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It’s hard to tell which is more pathetic: this year’s crop of mayoral candidates, or the city’s system for electing one of them.
On Tuesday, the Campaign Finance Board withheld nearly $3 million in public matching funds from the city’s leading mayoral wannabe, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
It gave the most cash, $3.8 million, to radical socialist Zohran Mamdani, who’s far behind in the polls.
Why hold up Cuomo’s funds?
The board cites a “high percentage (20% or more) of documentation errors for contributions” and his failure to file a “personal financial disclosure.”
Yes, the ex-gov’s campaign is a mess: In recent days, it issued also a housing plan filled with typos and garbled wording that seemed AI-generated, and it misspelled the names of union leaders in an announcement of their endorsements.
All adding to Cuomo’s horrific record as gov “killing grannies and pinching fannies,” as the late great Bob McManus once put it.
(Not to mention Cuomo’s grim legacy, from “congestion” tolls to signing all those “criminal justice reforms” into law.)
Maybe the lost funds is karma for the $5 million Cuomo “earned” for his staff-written book on COVID “leadership.”
Or the $60 mill in taxpayer funds to cover his legal bills.
Still, despite Cuomo’s healthy lead in the polls (a reflection on the awful alternatives), he gets zilch in public funds, at least for now.
Mayor Eric Adams gets stiffed, too, with the CFB citing charges against him that were already dropped.
It won’t even consider matching funds unless Adams appeals, which he’s so far failed to do.
Nor has Hizzoner filed his personal disclosure statement.
That leaves Mamdani — at 33, famous mostly for heckling border czar Tom Homan, for insisting socialism really does work and for deeply despising Israel — as the runaway winner in the matching-funds sweepstakes.
The Democratic Socialists of America candidate has raked in $6.7 million, far more than second-place Brad Lander (who also has DSA ties).
Talk about irony.
An anti-capitalist Israel-hater running in the capital of capitalism and home to more Jews than any other city squeezing more from taxpayers than mainstream wannabes like Cuomo and Adams.
He’s already put socialism in action: Our money gets to pay for his campaign.
It’s all part of Gotham’s screwy public-campaign-finance system that’s already cost taxpayers $14 million-plus this year in 8-to-1 matching funds, with unelected board members arbitrarily deciding who gets what.
In 2013, the board similarly nixed public cash for John Lui’s mayoral bid, shutting down his campaign and paving the way for the nightmare of Bill de Blasio’s victory.
These are the grim results of a system that was supposedly to give the city level-playing-field democracy.
Maybe the public will someday get a chance to pull out of this travesty, and let the politicians figure out how to fund their own campaigns.