As a young reporter, I happened to overhear a conversation between Mayor Ed Koch and Donald Manes, then Queens borough president.
They were on a dais to make an announcement after Koch won the 1985 Democratic primary for mayor by more than 40 percentage points. Manes congratulated Koch on a “magnificent victory,” then impishly added, “But it’s better not to have a primary” — like the powerful Manes, who was en route to winning a fourth full term.
That remark stuck in my mind because it crystallized how too many New York City politicians view contested elections as an indignity.
We are seeing that anew with the backlash against Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes’ decision to run for re-election on the Republican and Conservative lines after losing the Democratic primary to Kenneth Thompson.
From the hecklers who showed up when Hynes announced his plans to sneering pundits and an indignant mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio, Hynes has taken heat for his decision to keep running. Some of the news coverage has picked up that tone as well.
I carry no brief for Hynes. As a Brooklynite, I was glad to see that he faced a strong challenger who made him defend his decidedly mixed record.
But I like contested elections — and we New Yorkers don’t get enough of them, one reason for our terrible Election Day turnouts.
Despite some changes, New York State still has highly technical laws for a candidate to get on the ballot, requiring a petition process that incumbents use to throw challengers off balance or keep them out of an election entirely.
Need it be said that elections are a good thing in a democracy?
Democratic partisans didn’t want to see Bill de Blasio face a mayoral run-off election against Bill Thompson, and pushed for Thompson to resign the race long before it was clear he’d actually lost. But democracy would have benefited from another election if de Blasio had fallen short of the 40% he needed to avoid a run-off.
After all, the turnout had been just 23% of the eligible voters. And the timing of the primary, just after Labor Day, meant that a lot of voters had only just begun to tune in on the race.
De Blasio seems to be having an easy time so far with Republican candidate Joe Lhota, polls show. A head-to-head challenge from Bill Thompson may have helped to better vet the man who many already see as the next mayor.
Brooklyn voters are fortunate to have gotten not only a real primary race for district attorney, but now a genuine contest in the general election.
To some politicians, “it’s better not to have a primary,” as Manes said. But look at what happened. Shortly after defeating token Republican opposition in November, Manes was ensnared in a federal corruption investigation that led, tragically, to his suicide.
It’s better to have contested elections.
Moses teaches journalism at Brooklyn College. He is writing a history of New York’s Irish and Italians for NYU Press.
