The election's not till tomorrow, and one should never count one's chickens etc., but let's start early celebrating the reign of Mayor de Blasio just because it makes wingnuts so mad.
I want to focus a minute on their Big Bill's a Red thing, which they seem at one point to have thought would stop the juggernaut.
Wall Street Journal:
Bill de Blasio Should Ask Me About the Sandinistas
The New York mayoral candidate still fondly recalls a regime that I fled in terror for my life.
Yelling at di Blasio for "fondly recalling" the Sandinistas makes as much sense as yelling at someone for saying he liked
The Motorcycle Diaries.
Twenty-five years is a long time, and people change. But on this subject, Mr. de Blasio has made clear that he has not.
Clearly! He's always demanding people call him El Caudillo and brandishing a machete.
Cliff Kincaid at Renew America:
The media whitewash Obama-backed Marxist candidate
...Incredibly, De Blasio says he still supports the Sandinistas and remains influenced by liberation theology, which was manufactured by the old KGB to dupe Christians into supporting Marxism.
Tell it to
Pope Francis.
National Review's resident pencil-neck
Jay Nordlinger:
The man who will probably be our next mayor, Bill de Blasio, is almost a perfect leftist. He and his wife even honeymooned in the Castros’ Cuba. This reminded me of Pierre Trudeau, of whom it has been said, “It tells you everything that he honeymooned in the Soviet Union"...
Here is an uncomfortable question, liable to be damned as McCarthyite by those who don’t want to address it: If the likes of Trudeau and de Blasio were born under Communist dictatorship, what would they do in their adult lives?
Those of us over a certain age will recognize the tropes, including the "
So how about that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Communist?" bit at the end that just assumes de Blasio's Communism (he's just like that Trudeau, you know), done with confidence that it'll get the citizens pulling their chins and going, "Say, 'de Blasio'
does have sort of a Red sound to it!" Ditto
Deroy Murdock:
... the ad reinforces the fundamental mythology that fuels de Blasio’s campaign: The filthy rich refuse to pay what they should in taxes, and must be shaken down to benefit poorer New Yorkers, whom these dandies have stiffed.
It’s a truly touching narrative — worthy of Charles Dickens or perhaps Karl Marx.
We got rid of the Commies, and it's only a matter of time before we get rid of literature and empathy too. Then the conservative revolution will be complete!
But as de Blasio has racked up the points, even Kincaid has had to catch on that his red-baiting was getting him nowhere -- "But there's more to this story than Marxism, which most people think is a dead ideology that has no relevance today," he sighs -- and switch to the
new attack line about di Blasio inviting hoodie-hood boys to bum rush the show and take your daughter to Plato's Retreat.
It looks like that's not working, either.
Quick, there's only a day left -- someone tie de Blasio to Obamacare!
UPDATE. I was kidding about Obamacare, but on Twitter
Mike Di Paola informs me that the
New York Post's Bob McManus actually went for it in August with "De Blasio's Big ObamaCare Problem." di Blasio had complained about the winnowing of New York's hospitals (e.g. St. Vincent's), and McManus informed him that it was his own fault, and Obama's, because
New federal, state and local laws and regulations — soon to include ObamaCare, with a vengeance — are vaporizing the financial incentives for unneeded and extended hospitalizations, for example. Hospitals are now sharply penalized for such practices.
The changes have slashed patient populations — and so pushed many financially marginal institutions straight over the edge. (See above, Long Island College Hospital.)
Meanwhile, both the government and insurers have been heavily incentivizing “wellness initiatives” — quit-smoking and diet programs and so on — meant to dramatically cut hospitals out of the picture.
Trying to improve healthcare ruins everything! There are also some ravings about how di Blasio wants hospitals to stay open so he can funnel phoney-baloney jobs to his pals at SEIU, but really, it's just the typographic equivalent of someone throwing whatever rock, mudball, or candy wrapper he can find at a target he can't hit.
