That's Kathy Hochul, pictured. She is the Governor of the State of New York. Not long ago, I got a nice email from Governor Hochul, which I reproduce below. The "subject" line on the email read this way: "I'm personally asking."
Gary, I wanted to share a bit of my personal story with you:
I grew up in Buffalo as one of six kids.
Just before I was born, my parents started married life living in a trailer park in Lackawanna, not far from the steel plant where my dad worked.
My dad worked long shifts at that steel mill. I watched my mother — who raised six kids — stretch every dollar by buying used clothes and serving fried spam sandwiches for dinner.
My parents instilled the values of hard work and grit as they worked tirelessly to provide for us.
My parents’ sense of service is what inspired me to run for office.
Gary, for far too long, I’ve watched families just like mine struggle to make ends meet while Donald Trump and his Republican loyalists prosper off the backs of families getting squeezed — and I’ve had enough. Unlike these D.C. Republicans, I’m fighting to make the lives of all New Yorkers easier — teachers, students, farmers, small business owners, and more. But I can’t continue this work without your support. So, Gary: Can I count on you to chip in $15 in the next 11 hours before midnight?
D.C. Republicans only care about their special interest donors — not us.
Meanwhile, as Governor:
→ I took Trump to court over his illegal tariffs — and won twice.
→ I delivered inflation refund checks to put money straight back into New Yorkers’ pockets.
→ I tripled the Child Tax Credit to help families juggling childcare costs.
But now, D.C. Republicans want to buy their way into power here in our state and unravel all the work we’ve done - and I won’t stand for it.
So I’m personally asking: Will you pitch in $15 before midnight to help me compete with the millions D.C. Republicans will spend on this race, fight off their extremism, and bring home a massive victory for New Yorkers?
I read The New York Times every morning, and I follow national politics pretty closely. I tend to have a rather positive impression of Hochul, and was pleased when she endorsed Zohran Mamdani in his race to become the Mayor of New York City. I tend to have a positive impression of Mamdani, too. Let's see what happens in today's election!
I must say, however, that New York State and New York City politics seem a long ways away. I live in California. It's unlikely that either Hochul or Mamdani will ever represent me. I don't think they're likely to move here, and while I did live in New York City for almost a year, and really wouldn't mind living there again, I don't think there is actually much chance of that happening.
So, why would Hochul, with whom I have had no personal contact whatsoever, send me this nice email, asking me, as a California resident and voter, to give her money to address issues of key importance to residents of New York?
Well, many readers of this blog posting know exactly why. They probably got an email from Hochul, too, and everyone reading this posting has almost certainly gotten some similar communication from other politicians, from distant parts of the country, asking for their financial support. I got the nice email because Hochul is a Democrat, and I am, too. Hochul's "party," in other words, is what is supposed to motivate a person like me to contribute to her, even though I will never be able to call upon her to vote or take action on anything that directly affects my life.
Our governmental system is based on the idea that "we, the people" are "running the place." I always like to put it that way, to remind people that we are supposed to be in charge of the government, not the other way around. To the degree that we do "run the place," though, we do so through our "representative" democracy - in other words, by way of our "elected representatives." We vote for people who will be legally entitled to vote on measures that will directly affect our lives and future, in the states and in the cities where we live. If our elected representatives don't do what we want them to do, we can then vote for someone else in the next election, whom we think will do a better job in voting the way we want them to. In California, we can also "recall" our elected representatives, if they're not voting the way they promised to, or the way we want them to.
That's a quick description of how our political system is, or was, designed to work, ably summarized by Tip O'Neill, who put it this way: "All politics is local."
Is this still true? Maybe not! Kathy Hochul certainly doesn't think so. In fact, as The Atlantic has recently opined, it seems that the days of Tip O'Neill have come and gone. Check out The Atlantic's article making the claim that "No Politics Is Local." Without a doubt, our politics, today, has absolutely become more "national" than "local," and is more and more based on party, not on the "representative" relationship between the voter-resident and the elected official-officeholder.
While Hochul is trying to raise money from Democrats all over the country, whom she will never actually represent, our political parties, of course, are also seeking to raise money. And the parties are raising money not only from those who can be motivated to give $15, but also from those who can give $1,500 dollars, or $15,000 dollars, or even $15 million dollars. The "party" ends up "representing" those with the most dollars, while our idea of representative and democratic government is intended to produce elected officials who are beholden not to "money" but to the majority of the voters whom they "represent," voters who can vote to elect them - or not.
If we want actually to "run the place," we can't let ourselves be deceived into thinking that we can be represented effectively by national political parties. We need to elect representatives who respond not to some party hierarchy, mostly funded by the "billionaire class," as Bernie Sanders calls them. We need, each one of us, to make sure that we are truly being "represented" by persons elected by a majority of the people who live in their "district" (their congressional district, or their state Assembly or Senatorial district, or by city or county officials who live in the same city or county as those whom they represent). We need to make sure that our "representatives" truly understand that their ability to continue in office, or to advance to some "higher" office, is dependent on doing not what the party leadership wants, but what the majority who actually voted to elect that representative want.
The system just described is sometimes called "democracy," but is better described as "self-government," because we, ourselves, are in charge of our government when ordinary people elect "representatives" who are loyal to and dependent upon the people who can vote for them, in the geographic area in which they live.
Of course, for this system of representative democracy to work, "we, the people" need to be personally involved in the process. Shipping out our $15 contribution to some far-off politician who has the same party label that we do isn't going to do it!
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