Sliwa's Mayoral Chances Looking Up
Matthew McDermott/NY Post
As a former New York City resident, I lived through blackouts, brownouts, garbage strikes, and subway rides where passengers had to be ready to surrender their wallets and purses. By 1979, over 250 felonies were committed every week on Manhattan's transportation system, making it the world’s most dangerous.
The Council for Public Safety distributed a survival guide with ten tips for New York tourists. The suggestions were hardly comforting: "#2, Don't walk alone after 6 PM" and "#3, avoid public transportation." Specifically, the guide warned, "You should never ride the subway for any reason whatsoever."
For subway riders during that era, Curtis Sliwa and his Guardian Angels offered reassurance that protection was available. Sliwa founded the 501(c)(3) Guardian Angels in 1979, and the organization remains active today following a spike in subway violence. Unarmed, members are required to study martial arts and understand the legal parameters for citizens' arrests before deployment. Instantly recognizable by their red berets, Sliwa's Guardian Angels, along with thousands of other frustrated New Yorkers, hope the long-shot mayoral candidate can pull off an upset against incumbent Eric Adams, now an Independent, and Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani.
Mamdani, a Uganda-born Muslim, former rapper known as Mr. Cardamom, and 33-year-old state legislator, controlled the primary's left-wing narrative. Unlike former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who walked a centrist path, Mamdani campaigned on radical positions that his primary opponents incorrectly assumed would lead to his defeat.
His platform includes introducing a chain of city-owned grocery stores, implementing a rent freeze on all rent-stabilized units, establishing stricter landlord accountability, and creating a Social Housing Development Agency to oversee construction of 200,000 subsidized housing units over three years. Additionally, Mamdani pledged to introduce a 2% city income tax on residents earning more than $1 million, along with steep corporate tax increases. The additional revenue would support universal childcare, tuition-free public college (CUNY/SUNY), expanded tenant legal support, free public transportation, and subsidized grocery stores. Mamdani supports LGBTQ+ initiatives, promises to create an agency advancing their agenda, and maintains an anti-Israel, anti-police stance. He has been accused of expressing support for leaders of a nonprofit organization convicted of funneling $12 million to Hamas, and indicated his support in one of his rap songs.
On-the-stump rhetoric differs significantly from practical implementation of campaign promises. The possibility that a socialist could be elected to New York's City Hall—located in the world's global capitalist center near Wall Street—has prompted concern among business leaders. "We may consider closing our supermarkets and selling the business," said 76-year-old billionaire John Catsimatidis of Gristedes Supermarkets, adding, "We have other businesses. Thank God, we have other businesses." Catsimatidis also suggested that his real estate conglomerate, Red Apple Group, might relocate to New Jersey. "There's the possibility we'd move our corporate offices to New Jersey. Why not?" he asked.
Mamdani's radical governance approach and Adams' four failed years—during which he allowed illegal aliens to commit violent crimes while driving the city budget deeper into deficit with an estimated $12 billion cost to house and feed them—should make Republican candidate Sliwa a viable option. When seven illegal aliens kicked prone police officers in broad day light, Sliwa said. "Instead of being remanded to jail with no bail and turned over to ICE to be deported, because remember, Joe Biden and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas paroled them into America, they were cut loose.” Sliwa’s blunt comment reflected the opinions of most New Yorkers especially the black community who felt betray by fellow African- American Adams.
After eight years of Bill de Blasio's administrative chaos and four years under Adams' criminal illegal aiding and abetting actions, plus the federal corruption charges against him, subsequently dismissed, New York has become unrecognizable to longtime residents who yearn for better times.
Former three-term New York governor George Pataki believes Sliwa, now 71, could be the candidate to restore New York's trajectory. Pataki stated that, given the weak field of Democratic candidates and Sliwa's city experience, he will gain sufficient financial support to run a competitive campaign. Sliwa, Pataki continued, possesses the experience and credibility through his volunteer Guardian Angels patrols to address public safety and challenging issues such as homelessness and mental health services. Ultimately, Pataki argued, New York operated most efficiently under Republican mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg. Pataki is hosting a fund-raising event for Sliwa co-hosted by state Republican Party chairman Ed Cox and the NYGOP Asian Caucus. Donations run from $250 to $2,100.
In Sliwa's voter outreach, his promise to establish no-kill animal shelters should not be underestimated. New Yorkers own approximately 1.1 million dogs and cats and are passionate about animal welfare. The newly nominated GOP mayoral candidate revealed that he and his wife Nancy Beth share their apartment with 15 rescue cats, all of whom had been scheduled for euthanasia. The November 4 New York mayoral election may be history’s first where swing voters include cat owners.
Voters have three choices. First, Adams, has proven he is not up to the task. To believe that Adams has learned from his mistakes, as he is urging voters to do, is foolhardy. Second, Mamdani, an extremist who can’t deliver on his harebrained promises, all of which must go through the legislative process. If, in the unlikely event Mamdani could sway the legislature his way, New York would soon be a vast wasteland. More than one million Jews live in New York; none will vote for Mamdani. With nothing to lose and everything to gain, a vote for Sliwa, who has maintained a forty-five-year love affair with the city, and more important, with its most vulnerable residents, will be the most rewarding.
Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org