The Schlep to City Hall: Recent Episodes
Charlie O'Donnell, Lillian Ruiz
The #1 Podcast About the NYC Mayoral Election Hosted by Two Undecided Brooklyn Voters - Hosted by Charlie O'Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures and Lillian Ruiz of Ci-X Strategies.
It's over... or is it? Eric Adams has a big lead and Andrew Yang has conceded, but is there still a shot for Maya or Kathryn? We cover what happened and some of the ideas on why in what might be our last episode, but we'll see!
Can we do this in person next time? Errol + eight Zoom show probably didn't change the game, but in a race that is getting tighter, every plus and minus counts. The biggest gamechanger of the week, however, goes to Kathryn Garcia for her NY Times endorsement--but that wasn't the only one she got.
A woman who worked as an unpaid intern for Scott Stringer two decades ago has publicly accused the city comptroller and mayoral candidate of sexual abuse and harassment, including repeated acts of unwanted kissing and touching. All three major female Democratic candidates for mayor have called on Scott Stringer, who has denied the allegation, to drop out of the primary contest.
This will be the first of our weekly news updates. We had a flip flop in the #2 and #3 spots in the polls, so we covered who's up and who's down. Charlie also spoke with long time NYC politician Sal Albanese about running for Mayor and how he defied the odds across his life and career.
Andrew Yang might be at 25% or he might be at 16% and falling. The next poll will determine a lot about where we think he is in this race--but despite his frontrunner status, has the Yang campaign actually underperformed? We'll talk about his confounding quest to run the city and what to make of his message.
In 1999, Eric Adams was self-identifying as a “conservative” Republican. Today, he's running for the Democratic nomination for Mayor as a tough on crime, tough on meat centrist with a penchant for attention-grabbing off-the-cuff remarks. He's currently second in the polls, but what should voters make of the Borough President who vows to pack his own heat if elected and dismiss his security detail?
We asked former Press Secretaries Eric Phillips and Julie Wood, as well as Youssef Kalad, former Program Director of NYCx, the emerging technology & innovation program within the Mayor's Office of the Chief Technology Officer, what it's actually like working within city government. What they shared was a deep sense of pride in the work and an enlightening admission of just how big the operation feels, how much good it can do, and how it doesn't always work as planned.
Carlos Menchaca represents New York City Council District 38, which includes Sunset Park, Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, and portions of Borough Park, Dyker Heights and Windsor Terrace. He is New York State's first Mexican-American elected official and Brooklyn's first openly gay office holder. He's also a supporter of Universal Basic Income and gained prominence around his opposition to the Industry City expansion.
Kathryn Garcia has been called a lot of things over the past few years--Shadow Mayor, Crisis Expert. She's the closest thing NYC government has to Pulp Fiction's Winston Wolf--a fast, efficient thinker who shows up when things are messy and provides a solution. She got our attention and has a lot of ideas that come off as, dare we say, exceedingly practical.
The New York Daily News described her as one of the most progressive candidates in the race. Her goal is to become the city's first Afro-Latina mayor, and its first female mayor. Her campaign-announced 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. You could say that she's the opposite of the Wall Street candidate, which makes her favorite pizza place a bit on the nose.
Ray McGuire is a big guy with a big personality. He grew up poor and made it big on Wall Street. He's even the dad of an NBA Point Guard. What more could he want? Well, he wants to be Mayor and thinks he has the deal-making skills to revive NYC's economy. Can he do it?
Maria Doulis has worked for 15 years at the Citizen's Budget Committee--a non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to making sure NYC's finances are in check. In it, we get not only a lesson on the city's $88 billion budget but also a very important National League East prediction and our first Queens pizza rec. #lfgm
Maya Wiley is a lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist. She served as the board chair of the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and served as counsel to Bill de Blasio. She was the senior vice president for Social Justice at The New School and is taking her policy fights to the campaign trail. She's focused on an inclusive message about an equitable New York City, and is trying to convince New Yorkers that an advocate's perspective can make the city operate better for all.
Shaun Donovan was HUD Secretary and Director of OMB for the Obama Administration and don't you forget it. He's running on a platform of big prior experience and the kind of national connections that could help a city in need of a federal lifeline--but he isn't super well known to the NYC voter community, despite also working in the Bloomberg Administration. How will that experience play to the NYC crowd and can he break through in a crowded field? Join us in getting to know him in our first candidate interview.
Hosts Lillian Ruiz and Charlie O'Donnell talk about where they're starting with this race for NYC Mayor and give an early take on the state of the race. They also talk a little bit about what some of the most important issues are and how NYC voters might be thinking about their candidates.
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