Hillary Clinton v. Bernie Sanders becomes a Brooklyn affair
For the moment, Brooklyn’s political cachet soars with its real estate prices.
Campaigns are stirring in New York’s Democratic presidential primary. Hillary Clinton opened her headquarters last year in upscale Brooklyn Heights. Bernie Sanders, once of Midwood, has based his state operation in less-upscale Gowanus.
Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson told reporters on Monday: “He’s going to campaign like a Brooklynite, and she’s going to campaign like a senator who represented the state for eight years and lived here for 16.”
Some listeners were puzzled. Benenson, once of Queens, explained the remark as a compliment. Whatever it meant, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a longtime Park Slope resident, and Eric Adams, the borough president, accepted it as a cue to launch into positive generalizations about the place.
Contenders in the April 19 contest have ample reason to come courting in what used to be called the borough of churches. The place has at least part of five of the state’s 27 congressional districts and nearly 2.6 million of the state’s nearly 20 million residents. The Brooklyn Democrats are one of the largest party county organizations in the United States.
Only a tourist, though, would look for a “Brooklyn vote” that will reflect the rest of the state.
In all, the city has a dozen House members. That’s big chunk in a state that allots delegates by congressional district. But Sanders, a senator from neighboring Vermont, is also looking for a boost upstate in his underdog drive for the nomination.
His official surrogate, Jonathan Tasini, author of the book “The Essential Bernie Sanders and his Vision for America,” cites two reasons he should do well there.
“He understands the farm areas in New York State,” said Tasini, who ran a long-shot primary against Clinton in 2006. “He should do very well in places like Buffalo and Rochester when he points out Clinton’s support for trade agreements that have devastated these areas the same way as in the rust belt.”
Clinton still commands most of the institutional party support around the state, cultivated during her Senate career. Brooklyn Democratic chairman Frank Seddio, for one, is behind her.
As to “campaigning like a Brooklynite,” Democratic consultant George Arzt said: “Brooklyn has come a long way since ‘The Honeymooners.’ ”
Democratic Party dominance aside, the borough’s politics never fit broad categories. In 1972, during the presidency of Republican Richard Nixon, Democratic Rep. Shirley Chisholm from Bedford-Stuyvesant became the first black major-party candidate for the White House. Elsewhere in racially divided Brooklyn, white residents were then turning away from liberal policies such as school busing.
That year Sen. George McGovern, the eventual Democratic nominee, came through campaigning. One of the stops he made was outside Trump Village in Coney Island, the towering complex opened in the 1960s by Republican candidate Donald Trump’s father, developer Fred C. Trump.
All kinds of presidential politics grows in Brooklyn.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
