The race for governor in New York State should not be close but it is. Governor Kathy Hochul has been a responsible governor who tries to improve the lives of New Yorkers.
Her opponent Lee Zeldin is a lackey for Trump. He has supported everything Trump advocated. hHecsupports charters and vouchers. He opposes gun control.
The NYC Kids PAC outlined the differences between them:
Dear all:
An important election is happening right now for Governor and other statewide and local races. Early voting is being held today and Sunday, and then election day is Tuesday. You can check out your ballot and your voting sites here.
NYC Kids PAC strongly urges you to vote for Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has fully funded the CFE decision that is sending another $1.3 billion to NYC public schools, signed the class size bill that will lead to smaller class size caps phased in starting next fall, and supports strong gun control measures, including banning guns from schools.
In contrast, her opponent, Lee Zeldin, is an extremist who is a proponent of school privatization, announced his education platform outside of a Success charter school, and supports voucher-like “tax credits” to pay for tuition to private schools. He even opposes “red flag” laws to remove weapons from individuals deemed to be a threat and is against the ban against carrying guns in schools — all of which would make our children less safe.
So please vote for Kathy Hochul, if you haven’t already; the choice between her and Zeldin is crystal clear.
See you at the polls,
NYC Kids PAC
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have been accused of being alarmist over this but if the GOP wins as they are predicted, we will see the wholesale dismantling of public education within a year, not this piecemeal nipping and chipping away since “A Nation at Risk.” My girlfriend and I have been discussing leaving the country, perhaps resettling in Canada. Again, the Carlinist I am, I quote George Carlin: “The pile of [expletive] is too deep”….for any positive change to swing back to common sense. I wish I could offer a positive prognosis. But the momentum, not necessarily of history but of contemporary human dumbassery, is headed out of Wiemar for good after tomorrow.
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Gov. Hochul has badly hurt her election prospects by dismissing valid concerns about crime. She recently appeared on MSNBC where the far Left interviewer told Hochul that she is afraid to go into NYC subways because of the many recent incidents of assault. Many other people – including many liberal voters – have said the same thing. I know the top priority of this blog is whatever the AFT wants, but voters will have their say tomorrow – Hochul will likely lose what should have been a winnable race because of her arrogant dismissal of the crime issue.
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Bill,
It may surprise you to learn that the top priority of this blog is to support our democracy, and that public schools are an important part of democracy. I have never “cleared” anything with the AFT or any other organization. I speak for myself and am grateful to have dedicated readers who find this a valuable place to discuss the issues of the day, mostly about Education, but about anything else that is interesting.
I don’t know Kathy Hochul.
I do know Lee Zeldin. He is Trump’s mini-me.
He opposes abortion rights.
He will seek vouchers.
He will stick to the Trump playbook in all respects except that he’s not as rich and rude as Trump.
He will fight for tax cuts for the rich and do nothing for anyone else.
At this point, he seems to be the wholly-owned property of billionaire Ronald Lauder, who gave him $13 million. Ronnie objects to a wind farm near his property in the Hamptons. That’s what really matters.
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Unfortunately, the battle cry for the DNC is ‘don’t vote red’, instead of running candidates with any integrity that deserve votes on their own merits. Zeldin would be terrible, especially for teachers, but it will be hard to vote for Hochul given all her negatives as well. Educators voting blindly for any democrat drawing breath has not worked out so well for us thus far. Democratic party will have to wake up to the fact that voting against the opponent is not a viable strategy long term and will have to find candidates worth voting FOR.
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I don’t know Hochul’s negatives. As the post says, she has approved historic funding increases and signed a historic class size reduction bill.
She is not in the pocket of the billionaires, as Zeldin is. There is nothing to like about Zeldin. He has been my Congressman for the past several years, and he’s nothing more than a Trump echo.
Of course, if you want to outlaw abortion, expand gun rights, deny climate change, and defund public schools, he’s your guy.
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I have no idea why the polls are so close, that the polls say the odds favor the Republicans to take back Congress in both Houses.
If that many voters in the US want to flush the US Constitution into the sewer and turn this country over to theofascists monsters, this isn’t the United States I was born in and fought for.
I’m hoping that Michael Moore is right, that there’s going to a blue wave and the polls are all wrong.
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I stopped reading the polls.
It’s inconceivable to me that there is a large constituency for government by liars, government wholly owned by fascist billionaires.
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I honestly pray you’re right, D. Again, Ben Kingsley’s prophesy in the 1992 film “Sneakers” is well worth referencing (see link below). It’s all about the information, what we see, what we hear, how we think. how we work, etc. That being said, I think of the informational crucible of FoxNews melded with the fringe spinoffs of OAN and Newsmax. Fuse to this Trumpism, which has unleashed a panic of running for the fire exit doors out of reality but what’s more frightening is that so many people under Trumpism have confused their own beliefs with what is true, real, factual. It’s “what I believe is real,” or to put more of a Cartesian flavor to it, “I am the Truth.”
Link to Sneakers (1992; dir. Phil Alden Robinson; starring Robert Redford, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, Timothy Busfield):
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Good clip.
My few Trump friends keep FOX News on nonstop. Their brains are fried. They get no contrary information.
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Ms. Ravitch,
I’m curious about which non-left wing sources of news and opinion you ever access. National Review is a conservative outlet that criticizes Trump many times every week, but you recently wrote here that NR is “unreliable” as a source for accurate information. I disagree with NR editors on several issues, but for many years it has been a high toned, non-inflammatory source of reasoned opinion, not at all like Breitbart or Sean Hannity.
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Ben,
I read a wide variety of sources, none specifically left wing or rightwing: the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Arizona Republic, The Daily Yonder, the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Monthly, the Texas Tribune, and a bunch more. I also harvest articles from Twitter and readers send articles. National Review may be a fine publication, but it is definitely rightwing. Having been in the right during a large part of my life, I am fearful of the turn towards authoritarianism, even fascism, on the right.
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Just as I suspected. All the publications you cite are definitely left of center. You rarely if ever read anything that disagrees with your now very far Left opinions. That is, of course, your right to do so.
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I also read The Atlantic and the New York Review of Books. Sorry that you think the mainstream media is Far Left. You must be a Trump fool. In love with a con artist.
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