In 1993, I was the Conservative Party candidate for mayor of New York. I ran against Mayor David Dinkins and the candidate of the Republican and Liberal parties, Rudy Giuliani, because I believed it was important to promote common sense fiscal, education and public safety policies that could save a city in crisis.
While I had no chance of winning, my presence in the race pushed Giuliani to the right. He subsequently adopted policies I advocated: “broken windows” policing and responsible fiscal management.
Centrist policies pursued by Mayors Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg between 1994 and 2013 put New York on a solid fiscal and economic footing and made the city the safest in America.
Conversely, after 12 years of progressive policies pursued by an errant City Council and two inept and corrupt mayors, Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams, the city is once again on the road to fiscal, economic, and social perdition.
Their ideologically driven policies have polarized the city and have driven hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to move to tax- and job-friendly states in the South. De Blasio joined the “defund the police” mania and allowed crime rates to rise for the first time since the Dinkins era. Adams permitted rampant corruption and incompetence to hobble his administration.
And New York’s prospects will be even dimmer if the democratic socialist candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is elected.
The delusional socialist refuses to support an increase in the headcount of the Police Department. He promises to “freeze the rent,” a policy that would devastate the city’s mom-and-pop landlords. He will ensure neighborhood stores go out of business with his promised $30-an-hour minimum wage. He wants to raise the city’s income tax on top earners, raise corporate taxes, and increase property taxes on homes in “whiter neighborhoods.”
To top things off, Mamdani said that the best mayor in his lifetime was the hapless de Blasio, whose anti-cop agenda Mamdani vocally supported in Albany.
There’s more.
Mamdani refused to co-sponsor a legislative resolution acknowledging the Holocaust. He has denounced the war on Hamas. In a mayoral debate he refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and he has pledged to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal should he set foot in the city.
Mamdani must be stopped.
To achieve that end, Republicans and Conservatives must face the reality that the only candidate who has a chance of beating Mamdani is former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
As a lifelong Conservative activist (I was handing out flyers on street corners for William F. Buckley Jr. when he ran for mayor in 1965), I urge all my fellow Conservatives and their Republican allies to cast their vote for Cuomo in November.
My endorsement of Cuomo does not mean I agree with him on every issue.
When he was governor, I clashed with him publicly in op-ed columns.
But Cuomo was also willing to listen to alternative viewpoints. When he was attorney general and governor, we met on numerous occasions to discuss public policy issues. To ensure a conservative voice in his administration, he appointed me to his transition team and to the governor’s Council of Economic and Fiscal Advisors.
Despite our differences, I agree with the statement former Mayor Bloomberg released in June endorsing Cuomo: “There is one candidate whose management experience and government know-how stands above the others: Andrew Cuomo.”
Current circumstances in the city simply do not allow for a path to victory for the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, whom the Conservative Party declined to support. The Real Clear Politics average of current polls shows Sliwa at 14.3%, meaning that he is on track to underperform his last run by about 10 points.
However, the circumstances represent an ironic opportunity for Republicans. Cuomo needs Republicans in his coalition. In fact, Republican votes will decide whether we have Mayor Mamdani or a Mayor Cuomo. Hence, Republicans can play kingmaker, allowing “our side” to claim a role in the Cuomo administration.
Such a role will help ensure that Cuomo governs as a centrist and stands against the worst of the progressive tide. It will allow Republican voters to have a strong voice. But, if voters stick with Sliwa, who will lose in a blowout, we will have nothing except embarrassment and total irrelevancy.
The political reality is clear: a vote for Sliwa is a vote for Mamdani. If Republicans and Conservatives come out in droves to cast their ballot for Cuomo on Nov. 4, they will provide the margin of victory and can take credit for saving the city from Mamdani’s cockeyed socialist platitudes.
Marlin is the author of “Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party” and “Mario Cuomo: The Myth and the Man.”
