Dianne Morales, 54, a single Mom of Puerto Rican descent living in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, with her two children and her parents, is not in the lead in anyone’s survey of candidates for Mayor of New York City. She’s not even in the lead among candidates endorsed by her own Working Families Party, which last week picked City Comptroller Scott Stringer as its top choice. Morales and former City Hall attorney Maya Wiley, came in second and third, respectively.
But none of the three extreme-left candidates are in the lead for the Democratic nomination, ahead of the June 22 primaries. The lead belongs to Andrew Yang, according to a new poll published on Friday, conducted by the left-leaning Data for Progress. The former Democratic presidential candidate is 13 points ahead of his closest rival, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, with 26% to 13% respectively.
The same poll gave Stringer and Wiley 11% and 10% support respectively – but Morales is not on the list of candidates with double-digit support.
I noted all of the above as the context for Jacob Kornbluh’s story in the Forward on Friday, which shrieked: NYC mayoral candidate Dianne Morales calls Israel ‘apartheid state.’ This story is a shortcut offered by the Forward to this way-behind candidate who is starved for media attention.
Morales has the money – last Thursday, the City’s Campaign Finance Board awarded her more than $2.2 million in public matching funds. A Morales campaign spokesperson told NY1: “Matching means a lot to a truly grassroots campaign like us – we’ve been able to grow our staff, which enables us to support our movement of supporters and to deepen connections with New Yorkers across all five boroughs.”
Kornbluh’s own account raises a question about his choice to boost the Morales candidacy: “Morales, a former non-profit executive who is polling at around three percent in the most recent poll, described Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ because of its occupation of land in the West Bank.” The woman has 3% in the polls, she was rejected by her own party members, why award her this lavish exposure? Also, if you know she’s stuck in the 3% bargain basement, why open your story with “Dianne Morales, one of the leading candidates for mayor of New York City, called Israel an apartheid state”? She’s not leading by any stretch of the verb to lead, but with your support, sure, the sky is the limit.
Or, as The New Arab put it on Saturday (New York mayor candidate calls Israel an ‘apartheid’ state): “New York mayoral candidate Dianne Morales has deemed Israel an ‘apartheid state,’ marking the latest instance of a leftist Democrat using the controversial term to condemn the occupation of Palestinian territories.”
Kornbluh worked from a December audio recording of Morales, who spoke to Jewish high school students. There’s a fine Jewish education for you. “I cannot advocate for equity and justice in New York City and turn a blind eye to the challenges around those issues in Israel and with the folks living in Gaza and in Palestine,” Morales is heard saying.
Apparently, in 2015, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York sent Morales on an all-expenses-paid, week-long trip to Israel, which the grateful candidate described as a “propaganda trip.” She explained: “I was not happy with my experience on that trip, to be frank, because I don’t think that we were given sort of honest and straightforward information.”
The Morales campaign priorities include reforming the New York City Housing Authority, desegregating city schools, promoting equitable and affordable mass transit, creating green jobs, building affordable housing, a guaranteed minimum income, rent cancellation, cutting the New York Police Department budget, an elected police oversight body, and reforming the police.
Add cooler summers and warmer winters and you’ve got our vote.
Steve Cuozzo at the NY Post is frothing at the mouth at the mention of Morales’s name (Woke mayoral candidates want to use COVID to turn NYC into Communist ‘utopia’). He berates all the other Democrats in the race for their various, bizarre agendas, but Morale receives his special treatment:
At least one mayoral candidate — Dianne Morales — actually wholeheartedly embraces these radical ideas. She wants to “divest from the police, invest in the people” and suggests we junk the old New York City altogether. “This is the moment for us to throw out the old playbook and the old rules,” she recently told The Root. “The notion of property ownership is one that was man-made,” Morales said. “It’s an economic paradigm that we can change. We can focus on social housing.”
Nobody thinks she stands a chance of winning. But nobody thought Bill de Blasio had a hope in hell either, and the new weighted-vote system — where voters can rank up to five candidates in order of their choice, and the one who gets the most votes over 50 percent wins — makes any outcome possible.
With candidates like these, New York could face a heartbreaking destiny: a city that overcame the pandemic, only to be destroyed by a mayor who delivers woke ruination.
And you thought two-term Mayor Bill de Blasio was the worst thing that ever happened to New York City. You also thought The Forward was a pro-Israel newspaper.