Blakeman and Hochul joust on social media
New York gubernatorial candidates, from left, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Gov. Kathy Hochul. Credit: Newsday / Howard Schnapp; Jeff Bachner
Daily Point
Blakeman calls some parents 'lazy ass'; Hochul says he's a 'coward'
Can a clichéd GOP talking point woo independent voters?
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Republican challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, took turns trolling each other on social media this week over childcare and affordability. '26 is the year of affordability politics, with politicians of all political stripes clamoring to win over regular, working folks — and their votes.
First, during an interview on a Buffalo TV station this week, Blakeman castigated parents without a job who need help paying for daycare as "lazy ass" people who "watch ‘The View' or cartoons. That ain't happenin' with me as governor."
Hochul reposted that clip on her X account, adding that Blakeman "is openly attacking New York families like the coward that he is. Pathetic."
No good dig goes unanswered, so Blakeman blasted back on X: "The real cowardice is watching families flee New York, electric bills skyrocket, crime rise, and billions of taxpayer dollars disappear, then pretending everything is fine."
Blakeman concluded: "That's the choice in this election."
In an interview Tuesday with WNYC reporter Jon Campbell, Blakeman lambasted parents without jobs, going back to his earlier name-calling of those parents. "But I'm not gonna give money, subsidies, to some lazy ass sitting on a couch somewhere watching cartoons. That ain't happening," Blakeman said, according to an X post by Campbell.
Blakeman is throwing red meat to the GOP party faithful about cutting government subsidies for social welfare programs. But will that attract independent voters, a key bloc of 3.2 million voters Blakeman needs to win in November? There are 6 million registered Democrats in New York State and 2.8 million registered Republicans. Blakeman has consistently linked Hochul with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a loud and proud democratic socialist. The play for Blakeman is that rural and suburban independent voters don't want a socialist governor or socialist candidates in local government seats.
And there are still five months of verbal volleyball to go.
— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com
Pencil Point
I'm loving it
Credit: Creators / Mike Luckovich
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Reference Point
The fight for fair representation is not new
An editorial and cartoon that ran on June 17, 1966.
As redistricting maneuvers for the House of Representatives are happening across the country middecade, there is nothing new about the efforts of one group or one party to fight over control through reapportionment. Six decades ago this week, the fight was in Suffolk County.
On June 17, 1966, Newsday ran an editorial and a cartoon analyzing Suffolk's response to a lawsuit claiming that county government violated the U.S. Supreme Court's "one man, one vote" rulings of the early 1960s.
Back then, the county board was made up of 10 supervisors who each had one vote. This directly clashed with the "one man, one vote" mandate in that the five eastern towns were significantly less populous than the five western towns.
"Redistricting in Suffolk has been long overdue," the board lamented, criticizing the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors for failing to come up with a redistricting plan itself and instead relying on a federal court to reapportion the board on an interim basis.
"The five eastern towns, with a total population of 64,814, have been the tail that wagged the dog. The five western towns, with 601,736 citizens—and thus roughly tenfold more—have been the victim," the editorial explained. This gave the East End overrepresentation, in addition to the "home rule veto" where any supervisor could veto a countywide project that had local objections.
The federal court's "prescription" was a weighted vote system that gave western towns 120 votes and eastern towns 14 votes. The editorial board called it "a fair solution" and challenged the Board of Supervisors to come up with an answer that was equally fair.
The result: the 1970 creation of the 18-member Suffolk County Legislature, but only after an April 1968 order from the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordering the Board of Supervisors to reapportion itself.
That forced the board to create a new structure and new charter, before one more last step — voter approval. And Suffolk voters did so in November 1968 by a vote of 129,052 to 79,713.
In Newsday's recounting of the birth of the Suffolk Legislature, Shelter Island Supervisor and board chair Evan K. Griffing, who was ceding power to the western part of the county, was said to have told a reporter at the time he was ashamed of his yes vote. "I think I know how Benedict Arnold felt," Griffing said.
The editorial board was a yes vote for the new structure, too, in 1966.
"The result is bound to be good for Suffolk, too long languishing amid dreams of a rural past that has vanished."
— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com
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