12 JULY 4, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
The establishment’s hard lesson
Regardless of how the fi nal count
turns out, one thing about the
Democratic primary for Queens
EDITORIAL
district attorney is certain: The
political establishment in this borough
was simply outhustled by public
defender Tiff any Cabán’s campaign,
and it’s time for them to learn from
the experience.
One look at some of the maps
breaking down the vote showed just
how successful Cabán’s campaign
was in getting out a huge volume of
voters to her side. She won just six
Assembly districts, all of them located
in northwest Queens, and in numbers
that far exceeded the maximum
amount of votes Queens Borough
President Melinda Katz received in
any of the districts she won.
In the 36th District in Astoria and
Long Island City, Cabán won 6,174 of
the 8,184 votes cast — an overwhelming
75.4 percent of the vote. By contrast,
Katz performed her best in the 29th
District in southeast Queens, gaining
3,269 of the 5,757 votes cast — a solid
56.8 percent of the vote, but nothing
Photo: Mark Hallum/Ridgewood Times
close to what her main opponent
achieved. What did the Cabán campaign do
diff erently than Team Katz to spark
such success? They went to the very
basics of politics — mobilizing an army
of volunteers to knock on doors and
personally convince people to support
their candidate. They also expanded
their reach on social media and ran a
dynamic, ideas-based campaign that
resonated with progressive voters in
northwest Queens.
For better or worse, this voting bloc
must no longer be written off .
In two years, this bloc has vaulted
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to victory
over a long-term Democratic
incumbent Congressman; driven
back the deal that would have allowed
Amazon to develop a new campus in
Long Island City; and is now on the
cusp of bringing a 31-year-old career
public defender into power as Queens’
top prosecutor.
We recognize the concern among
moderate and conservative Democrats
across the borough who wonder if
this left ward shift will bring about
problems of its own.
But the establishment should neither
demonize the left nor capitulate to
it — nor should the establishment
disappear from the scene entirely.
Instead, it must retool.
It needs to learn from what the
Cabáns and the Ocasio-Cortezes of the
world have done and adapt accordingly.
Get back to the basics of grassroots
campaigning. Go out in the community
and talk to people, knock on doors, sell
practical and popular ideas for the 21st
century.
Call upon new voices in the
community, bring them into the fold,
hear their ideas out. Build a new party
platform that adopts some of the old,
some of the new — but all of what works
best for the people and the community,
both now and in the future.
Queens will always be a Democratic
borough, but if the establishment
wants to continue to defi ne it, then it
must change with the times — or, as
evidenced in the last two years, the
times will inevitably change them.
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ESTABLISHED 1908
Co-Publishers
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA SCHNEPS
Editor-in-Chief
ROBERT POZARYCKI
Classifi ed Manager
DEBORAH CUSICK
Assistant Classifi ed Manager
MARLENE RUIZ
Reporters
EMILY DAVENPORT
MARK HALLUM
CARLOTTA MOHAMED
BILL PARRY
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STORY:
Over 40 northeast Queens public
schools ranked as top performers
under New York’s ESSA plan
SUMMARY:
The State Education Department
recognized 44 public schools in
northeast Queens as high achieving
institutions under New York’s Every
Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan.
REACH:
33,846 people reached (as of 7/1/19)
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