Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s campaign for mayor got a significant boost Friday, with the endorsement of the city’s largest union: 1199 SEIU.
It is the first major labor endorsement for Mr. de Blasio, who has been aggressively courting unions as he tries position himself as the “progressive alternative” to the race’s early front-runner, Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Read More
Brooklyn State Senator Marty Golden may be a conservative Republican, but he can still rack up influential union endorsements as he campaigns for reelection against Democrat Andrew Gounardes. To wit, the 200,000 member union SEIU 1199 announced their endorsement of Mr. Golden this morning.
“He has written and passed many important pieces of legislation that have improved and protected the health and well-being of all New Yorkers,” Kevin Finnegan, 1199′s political director, said in a statement. Read More
As George Pataki — and his website — inch closer to formally entering the 2012 GOP race for president, here’s a roundup of what people are saying about him.
Jonathan Capehart remembers that Pataki endorsed Carl Paladino for governor last year, which doesn’t bode very well for that “moderate” and “welcoming” presence some think the former governor brings to the GOP primary. Read More
Gwyneth Paltrow sat next to Jimmy Fallon, with Anna Wintour and Pharrell Williams sitting nearby. But tucked into the back of Harvey Weinstein’s basement last night was one face that hadn’t been seen with President Obama at any of his New York fund-raisers so far this year: Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“I’m lucky enough, and he knows it’s true, to say that I was one of Governor Cuomo’s earliest supporters,” Weinstein told the crowd.
“Yes, yes,” Cuomo called out. “Angel investor.”
“You are an angel,” Weinstein gushed.
“That’s the first time anybody’s ever called him that,” Obama said. Read More
Chelsea Clinton joined advocates this evening in Manhattan to mark the first week of a phonebank campaign to legalize same-sex marriage, and said she hopes that New York will pass a same-sex marriage bill by her anniversary this July.
“As someone who got married last year, it was certainly the happiest day of my life to be able to marry my best friend,” she said of her 2010 wedding to husband Marc Mezvinsky. “I fundamentally believe that every New Yorker, every American, and everyone should have the same right.” Read More
Former President Clinton comes out in support of same-sex marriage, a sign of how far into the mainstream the LGBT agenda has become. (It was Clinton, after all, who signed things like the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states the right to refuse same-sex marriages performed in other states; and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the military rule from the 1990s whose repeal earlier this year was cheered as a major LGBT victory).
In a statement released by the Human Rights Campaign, Clinton said:
Our nation’s permanent mission is to form a ‘more perfect union’ – deepening the meaning of freedom, broadening the reach of opportunity, strengthening the bonds of community. That mission has inspired and empowered us to extend rights to people previously denied them. Every time we have done that, it has strengthened our nation. Now we should do it again, in New York, with marriage equality. For more than a century, our Statue of Liberty has welcomed all kinds of people from all over the world yearning to be free. In the 21st century, I believe New York’s welcome must include marriage equality.
As with the videos from HRC, the message is positive, points no fingers at those who are opposing it, and paints the issue as an expansion of freedom.
Update: Chelsea Clinton will join activists at a phone bank inside 1199 SEIU headquarters, around 7 p.m. tonight, pushing for the cause. Tonight kicks off bi-weekly calling sessions, notes Liz Benjamin.
