Like or loathe their policies, Hochul and Mamdani tend to behave like decent human beings. Blakeman, not so much.
In looking beyond the obvious — Trump! — to assess the Republican Party’s losses in New York State, there’s a policy argument: The GOP didn’t have serious ideas, as evidenced by gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s fact-free tax and labor proposals. But there’s also another issue: character. Character in this context doesn’t mean being 100% honest and incorruptible, or free of the slightest whiff of personal scandal. It just means being able to behave, at least for 10 minutes, like a sturdy human being. We were all reminded of Blakeman’s deficiency here two days after his avalanche loss, when he bizarrely blamed departing upstate Congresswoman Elise Stefanik for his defeat. But the party and its sympathizers’ inability to understand character has been on display all year, most notably in and around this year’s ceremonies that marked the passage of a quarter-century since 9/11.
Back in April, Britain’s King Charles came to visit, and marked the anniversary of the attacks by laying a wreath at the 9/11 Memorial. During that visit, Gov. Kathy Hochul behaved, well, normally, welcoming the King in a somber fashion. Hochul didn’t seize this occasion as an opportunity to make her views on the monarchy known, if she has any; she graciously acknowledged the King for his own grace. That was important: The United Kingdom lost 67 people in the attacks, and has memorialized these murders at home as well as through acts of cross-border diplomacy, including a sister congregation in London’s donation of the “Bell of Hope” to Trinity Church.
Blakeman — who lost his nephew on 9/11 and merits everlasting sympathy for that loss — chose to mark the occasion with a low political blow. On X, he posted the picture of Hochul and the King standing respectfully together as the target of a joke. “Reply with a caption,” he invited readers. “Best one wins a Bruce Blakeman t-shirt & the honor of roasting our tax-raising, failed Governor.”
There’s a time for politics, and there’s a time for apolitical unanimity; Blakeman could have offered his own gratitude for the King’s visit, or he could have remained quiet. Instead, he chose to be a jerk.
Initially, Mayor Zohran Mamdani made a similar mistake, musing ahead of the King’s visit that if he could talk to the King, he’d ask him to return a disputed diamond to India. But when Mamdani was actually standing with the King a few hours later, he didn’t do that. He was courteous and friendly.
Likewise and more importantly, four-and-a-half months later, at the anniversary ceremony, Mamdani comported himself like any dignitary, listening to the reading of the victims’ names and speaking with their family members who wished to meet him.
Instead of seeing this behavior for what it was — normal — high-profile national conservatives, including Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz, amplified a story that should have been fringe fake “news,” purporting that Mamdani had mocked the ceremony because he had done what every other current and former elected official was doing, as well as family members at the ceremony: smile and sometimes even briefly laugh as they greet people they know. “Zohran Mamdani and AOC were caught laughing,” Blakeman said.
We could have spent the campaign analyzing Blakeman’s stance toward the unions or the details of his tax-cut plan. But politicians are not just collections of platform planks; they are people. If you care about New York’s economy, budget, labor agreements, school management and a host of other important issues, you must also care that Blakeman twice tried to use 9/11 to score hollow political points — because this failure to demonstrate the barest decency got in the way of policy. To the voters who paid attention to the state race, Blakeman repeatedly revealed himself to be fundamentally unfit to govern. His decision to take the easy path by attempting to belittle Hochul and demonize Mamdani only redounded on him.
To present a credible alternative to voters, New York Republicans are going to have to grasp two things. First, they must learn that attempting to mimic Trump without possessing Trump’s indefinable charisma isn’t going to work. Second, they — as well as moderate Democrats — must learn that the successful path to supporting a future alternative to Mamdani is not by attacking him as a person. It hasn’t worked yet, and it isn’t going to work.
Mamdani is popular in part because of his ideas — yes, including his bad ideas. But he is also popular because he consistently comes across as hard-working, conscientious, honest, focused, genial and caring. Like Hochul, he is hypernormal. To the extent that his opponents and critics attempt to paint him as a defective person, they will continue to fail.
