until now, tremendous strides have been made. Our politicians have eschewed the old safe road that condoned bigotry; kicking and screaming, they have been turned around. Sure, some have done so for so-called “political reasons,” but that’s OK. It is classic Americana that getting politicians to have some guts is always helped along by the old labor leader Samuel Gompers’ message that we reward our friends and punish our enemies.

No one likes to recognize it, but even President Barack Obama was late to the marriage equality party. That’s OK; at least he seems to have gotten there. In New York State, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is portrayed as a hero for kicking legislators in both parties until they did the right thing. That may be true, or perhaps he saw a wonderful opportunity to cover his blue dog conservative Democratic tracks by supporting a gay rights campaign.

Frankly I don’t give a damn, since he did the right thing. His father, Mario, found a lot of similar traction in his stance on the death penalty. They both did what was right and were rewarded for it.

I love the fact that what started as one of the biggest political battles in New York is already being taken for granted. There will be no retreat. There will be no return to the bad old days. The same thing happened with abortion, and many of the same political forces and coalitions were behind the rear guard there, too. One can only wonder what in the world the conservatives see in this, as they always push to stay in office and to survive.

I have talked to many of these politicians and they always tell me the same thing: The most important thing is “the sanctity of the family.” I often ask them how gay marriage desanctifies marriage or goes against natural law. They always mumble and repeat themselves. At that point, there is little you can do. When asked why two people who love each other shouldn’t be allowed to marry, they come back with all that mumbling again.

This brings us back to Chartock’s first law of politics. It’s called political saliency. That means that many folks vote based on a single overriding concern. In some cases, the issue is a woman’s right to choose. In others, it’s the political survival of Israel. Here, it’s a gay or lesbian couple’s right to marry, to have families, to be able to visit a loved one in the hospital.

So gays and lesbians and their allies got together and, like the little engine that could, they began to climb that mountain very slowly. But when they reached the top, they picked up speed. They’re not there yet. Not in places like North Carolina, where people get behind that voting curtain and let all their bigotry hang out. But in New York, in Massachusetts and in so many other states, it turns out, it’s no big deal.

So what was all that fuss about, anyway?

Alan S. Chartock is president and CEO of WAMC/Northeast Public Radio and an executive publisher at The Legislative Gazette.

Gillibrand in her Senate office in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Aaron Clamage)

by Morgan Pehme

Kirsten Gillibrand is currently enjoying a career trajectory comparable to only a select few American politicians in recent memory—the most notable of whom occupies a certain Oval Office she’s already being discussed as a viable contender for in 2016.

Just a few years ago, such rumblings would have been unthinkable. When Gov. David Paterson plucked Gillibrand out of relative obscurity to fill the enormous shoes of Hillary Clinton, she had served a mere two years in Congress—and had never even run for office prior to getting elected to the House.

Two and a half years later, Gillibrand, 45, has a 60 percent approval rating statewide and is well on her way to carving out her own national profile, with a headline-grabbing record of legislative achievement over her brief time in office, including the 9/11 health bill and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” She has stood out as one of the nation’s most ardent advocates for women in politics and built a network of admirers as one of the Democratic Party’s most formidable fundraisers. Tina Brown has hailed her as “a total winner,” Jon Stewart has gushed over her on The Daily Show, Vogue has extolled her glamour in a tasteful spread, and no less a feminist icon than Gloria Steinem has said of Gillibrand, “Like Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm before her, she doesn’t just hold her finger to the wind, she is
the wind.”

The response to Gillibrand was not always so effusive. When Paterson initially selected her, the choice was generally panned, in part because of his bungling of Caroline Kennedy’s bid for the seat, and further fueled by the public grumblings of those who felt passed over for the post and the political powerhouses perturbed it was not their pick who had been anointed.

To read the full feature at City & State click here.

It’s a bit of an odd thing to begin with— Jeremy Lin’s “Linsanity” legacy. How often does 25 games started, one insane week, and post-season injuries and irrelevance constitute one of the most-talked-about monikers in all of sports?

photo by DvYang

Doesn’t Derek Jeter have a legacy, too? One with five World Series rings, over 2500 games, and a captaincy over the most famous sports team on earth?

So how is it that both of them have what we call a “legacy”? How is it that right now, Jeremy Lin is on the cover of ESPN.com, while Jeter, who is actually in season, and cruising to yet another AL East title, is by the wayside?

This isn’t a comparison between the two, because that’d be Linsane. But it’s a realization that this Lin attention has an extremely odd quality to it. And that’s a good thing. But now it might be over. Is that a good thing?

During the most fervent moments of “Linsanity”, New Yorkers sipped on Lintinis and Lin & Tonics, while  the Nom Wah restaurant in the heart of Chinatown held viewing parties in the midst of Time Warner’s inability to strike a deal with MSG (leaving 2.5 million New Yorkers without him, according to the Huffington Post). It was almost pandemonium. Insane, if you will? But it wasn’t always like that. And with the rush of enthusiasm that hit New York so quickly, it can be a bit hard to remember the spunky reserve that sat, all-day-in-all-day-out, at the edge of the New York Knicks bench.

For years Jeremy Lin was unremarkable. A Harvard star, but without the NBA size (Lin is listed generously at 6’3, 200 pounds), Lin went undrafted in the 2010 draft and floated around the NBA’s D-League (Development League), eventually landing on the Golden State Warriors roster. There, according to basketball-reference.com, he played in 29 games, averaged a meager 9.8 minutes per game, an even more meager 1.6 assists per game, and an even more meager 2.6 points per game.

He eventually was cut, and was picked up perfunctorily by New York.

And then, it was practically instant.

When Lin hit major minutes in the Knicks’s lineup on February 4, it marked the beginning of an 7-game win streak that carried until the 14, and, with some help from the symbol he represented —”an Asian-American in the NBA?! and he’s good?!” were the thoughts of many— marked one of the quickest rises to fame in recent sports history. Quick enough to be quantified.

Honestly, the #Knicks franchise has spent money on Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, and Steve Francis.Give Lin a shot to grow. #NBA

— NBA Wired (@NBAWired) July 16, 2012

According to The Hollywood Reporter (who cited a social study by company General Sentiment), in the days between Feb. 6 and 14, Lin’s Twitter account, @JLin7, was the most-mentioned NBA player in social media. Based on the study, Lin was mentioned 2,610,684 times on Twitter in that timeframe— more than second-most Lebron James, whose regal handle @KingJames, has almost 5.5 million followers.

But it wasn’t just NBA-related. During the same time, Lin was mentioned more than an account whose following amasses near 18 million people. Said handle is that of our President, Barack Obama.

And it was more than just numbers on a relatively new social media sensation. Lin was a symbol for Asian-Americans across the globe. Lin stood brighter than usual because of his NBA-unique ethnicity.

Glancing quickly at a March Yahoo! blurb, Lin is the second-best Asian-American player to ever play in the NBA, and this without ever completing an entire NBA season.

According to the list, Lin is second behind Yao Ming, a similar sensation during much of the 2000s. The other two on the list? Yi Jianlian and Rex Walters. Who?

But the amount of  followers James has, despite Lin’s week of fame, outnumbers Lin’s by 4.5 million people, and symbolizes how Lin was possibly a bright flash in an otherwise disappointing Knicks frying pan.

Letting go of Jeremy Lin is one of the smartest things the Knicks have done in the last 10 years

— Joe Perrone (@Perrone27) July 16, 2012

If it wasn’t for the Knicks’s penchant for signing starpower rather than a full squad (i.e. overpaying Amar’e Stoudemire, whose knees (and defense) are so shaky that they were actually denied insurance and letting fan-favorite Landry Fields out of their grasp), maybe there wouldn’t be so much attention. Maybe the over-the-top contract, $25 million/3 years, from Houston, which would, after accounting for luxury tax, would cost the Knicks $30 million in the third year alone, would be recognized as a cost unpayable.

i’ll miss jeremy lin, but there’s no way they can pay $30 mil

— Chris Molicki (@chrismolicki) July 15, 2012

New York and its vast Asian-American culture birthed Lin’s story, but is now making it pretty tough for the Knicks avoid appearing loyalty-less.

But, like mentioned before, what’s the middleground between salary requirements and what makes so many New Yorkers so happy?

There are guys on the Knicks better than Lin. Carmelo Anthony is widely considered one of, if not the, best pure scorers in the NBA. Iman Shumpert is a quickly-developing shooting guard. Heck, you could even argue goggle-clad Stoudemire still has more in the tank than Lin.

But how much do stats and reps matter over a guy who only “Lin, Lin, Lins!” games?

According to a February WebProNews article, during Linsanity’s birth week, MSG (the host-channel for Knicks games) ratings increase an outrageous 87%.

Jeremy Lin is not worth 30million

— Harry Fraud (@Kick_Push) July 16, 2012

A whole lot of attention for a week’s worth of winning, but then when Lin got hurt in late March, and subsequently sat for the season’s duration (including the playoffs) Lin was a large part forgotten.

Is all the new hoopla just a result of the suffocating New York publicity? Is a guy who means so much to Asian-American communities worth the money to make the fans happy? What does he mean to Asian-American communities? Is he even actually good? Will he even stay healthy?

One New Yorker, and probably to the frustration of many New Yorkers, hasn’t fully bought into Linsanity, and thinks Marcus Camby, Ray Felton, and Jason Kidd, are a step in the right direction for a franchise whose volatile, multi-coached, multi-chaptered season was a mess.

And now we wait to see what the Knicks think.

by Nick Gallinelli

Rep. Charlie Rangel, who voted today in the Democratic congressional primary, is facing a challenge from State Sen. Adriano Espaillat and three other candidates. (Jon Lentz)

After navigating through a crowd of reporters and photographers to cast his primary vote in Harlem today, Congressman Charlie Rangel sought to link his campaign to President Barack Obama.

From the ongoing fiscal crisis and income inequality to healthcare reform and the high number of young people going to prison, Rangel asserted he was the only candidate in the Democratic primary race who could combat the ongoing problems and defend the president’s policies.

“It wasn’t the identification with his color,” Rangel said of the reason he had been inspired by President Obama. “It was the identification with his ideas. The fact that he realized that all Americans have to be invested in an education, and research and science, not because it’s the right thing to do, but if we’re going to compete with other nations, we cannot do it with a population that should be creative, rotting away in jail.”

He also applauded Obama for pushing through healthcare reform to address the problem of sick, uninsured people relying on emergency rooms. The Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling on the president’s landmark legislation later this week.

“We have to stop it,” Rangel said of the many uninsured people relying on emergency rooms. “Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals know we have to do it. Then he came with this exciting idea, that was adopted by Romney in Massachusetts, and hopefully will be adopted this week by the courts.”

Rangel, who touted his support from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg and other elected officials, started his press conference outside the polling station by seeking to dispel what he called “nonsense questions,” including concerns about his age and his ability to serve.

“Am I too old to run for re-election?” he asked. “Clearly, I’ve gone through the process. I’ve done what candidates are supposed to do. … I don’t think anybody that’s running – or not running – should challenge my health.”

To read the full article at City & State click here.

Our hope has been realized, with two strong candidates in the 13th congressional district’s Democratic primary: State Sen. Adriano Espaillat and Clyde Williams, a man with experience on the national stage as well as in Harlem, still the heart of the newly drawn district.

Our nod goes to Williams, who presents the clearest vision—really a laser-like focus on how to bring more jobs back to the district. With his experience in job and community development in Harlem and elsewhere and with his ties to President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, he has the best chance to be the district’s most effective representative, particularly if the president wins re-election.

We like Williams’ record, his intelligence and his problem-solving skills.

Espaillat has had an admirable career fighting good fights in Albany, but he hasn’t given us a reason to think he will be as effective as Williams in Washington. Although jobs and the economy are important issues to him, they are not his top priority.

Rangel, for his part, did not present us with a clear vision of what he hoped to accomplish in the next two years. He does not appear to have the energy and focus he once did.

Add to that his ethical problems, which are much more serious than “spitting on the sidewalk,” as he described them us. Even if you accept Rangel’s claim that he was railroaded into an unfair admission agreement and censure, he nevertheless is a fallen political star. The president and other Democratic leaders pay a political price if they get too close to him.

He believes the accusations are no longer an issue because he was re-elected overwhelmingly in 2010, but that ignores the fact that the district has changed and many voters are looking at Rangel for the first time.

Much of the Upper West Side has been cut out to include more of the East Side and parts of the Bronx.

The other two candidates in the race, Joyce Johnson and Craig Schley, have not run strong campaigns and did not give us reason to think they could be effective.

Clyde Williams is the best candidate in the race and we endorse him in the June 26 Democratic primary.