OPINION: Is de Blasio symbolic of a new nationwide trend?
Since the victory of Brooklyn Democrat Bill de Blasio at the polls, many among both his friends and his enemies have said his emergence means a victory of the left, or a victory of progressives.
I’m not sure this can be seen that way. Despite his youthful flirtation with radicalism (something he shares with, among others, President Obama and former President Clinton), his positions aren’t really the same as those of committed ideological leftists, such as the Green Party or Occupy Wall Street. Indeed, when you read hard-core left-wing sites, they’re often critical of de Blasio, citing, among other things, his support of the Clintons. Indeed, the little-known candidate Sal Albanese, a former Bay Ridge councilman, was further to the left than de Blasio.
Instead of a leftist, I would call de Blasio a traditional, old-fashioned left-liberal in the model of Mayor LaGuardia, Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy. In most other industrialized countries, and indeed in the U.S. before, say, 1975, de Blasio would not be considered anything out of the ordinary. It’s only in the U.S., and particularly in New York, where the public faces of the Democratic Party have been people like Ed Koch, Mark Green and Christine Quinn, where de Blasio is perceived as “different.”