Reminder: State and nation are separate levels of governance
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo speaks at Touro Law School in Central Islip on Aug. 8, 2018. Credit: Newsday / J. Conrad Williams Jr.
The dramas of Washington and President Donald Trump so forcefully drive the news these days that even close followers of local events might come to view all races on 2018 ballots as part of one big national partisan contest.
With New York's congressional seats and one U.S. Senate slot up for grabs in November, it, of course, makes sense to see those contests as at least partially about Trump. Elected representatives in D.C. vote and negotiate with or against the priorities of the administration, either as part of the Republican majority or the Democratic minority.
These crucial midterm races are part of the broader struggle for congressional control that could also decide the administration's fate — even without the still-vague prospect of an impeachment. Look at how the rise of the tea party in 2010, the second year of Barack Obama's presidential term, shifted power in the subsequent years.
But national controversies are also finding their way into the state-level races — perhaps not so much for governmental reasons but because certain candidates from New York's dominant Democratic Party see an easy advantage in attacking Trump.
Two years ago, the Queens-raised president lost New York, 59 percent to 36 percent. Tracking polls show him with big margins of disapproval in the state. Democrats far out-register Republicans statewide.
Anti-Trump solidarity is a breeze many Democrats find easy to ride.
So Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has tried to spice up his re-election drive by dumping ham-handedly on Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. The resulting exchange of Twitter hostilities with his famous former campaign donor helps Cuomo turn attention from his Sept. 13 primary challenger, Cynthia Nixon.
Running a long-shot effort from Cuomo's left, Nixon wasn't going to defend the slogan. She was left to respond: "I think this is just another example of Andrew Cuomo trying to figure out what a progressive sounds like and missing by a mile."
A national context, of course, lets the second-term governor draw a more flattering light than he can from other, in-state news stories. It has to be more fun than defending his approaches to the troubles of the transit system, or explaining the upcoming criminal sentence of his longtime close aide Joe Percoco and others, or the upstate economy.
Still, there are state and local issues for which the GOP's rule in Washington and Trump's executive role prods a New York government response. Among them: moves to cut certain federal aid to "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigration, offshore oil drilling permission and curbing taxpayer deductions for state and local taxes.
No position offers a better opportunity for a Democrat to play the role of anti-Trump tribune than the state attorney general's office. Before vanishing in a sex-abuse scandal, the job's ex-occupant, Eric T. Schneiderman, launched a probe of the Trump family's nonprofit foundation that turned up serious financial questions. The resulting civil proceedings continue under interim AG Barbara Underwood. The state Tax Department also is now in on the action.
The hard part for many interested voters could be keeping in mind the exact jobs to which they are electing their candidates — and who they are really running against.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
