Over the next year, the tectonic plates of power are going to shift in the Democratic Party, and New Yorkers are going to come to the fore. The president is in his final year as the leader of the party, and that is definitely for the better. His influence on politics has been largely negative, and his party will be the stronger for his departure.
It remains likely that Hillary Clinton will be the candidate for the Democrats in November, and therefore that she has a very strong chance of being president next year. While she has been running a rather angry campaign, made more so by the pressures she has been under from Bernie Sanders, she is more intellectually supple than the president. She is not likely to accuse her political rivals of “making common cause” with America’s enemies. She understands that people can have genuine disagreements on policy without one of them being a traitor.
Whether or not Clinton wins, the Democrats Senate caucus, and quite possibly the Senate itself, is likely to be led by New York’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer. Schumer leans to the liberal side of is party on domestic issues, so Common Sense often disagrees with him, but he is a sharp operator with a clear understanding of the issues and the ability to build alliances. He understands that people can have good faith disagreements on politics without being bad people, which puts him well ahead of the president. He is also a much more reasonable person than the man he is likely to replace, current minority leader, Harry Reid. In Reid’s case it is not that he doesn’t understand conservative views. He is a moderate by nature: more so than Schumer. But he is a partisan hack whose motivations are all linked to party advantage rather than principle.
If the Republicans win the White House then the Clintons will be gone from the political scene. Congressional Democrats will run the party, and Schumer, the rising power, will probably be more influential than Nancy Pelosi. As Democrats start to look for a new generation of leaders they will probably look to the states. Pole position here will be New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo. The two largest states with Democratic governors are California and New York. While both governors are in their second terms (second consecutive term in the case of California’s Jerry Brown) their situations are otherwise not parallel. Brown is term-limited, and is unlikely to seek any other political office. Cuomo is able to seek a third term, but if he doesn’t he remains a major figure in his party. Like Schumer he is part of the rising generation. He is likely, at some point, to run for the White House. A two-term governor of a giant state who has also run a federal department, he will be a serious contender.
Cuomo, too, understands how to build alliances. He has built a solid legislative legacy by making deals and twisting arms. He doesn’t alienate friends and foes alike as his father did. In almost every electoral scenario, the dominant figures in the new Democratic Party will be pragmatic New Yorkers: Schumer, Cuomo and, if she wins, Clinton. That’s a major contribution this state will be making to liberal politics.
Quentin Langley is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bedfordshire Business School as well as a freelance columnist published in the UK and all parts of the US. He blogs on social media and crisis communications at brandjacknews.com
Filed under: U.S. Politics
