Who to vote for, by Howard Graubard

It’s annoying to me that I find Eric Adams’ national image far more appealing than the actual reality of the pol I’ve been following for about three and a half often ugly decades, but the thought of political clown Curtis Sliwa and his stupid red hat getting anywhere near City Hall is quite sobering.

Nonetheless, I deeply sympathize with those wanting to cast a protest vote.

I myself see no problem with casting a “clean-hands” protest vote for a democratic Socialist, and would begrudge no one who did so, but the only self-proclaimed Socialist in this race is a member of a the “Party of Socialism and Liberation,” a cult-like group which supported Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Kim Jong-il (shades of Trump), backed the Tiananmen Square crackdown (more Trumpiness), and considers our fight against Hitler to have been an “imperialist war.

As history has sometimes taught us, merely having the word “Socialist” in your Party name is not a kosher stamp. I’m fine with a democratic Socialist, but unless we’re fighting Hitler again, I think we should disdain undemocratic Socialists. If you want “clean hands,” you’d be better off sticking them into a latrine than voting for Rojas.

Sadly, the other alternatives include two-right wing kooks (Bill Pepitone and Fernando Mateo) who think Sliwa is a RINO, a libertarian stand-up comic (Stacy Prussman), and a candidate who seems batshit out of his mind (Skiboky Stora).

A better left alternative protest vote than Rojas, for those who can’t bring themselves to vote for Adams, would seem to be “Empowerment” candidate Quanda Francis, who call herself a “progressive,” but does not belong to a movement which supports genocidal maniacs. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” defines Ms. Francis as “mostly harmless.”

Those looking for a candidate more in the mode of a Kathryn Garcia would probably prefer the “Humanity United” candidate, Dr. Raja Flores, a really, really impressive guy, who is Chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital and Ames Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

People I respect who have spoken with Dr. Flores find him smart, well-informed, committed to good government, and absolutely sane, with the slight exception of his eccentric belief that he is a real candidate for Mayor.

I’ll probably vote for Eric Adams, but Dr. Flores seems very tempting.

Howard Graubard