If Zohran Mamdani wins the general election in six weeks, he will most likely go from being an unknown name to one of the faces of the Democratic Party in New York State in a relatively short time. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, stands poised to do the same thing on a national level if she mounts a successful campaign in a few years to run for U.S. Senate or the White House. All that's going on in New York politics has many outsiders wondering- have they gone nuts in New York? When did the far-far-left become the rule of thumb in the Empire State, and can the same rule apply to the rest of the country? J.C. Polanco is a political analyst and assistant professor at Mount Saint Vincent College; he appeared on 710 WOR’s Mendte in the Morning program and channeled a foe from America’s recent political past to describe how unrecognizable the left has now made the Democratic Party.
“Fidel Castro is trying to talk to the Democrats and tell them to slow down; they’re going too far left,” Polanco jested with host Larry Mendte. “The socialists have hijacked the Democratic Party in New York. This is not the Peter Vallone Democratic Party. This is not the Ed Koch Democratic Party. I don’t even think this is the Barack Obama Democratic Party- this is the A.O.C. Democratic Party… and the fact that Assemblyman Mamdani was able to win a primary is a clear indicator. And the fact that all of these mainstream Democrats… they’ve endorsed Mamdani because they see the writing on the wall, that the Democratic Party has gone further left.”
Polanco sees more normalcy, however, across the Hudson in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. There, he feels GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli has a fair shot to defeat Democrat Mikie Sherrill, if he can appeal to independents. “How can Ciattarelli come to the middle, go mano a mano with a centrist Democrat, and excite enough independents?... There are 2.4 million independents [in New Jersey], so who can appeal to us independents? Who can talk to us? I think [last Sunday’s] debate is a great indicator; I can’t wait to see the next one.”
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